Job interviews aren’t most people’s idea of fun. But preparation and practice makes it less likely that you go in nervous, which often is behind most major slip-ups. Here are some simple tips:

Be Yourself, But Be Ready

It is important that job seekers see that question preparation will not transform you into some ideal version of yourself, but it will give you the degree of calm so that you can be engaging and show your strong suits.

It is two different things to be confident going into the interview that you will be successful and displaying perfect confidence during the interview. Normally, if you feel ready, that is more than enough to succeed in impressing potential employers. Besides the danger of unrealistic expectations can cause the smallest hiccup into a loss of composure.

 (Photo credit: Gene Wilburn)

Prepare for Interview Questions

Restaurant hiring staff typically ask many of the same questions, so prepare possible answers in advance. Many are based on your resume or application, but some others are predictable as they are factors that all employers take into account. Remember that memorizing answers may be overdoing it and can lead you to trip up if you forget or get confused. Keep it conversational.

Typical questions include:

Why do you want to work in this restaurant?

Describe a time when you performed excellent customer service.

Are you comfortable working in a fast-paced restaurant?

How do you feel about sharing tips with kitchen staff?

Do you use any mnemonic tools to help you remember orders?

Have you ever eaten in this restaurant?

Why did you leave your last job?

How many shifts do you need to work weekly?

Are you willing to accept other positions than the one you applied for and are you willing to cross-train in other restaurant duties?

Are you willing to bus tables, wash dishes and clean when necessary?

Have you ever had a confrontation with a guest, fellow employee or supervisor, and if so, how did you resolve the situation?

Are you comfortable working very late or very early?

How are you with handling pressure, can you multi-task?

How familiar are you with food safety procedures & are you certified?

The important thing is to appear competent and professional. Whatever the question, it is important to not get defensive. Employers are not trying to trip you up; they are trying to find out if you qualify for the position in a short period of time.

Practice with Friends

The best way to test if you are ready is to go stage a mock interview. Have a friend ask you possible questions and see what you say? Encourage your friend to deviate from the script and even push your buttons a little. It is always better that you can answer tougher questions than you will actually be asked during the real interview.

You may also want to videotape it, if that will not make you over self-conscious. It will let you see your body language as that is just as important as your answers. Even more than what you say, an owner will see if you are calm based on how you hold yourself.

Research the Restaurant

With nearly every restaurant having some kind of internet presence, it only makes sense to gather as much information as possible online. This is equally true for restaurants you have dined at before.

There are a lot of resources online with information about restaurants. Even if they do not have a website, you can do searches online about the restaurant. Normally, you will able to locate a menu (menu sites), browse through reviews (Yelp and established critics) and check out photos and social media. Remember that much of the information might not be accurate, fair or up-to-date.

Even if you become familiar with the restaurant, you should not recite this knowledge during the interview. In an interview, the restaurant manager or owner wants you to listen as they describe his or her business. All you have to do is signal to owner or managers that you have taken an interest in their restaurant and are excited by their business.

Take it as a Challenge

The restaurant industry has lots of jobs and lots of turnover, so remember that it is an interview and you can only do your best. If that doesn’t work this time, you try again. Job seekers tend to fall into the trap of thinking that an owner is actually judging the individual. Actually, the person a restaurant owner hires reflects the owner and restaurant’s specific needs more than it does the skills of the job seekers. Odds are that if you have the restaurant experience and poise in interviews, you will find a job eventually, but you cannot draw any conclusions about your job prospects from one or two or even five interviews. Just refine your interview skills and keep a positive attitude (which definitely comes through in an interview).

In NYC, food safety training is especially valuable. Since the NYC Health Department started requiring NYC restaurant to post their health inspection grades in their front windows, restaurant owners’ obsession with doing well on health inspections has reached a whole new level. Nothing gives a restaurant owner nightmares like a bad health inspection.

