Waiter and Waitress CVs, Resumes - How to Write Them Effectively

Because of high staff turnover within the hospitality industry, employers are constantly faced with high volume of applications from waiters and waitresses seeking waiting jobs. Busy managers usually only scan resumes for just a few seconds and the average time it takes an employer to scan a CV is approximately 30 seconds. It is therefore imperative that your CV encourage the reader because anything less will likely result in the resume being discarded. A waitress/waiter resume must contain relevant information, presented in an attractive layout that makes reading easy to the eye.

A waitress CV or waiter resume should be written in 1 page or maximum of 2 pages. This is adequate to present your professional experience. Naturally, the more experience you have as a waiter or waitress, the more information on your resume. This notwithstanding, if your resume extends over more than 2 pages, you must edit and summarise the content to fit within 2 pages.

A well prepared waiter/waitress CV should be uncluttered, easy to read and presented with consistent use of font style, font size and color. Compile your resume in black with your name boldly presented at the top of the document using font size 14 or 16. The main body of your resume should be compiled using font size 10 or 12. Popular font styles include Arial, Verdana, Tahoma and Times Roman. Limit your use of styles to these and avoid flamboyant or unconventional styles. Whichever font style you decide to use, make sure you apply it consistently throughout your resume.

Write your address and contact details immediately below your name, followed by a persuasive professional profile. Your profile is your opportunity to quickly engage the reader by briefly explaining your background and professional experience along with your intended career objective. Try to limit your profile to three to five brief sentences. Underneath your profile statement, you should provide a summary of your relevant skills either in a table format or, if you are unable to create a table, use a bulleted list. Try to limit your list of skills to a maximum of 8 brief outlines. Your skills summary ought to highlight relevant and transferable customer service skills such as:

• Excellent customer service skills


• Awareness of health and safety and personal hygiene the workplace


• Ability to work calmly and effective under pressure


• Good competency for memorising orders


• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills


• Good numerical skills for handling customers’ bills


• Ability to work proactively within a team and on own initiative


• Ability to handle difficult customers in a calm and tactful manner

Below your key skills summary, your waitress/waiter resume should feature your professional work experience. Make sure you include starting and leaving dates, names of employers and remits. Also try to demonstrate use of the above customer service skills and explain how your remits helped develop these skills. Mention any additional skills you acquired in the course of your work. Below your work experience section, list your relevant qualifications and training such as English and Maths qualifications. Also highlight any relevant training courses such as those relating to health and safety, hygiene, food and drink; and other related workplace hospitality training. When presenting your qualifications and training, make sure you list names of institutions, dates, subjects and certifications.

Finally, below the section featuring your education and training, the next section should highlight briefly your main leisure interests.

Waiter and Waitress CVs, Resumes - How to Write Them Effectively