Introduction
The Red Hot Chilli Restaurant seeks to recruit 30 co-workers to fill the new posts for the new Covent Garden Branch which opens in June 2010. The selection criterion will be for the following post Waiters/waitresses, Barmen/Barwomen and Maitre D.
Waiters/ waitresses
Red hot chilli restaurant is seeking to recruit 16 waiters/ waitress to fill the positions in a newly opened hotel branch.
Responsibilities
- To take orders from customers, to clear the tables and to serve food.
- To welcome customers and to show them a table or ask them to wait for the next available table.
- They will be writing down the orders for either food or drinks and passing them to kitchen.
- They will be collecting meals from the kitchen and taking them to the correct table.
- They will clear away the empty plates, glasses or cups from tables before they place others (Cobble1991, pp. 419-432).
Requirements
- A waiter is expected to have a good memory to remember orders and be able to explain the menu to customers in case the menu is not on the table.
- They are to demonstrate good interpersonal and public relation skills.
- They should be of good personal hygiene; smart, neat and clean while handling clients
- One year waiter experience in a busy restaurant is required including working on weekends.
- They should be able handle many customers especially during rush hours.
Interview questions
Where have you worked before? For how long have you worked there?
This question seeks to ascertain the waiter’s experience and the nature of the work experience. The question is relevant because the post for the waiter requires somebody with experience as a waiter in a busy working environment. The question was chosen because it is open and it gives the interviewee a chance to express himself.
How do you handle rush hour when the customers are many in and out of the hotel?
This question is meant to assess the interviewee’s ability to handle rush hour or deal with many customers. The question is chosen because it gives the interviewee a chance to speak out his/ her mind. He might never have handled a rush hour but what he has in mind tells his capability to do so.
How do you deal with customer complaints?
The question is meant to test the interpersonal and the public relations skills. The ability to handle customer complaints shows that the interviewee has good interpersonal skills. The question is chosen because it tests the personal ability to apply the interpersonal skills to solve a problem like customers complaints.
Explain the content of a menu?
This question tests the interviewee memory. If the interviewee can remember the content of the menu, then he has a good memory.
The question is direct and only tests how well the waiter can master the menu.
Why should a waiter be neat and clean?
This question seeks the understanding of the waiter that cleanliness and personal hygiene is a necessity. This question is very direct and serves not only to remind the waiter that they need to be hygienic but also lets them understand why.
Barmen/barwomen
Red hot chilli restaurant is looking for interested men and women to fill 8 positions of barmen/barwomen. The interested persons must be willing to work in Britain.
Responsibilities
- Mix ingredients where necessary to prepare drinks or cocktail as may be requested by the customers.
- They are to receive cash from customers and record on the cash register on daily basis.
- They are also to serve food to the customers in the bar if the customers requests so.
- They should ensure that the customer is of age before they sell them alcohol or beer.
- They should clean the table after customers finishes and reset them for other customers.
- They should monitor the inventory movement to ensure that its level is well maintained (Breaugh & Starke 2000, pp. 405-434).
Requirements
- The applicant must be 18 years and above.
- Three years experience as a bartender in a busy working environment.
Interview questions
Where have you worked before? For how many years have you worked there?
This question seeks to ensure that the applicant have experience in working as bartender in a busy environment. The question gives the applicant a chance to present his or her credibility and give reasons why he or she is the right person to employ.
Any experience in cash register management? Elaborate.
This question is meant to ensure that the barman/woman have experience in cash register management. It will help in eliminating anomalies during operations. By interviewee elaborating his or her experience, the management will have idea on what to include in induction process.
Why is it important to deal with customers of age?
This question seeks the understanding of barman/woman that it is imperative for institutions to stick to national rules. This question serves in reminding the barman/woman the importance of conducting their responsibilities diligently.
Any experience in inventory management?
This question aims at ensuring that the barman/woman is in a position to manage inventory with limited supervision. This will ensure that the bar offers efficient services hence retaining and attracting customers.
Outline the recipe for cocktail preparation.
This question seeks to ensure that the barman/woman has clear knowledge of cocktail preparation. Customer retention depends on quality of food and drinks served. If the barman/woman has the knowledge in cocktail preparation then the management is assured that he or she will offer quality services.
Maitre D
Red hot chilli restaurant seeks to recruit 6 men and women to assume the responsibility of a maitre d. This is in consistent with its move to open new branch in Britain. Interested persons should be willing to work in a foreign country.
Responsibilities
- They will be responsible of assigning customers to tables.
- They will be responsible of delegating duties to available servers within the restaurant.
- They will receive and record reservations for dining and deal with customer complaints.
- They will ensure that all servers in the restaurant execute their duties efficiently (Smith 2010, para. 1-4).
Requirements
- All interested applicants should have good interpersonal skills.
- Should be capable of delegating duties in a busy environment
- The applicants should be of 28 years and above.
- Applicants should have worked as maitre d in busy restaurants for at least six years.
Interview questions
Do you have any experience as a maitre d? Where have you worked and for how long?