 New Rules and Higher Standards

The most practical way these new rules make an restaurant applicant in NYC with food training certification an even more attractive hire is that one of the grading elements of health inspections is to have a certified food supervisor in the restaurant present anytime the restaurant is open or preparing food. No owner wants to be penalized for not having someone certified on site for a health inspection and receive a lower grade. Indeed, an owner would love to have an entire staff of employees trained in food safety. Unfortunately, NYC Health Department does not recognize national certification programs like ServSafe, nor does it allow those with prior certification to skip to the final exam and not trudge through the 15 hour course.

NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

Food Safety Certification Process in NYC

NYC’s municipal government, like many major municipalities and counties, certifies individuals along with making sure establishments follow health restrictions. To be certified, you need to pass a final exam administered by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene consisting of 50 written questions and lasting for one hour. You pass if you answer 70% of the questions correctly. Taking the test is about $25, but the city offers free courses online to prepare you for the test. Unless you have formal training beforehand, you will have to put in the time. But if you get a good job, it may be the best investment you ever made.

 Applicable to Any Food Service Job

It goes beyond the health inspection grades. Keeping food at the right temperature to long-term food storage to cross contamination, safe food handling takes training and practice. Every restaurant owner understands this and knows that the consequences for cutting corners can be devastating to the business, even jeopardizing the future of the restaurant. Not following food safety procedures can also result in harming customers, sometimes seriously. Therefore, NYC restaurant owners are continually looking for candidates that practice food safety and are an asset to maintain a clean, health kitchen and establishment. Certification by NYC government is a good way to prove you are one of those assets.

Getting job promotions in the restaurant industry sometimes proves relatively easy, but getting ahead can be difficult in established operations where employees have held their positions for a long period of time. Sometimes, the best strategy for advancing is to move sideways into other areas or change employers. Regardless of whether looking to advance in FOH or BOH positions, some general strategies prove universally successful.

Work Smart and Get Noticed
Obviously, doing a good job is important for employees who want promotions, but many people think that this is all they need to do. Smart workers get noticed by managers and owners by volunteering for overtime, cross-training and special projects.

1. Let managers know when interested in pursuing job promotions.
2. Volunteer to take on additional responsibilities or projects.
3. Cover for sick workers by working on scheduled-off days.
4. Contribute ideas to save money, improve service, streamline work or improve food quality.

Front-of-the-House Positions Blend Amiability with Practical Skills
Remember that FOH positions don’t just mean engaging with customers. These positions require that servers, hosts and managers interact with guests, but FOH staff also need to communicate well by understanding the menu, explaining customer options and asking the right questions to make sure guests get food prepared to their liking.

FOH staff members have responsibility for promoting the restaurant’s image and protecting its interests, but many servers concentrate on earning higher tips by short-changing the house. Managers and owners notice these tactics, so getting promoted relies on balancing customer needs with the restaurant’s financial interests.

1. Cross-training and showing a willingness to work at other jobs make servers more valuable.
2. Don’t take on more tables or responsibilities if these tasks might compromise service.
3. Servers who learn customer names and preferences enjoy better feedback, tips and manager evaluations.
4. Learn how to interact effectively with cooks, bartenders and kitchen staff to enlist their help to provide the best guest experiences.
5. Learn the details of operating POS systems and how to troubleshoot common problems.

Back-of-the-House and Management Positions
BOH restaurant positions require more than cooking skills; cooks, chefs and managers need to work as teams, portion food properly, minimize waste, work with inventory-control systems, and make sure that preparation and storage tasks follow safe food-handling guidelines.

English: Executive Chef Jesus G. Lorenzo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Taking classes in food safety, using kitchen-management software, and menu planning could make BOH staff more likely to get promoted. Ambition could backfire, however. Remember that appearing competent and ambitious could cause some people to consider these traits arrogant or threatening. Remember passions run high in a hectic kitchen and someone who isn’t a team player but trying to outperform other might hurt the overall effort.

1. Developing people skills includes interacting with customers and vendors.
2. All staff members in restaurant environments play critical roles, so cooks, chefs and managers need to show tact and kindness to everyone, not just bosses and supervisors.
3. Taking the time to train other people helps to demonstrate value to supervisors.
4. Great cooks and competent managers often fail to keep their stations clean enough to impress supervisors and customers. Remember that some people consider cleanliness more important than food quality, portion size or winning personalities.

