Boost Employee Engagement
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Add important job details
To get started posting your food and beverage job, log in to your existing Indeed account or create an account. We’ll help you create or edit your job post by asking you simple, step-by-step questions. The details you provide will add up to a comprehensive job post that helps you reach great candidates in the food and beverage industry. Let’s get started.
Write an effective job title
Choose a job title that accurately describes the role. For example, “Pastry Chef” is more descriptive than “Chef.” It’s also important to use a job title that job seekers are actually searching for. For instance, “Cooking Rock Star Needed” is probably not as effective as “Line Cook” or “Prep Cook.”
Indeed may also offer smart recommendations for more effective titles. This is based on the most successful job title in your location in the past month that attracted the highest number of applications on Indeed. For example, in Austin, TX, Indeed recommends “Executive Sous Chef/Kitchen Manager” as a more effective title than “Sous Chef.”
For more tips on writing effective job titles, check out our article How to Choose the Best Job Title for Your Open Role.
Include shift information and work setting
Jobs in the food and beverage industry often require certain work shifts and schedules. When you’re posting your job, select the job type (full-time, part-time, temporary, etc.), the weekly day range (Monday to Friday, weekend availability, no weekends, etc.) and the specific shift you’re looking to fill (morning, evening, day, night, etc.).
Based on the job title, you’ll also get various work settings to choose from. For food and beverage industry jobs, you might see bakery, bar, casual dining restaurant, food truck, etc.
Add compensation details
Up next is compensation. Jobs with salary details on Indeed have 31% more apply starts per impression, so it’s important to include this information. To stand out in the food and beverage industry, consider offering competitive wages. Indeed will estimate the pay range for your job based on third party submissions to Indeed, but you can make adjustments if needed. You can choose to display a range, a starting amount, the maximum amount or the exact amount.
Indeed will also offer smart recommendations to help you stand out and increase the chance you’ll receive more applicants. This recommendation is based on an analysis of jobs in your location posted on Indeed in the last 12 months.
Additionally, you can select the benefits you offer. This is an important section because it can help you highlight what makes working at your restaurant special. Be sure to select all that apply.
Write a compelling job description
After adding your job details, you’ll be prompted to write a job description. Upload a PDF/DOCX or copy/paste your existing job description into the job description field. You can also write one from scratch.
Need help getting started? Check out our job description builder for popular jobs in the food and beverage industry. (If you don’t see the role you’re looking for in the list below, you can search for it in the builder.)
Since these job descriptions are examples, make sure to review and edit the description so it fits your specific role and company. Provide an honest and clear description of the duties, expectations, working environment and shift schedule you’re hiring for. Get candidates excited about working for you by listing any unique benefits and perks that make your business stand out (e.g., free or discounted food, paid time off, bonuses, tuition reimbursement).
Set screener questions and deal breakers
Once you’ve confirmed the job details and your job description, add screener questions and mark the most important ones as “deal breakers” to help you filter applicants. Here’s how deal breakers work: When a candidate applies to your job, they’ll be required to answer these questions. If their answers don’t match your minimum criteria, they’ll be automatically filtered out—but you still have the flexibility to see them in your dashboard at any time.
For example, let’s say your deal breaker is two years of serving experience. In this case, when people apply, you’ll only see applicants who say they have 2+ years of serving experience in your main Employer Dashboard. All other candidates will appear in your Other candidates tab. This helps you save time by automatically filtering for people who meet your requirements.
Looking for the right deal breakers for your food and beverage job? We’ve compiled a list of deal breakers we recommend including with your food and beverage industry job post to help you find quality candidates.
Blue Star Donuts, a small chain of gourmet donut shops, uses screener questions and deal breakers to automatically confirm key information upfront, like shift availability. According to the company’s Director of HR, Cami Justice: “We love the screening questions. As simple as availability—a lot of questions that you would ask in an interview that may end an interview or even see that someone’s not even available for that position.”
Choose relevant food & beverage skills tests
Indeed will recommend skills tests based on your role title, but you can also choose from our bank of Indeed Assessments. On the Customize your application process section, scroll down and click the Browse questions and tests dropdown and select Skills test. You can select up to two tests for candidates to take after they apply for your job.
Examples of skills tests you might want to include for food and beverage industry jobs include:
- Cooking skills: Basic food preparation: Tests knowledge of principles and techniques for preparing food, and of cooking equipment and its proper use. Also evaluates the ability to convert ingredient measurements and quantities.
- Food safety: Tests knowledge of proper food handling and storage procedures for preventing the spread of foodborne illness. Also evaluates knowledge of proper equipment use to ensure safe food preparation.
- Restaurant manager: Tests skills in managing restaurant staff and meeting customer expectations.
- Food service: Customer situations: Tests the ability to identify and effectively address customer needs in a food service setting.
- Food service fit: Crew member: Tests the candidate’s preference for a quick work pace when completing tasks, enjoyment of working in teams and comfort with navigating group dynamics to achieve common goals. Also evaluates preference for working on multiple tasks simultaneously and tendency to thrive in high-pressure situations.
- Bartending: Tests knowledge of common drinks, recipes and bartending tools
- Work style: Reliability: Tests the tendency to be dependable, to act with integrity and to follow rules. Also evaluates attitudes toward harmful work behaviors.
According to Cami Justice, Director of HR at Blue Star Donuts: “The assessment feature can really gauge someone’s experience. On a resume, where someone could say they have five years of experience…going through the assessments, it really kind of tests that.” Using Indeed Assessments reduced an employer’s time to hire by 17% on average.
Should you sponsor your food & beverage job?
On Indeed, you can either post your job for free* or pay to sponsor your job for better visibility and to unlock other hiring features.
By sponsoring her open jobs on Indeed, Cassandre Davilmar, founder of Lakou Café, was able to attract more candidates than she could using other sourcing methods. “With Indeed, I definitely get at least 10 times more applicants,” she explains. “Finding cooks with ten years of experience who want to work at our little cafe has been really humbling and awesome because they’ve brought so much more to the table than I could’ve brought.”
Whether or not you should sponsor your food and beverage job depends on your hiring needs. Here are a few things to consider when making your decision:
- How quickly do you need to make a hire? If you need someone to fill your role fast, a Sponsored Job can give you better visibility in job seeker search results to help you hire faster. In fact, Sponsored Jobs are 2.6X times faster to first hire than non-sponsored jobs. You can also add an “Urgently Hiring” tag when you sponsor your job, which lets job seekers know you’re looking to move quickly.
- If you’re hiring multiple people for the same job opening, such as servers or cooks, you’ll likely need more applications. Sponsored Jobs deliver 2X more applicants on average than non-sponsored jobs, so paying to post could get you the candidates you need.
- Since the food and beverage industry is often considered a competitive market, sponsoring can help you stand out.
- Finally, is it a hard-to-fill position? If you’re hiring an executive chef, for example, your job post could benefit from the added visibility that comes with a Sponsored Job.
You can always start with a free job posting and then sponsor it later if you’re not getting the results you’re looking for. Learn more about the differences between free vs Sponsored Jobs on Indeed.
*Terms, conditions, quality standards and usage limits apply
*Indeed provides this information as a courtesy to users of this site. Please note that we are not your recruiting or legal advisor, we are not responsible for the content of your job descriptions, and none of the information provided herein guarantees performance.
This article is based on product information available at the time of writing, which may change at any time. Indeed does not guarantee that this information is always up-to-date. Please seek out your CS/Sales rep for the latest on this topic.