Set reasonable goals and expectations, or restaurant work could quickly cause job burnout. Restaurants have historic tendencies of allowing inexperienced people to work their way up into management and ownership positions. But this doesn’t mean it is guaranteed  Workers who fail to communicate their desires to advance could end up creating unreasonable expectations working extra hours and performing duties outside their job descriptions without getting anywhere.

Sometimes, you will have to move on to another restaurant to get ahead, even if it means leaving a restaurant you love working at. Either way, it is a good idea to strategize how you are going to attain your professional goals and exercise patience but persistence.

The service industry is no easy business but with hard work and some empathy for your customer, you’ll get better tips and greater satisfaction as a restaurant server.

Take the Customer’s Perspective
It is very helpful to imagine every step of the dining experience from the customer’s viewpoint. What kind of clientele do you frequently serve? What is it like to walk into a restaurant as a new customer? How about as a regular customer? What pet peeves might a customer have?

From Beginning to End
There are six major areas that a well-tipped waiter thinks about: Greeting and Rapport, Ordering, Serving, Clearing, and the Check.

Tip (Photo credit: Cali2Okie (April))

1. Greeting and Rapport
The entire ambience of the experience begins with a genuine greeting. Be friendly but don’t try too hard. The timing is important, too: you gain customers (and tips) by acknowledging guests as soon as they walk in, regardless of whether another staff member has greeted them. Restaurant managers err on the side of caution and have every employee feel comfortable greeting guests, as a famous restaurant in south Georgia does.

The greeting helps build rapport and since you’re in the public eye, it’s helpful to be careful about how you dress and what you say around customers. You can imagine untold stories of waiters getting tipped harshly because their slightly-too-loud conversation about last night’s escapades offended a guest.

2. Ordering
Ordering should be a friendly, well-timed experience, too. Though it’s wise to ask about drinks quickly, if they don’t have a ready-made answer, give them time to review any drink or wine menus extensively. Offer to make a suggestion if they seem to be indecisive by asking questions about their tastes. It is important to talk at a slow pace and not make customers feel rushed. You want them to at least get a chance to skim over the entire menu.

One of the most important aspects of service is making sure your customer has enough information. Take the time to include the prices when explaining specials, since that’ll help them make a decision. As the appetizers are being prepared, or the entrees, politely interject a time-estimate for when each is expected to come, instead of the generic and non-informative “soon.”

A Waitress taking a breakfast order at Kahala Hilton Hotel, Hawaii, USA (1989) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

3. Serving 
As the food is coming out, be sure to check the order before it gets to the table. Sure, the kitchen may have made a mistake, but you may have too and it’s better to catch a mistake before the table does. A customer who gets an incorrect order that you catch (“I’m sorry sir, it’ll be a little longer, as I realize the kitchen made a mistake so I sent it back”) is likely to tip much better than someone who has to tell you there’s a problem.

4. Clearing
Once the orders are in the kitchen and drinks are on the table, keep an eye out for silverware, just as you would drinks. Did the guest use a fork during an appetizer? Don’t ask them whether they want to use it again or, even worse, put the dirty fork on the table beside the appetizer plate who wants to mix flavors, especially with table crud? Replace it. The whole point is to not cut corners.

5. Checking In and The Check
Check back within a couple minutes of the diner having eaten the first bite. But give the customer time before you check: you can’t ask about the meal if they haven’t even tried it yet. When checking, be specific and ask whether an element was cooked to their liking, or whether they’re enjoying the side dish they were excited about. A little chit chat about their meal may help you in the end, but be sensitive to the time you spend at their table as you do not want it to be disruptive to your job or their meal. At the end of the meal, do not rush out customers or at least, encourage them to leave in the subtlest manner possible. Customers love to stay and talk, so be considerate of them.

All these things add up. It takes an awareness of what you are doing to become a top-notch server. You really don’t become better by going through the motions. Indeed, the overall experience and attention to customers is what generates good tips.

It might seem strange that we would write about whether culinary school is a good idea after we featured the best culinary schools in the New York area. But a private culinary school education is expensive and can lead to years of struggling to get by because of unpaid debt.

Working in a restaurant kitchen will not make you rich. It is highly unlikely that if you take on significant debt that you will be able to repay it immediately. So we advise you to think long and hard before deciding a culinary education is good for you. There are various things you can do to make a more informed decision.

1. Work in a Restaurant Kitchen, Even If For Free

Restaurant kitchens are unique work environments that frequently are intense, aggressive and fast-paced. They aren’t for everybody (although some find it exciting and addictive). For many, the day-to-day wear and tear might sap their love of cooking. If restaurant kitchens seem unbearable to you, it may make you think twice about getting an expensive culinary education.

TRU Culinary Arts (Photo credit: Thompson Rivers)

With that in mind, you should work inside a restaurant kitchen if you haven’t before, even if doing a menial job, and see firsthand what kind of place it is to work.

Some would-be chefs assume that you need a culinary education to set foot in a restaurant kitchen. That is far from the truth as the vast majority of kitchen workers, including cooks, do not have a formal culinary education of any sort. That being said, experience is highly valued so you may have to work for free staging ingredients, or perhaps, start at the very bottom of the pecking order. This period will even be valuable if you do choose to go to culinary school as prospective employers know you will be able to handle the pressure and speed of a kitchen.

2. See How the Debt Will Affect Your Finances Now and in the Years to Come

Everyone starts in a different financial situation. A few have enough saved away to pay for even the most expensive education (around $100k). Most student chefs take on debt when they go to a private culinary school. It makes sense, therefore, to plan out how you will pay off the loans, assuming that you will not be making substantially over the minimum wage initially. You will probably have to work exceptionally long hours and may have to put other parts of your life on hold. Indeed, most of even the most esteemed chefs work serious hours, almost universally working more than 40 hours per week.

3. Talk with Recent Graduates

Recent graduates, especially those a few years into their careers, can be valuable. As there is no one perspective on culinary education, you should ask several people. You will want to find out how they feel about their educations. Are they able to pay off their debt? Would they do things differently? Another smart strategy is going beyond an admissions representative and seeking out alumni who can give you an honest opinion. In the age of the internet, it shouldn’t be hard to track down people even if  you don’t know anyone personally.

4. Consider Community College

If you feel you need some formal instruction, but do not need a fancy degree (which only goes so far in the restaurant world), you might look into community colleges that offer culinary courses. Many of these classes are taught by talented chefs and although they do not mimic work conditions, they frequently will give you a greater base of knowledge and more confidence.

Higher education — Remember young man, your first step in the REAL WORLD is just 8 feet ahead. Best of luck ! (Photo credit: marsmet471)

5. Should You Be Saving Up for When You Know Your Niche

Most chefs end up specializing eventually, though frequently they do not know that specialty until years of work in a restaurant. With a basic culinary education, you tend to not go very deep into subsets like pastry, fish and sauce-making, or cuisines. In fact, the vast majority of culinary education comes from a French perspective. To be a professional executive chef you will have to develop the kind of know-how that stands out. The question is should you first work several years in restaurant kitchens and then find out exactly what you want to do. Then it would make more sense to invest in gaining the tools to become a true master. Indeed, the culinary world is one of those fields where you can substitute the (equivalent) undergraduate phase with work experience and eventually after earning your stripes, go out and seek a graduate education with some of the world’s best practitioners.

The development of a chef is not uniform and partially depends on the individual. For some, a culinary education gives a future chef the skills and confidence to tackle the rough and tumble restaurant world. Others, for many different reasons, learn their trade in the chaotic world of restaurant kitchens. With significant financial consequences, you shouldn’t feel pressured to take one career track or another. Both education and experience have their benefits and drawbacks. It would be a mistake to decide that one is better than another in all cases. Instead, find out whether going to culinary school is the better choice for you.

The following checklists is a helpful resource to in putting up signs required by the authorities. It is useful in managing all the rules and regulations for restaurants and bars expected by the governments of New York City, New York State and the Federal government. If you prefer to download the .pdf, click here.