This question seeks to ensure that the applicant have experience in the field he or she applies for. As the position entails a lot of responsibilities, the applicant need to have a long time experience.
How do you deal with customer complaints?
This question is meant to understand the applicant’s interpersonal skills. As he or she will be responsible of responding to customer complaints, he should be one who will ensure every customer leaves the hotel satisfied.
How do you schedule operations within the hotel?
This question will require maitre d to demonstrate his or her ability in delegating and coordinating duties with a restaurant. This is because failure to effectively delegate duties will compromise efficiency of the restaurant.
Any knowledge in hotel reservation?
This question seeks to establish if the maitre have knowledge in receiving and managing restaurant reservation process. As the restaurant will be receiving numerous reservation requests from customers, the management should ensure that it has recruited staffs that will ensure that all customers have their needs met.
How are staffs expected to conduct themselves in the restaurant?
This question seeks to ensure that the applicant have knowledge on how staffs need to conduct themselves when executing their duties in the restaurant. As the hotel will face competition from other British restaurants, maitre d needs to have knowledge on how to ensure that his or her staffs standout from those of other restaurants with respect to service delivery and self presentation.
Alternative recruiting methods
In case more applicants qualifies for the positions than the available vacancies, the management will be required to look for other methods to narrow down the number of people in each category to remain with the required number. Those who qualify in every category will be required to go through a practical exercise to ascertain their knowledge in the respective fields.
For waiters and waitresses, they will be deployed in restaurant for a day to serve customers. They will do this in conjunction with the already employed waiters and waitresses to avoid cases of delay in service delivery.
From this activity, every waiter/waitress will be required to demonstrate his or her ability to remember orders placed by customers, clear tables on time and direct customers to tables. They will also be expected to demonstrate their ability in solving complaints from customers amicably.
Barmen/ women will be expected to spend an entire day in the restaurant serving customers. They will be responsible for cleaning glassware, preparing cocktails and managing inventory.
The management will need every barman/woman to demonstrate ability in managing inventory. Barmen/women will be required to show that they have knowledge in preparing and serving cocktail (Beach 2010, p. 342).
Maitre d will have two days to serve in the restaurant. They will coordinate and delegate all duties within the restaurant. Maitre d will also be responsible of receiving and processing all reservation requests from customers. In case of customer complaints, they will be directed to them for necessary actions to be taken.
The management will be assessing the capacity of the maitre to coordinate staffs and delegate duties based on staffs’ ability. They will also assess the ability of the maitre d to receive and organize for restaurant reservation based on client’s needs. Maitre d’s ability to solve customers’ complains effectively will also be evaluated.
Induction plan
After the management team is through with recruitment and selection process, all the selected staffs will be expected to go through two hours induction training. This will be a brief training aimed at reminding the staffs of things they know as well as informing them of any alterations in how things are done in the restaurant if there is any. Every category of employees will go though a different induction training based on job specifications. For waiters and waitresses, they will be taken through an induction training where they will be trained on topics such as:-
- Customer handling. Here they will discuss the importance of handling customers well and ways of dealing with customer complaints.
- Staff presentation. The management will discuss the essence of ensuring that staffs are always clean and neat when carrying out their duties in the restaurant. New staffs will be informed about the measures used by the management to promote neatness and cleanliness among the staffs.
- Order processing. Here the discussion will delve on ways of enhancing customer’s order processing and mechanisms to improve customer service in the restaurant.
The new staffs will be informed on established mechanisms to facilitate in enhancing operations efficiency (Lashley 2000, 791-815).
Barmen and women will be taken through an induction training that will focus on topics such as:
- Cocktail preparation. Demonstration on how to prepare good cocktail will be conducted by experts in that field. Bartenders will be informed on ways of testing cocktail’s quality.
- Inventory management. Bartenders will be taught on how to manage inventory during their day-to-day operations in the restaurant. They will be trained on how to guarantee that they regularly replenish counters on time to avoid any inconveniency.
- Cash register management. As barmen and women will be responsible of handling cash and recoding it in cash register, they will be taught on how to use the register appropriately. They will be informed on the importance of a cash register and why they should ensure that they always record their sales in it.
Maitre d will be responsible of reserving restaurant spaces for clients. As a result, their induction plan will concentrate on discussing methods to use in managing space reservation.
- Job delegation and staff management. There will be a discussion on how to delegate duties within the hotel based on the available staffs and workload. Staffs will be informed about the importance of assigning duties to staffs based on their ability.
Reflections
After conducting an interview on my friend using the established questions for waiters and waitresses, I understood that based on the way the questions were put, it was possible for interviewee to understand what answers were expected from him. This made it possible for me to get the required information from my friend. When working as a waiter, it is inevitable to come across customers of different characters. Some quarrels you while others complain about not being attended appropriately. This calls for waiters to have good interpersonal skills. This is the reason why Red hot chilli restaurant put it as a requirement for waiters to have good interpersonal skills.
References
Beach, K., 2010, Becoming a bartender: The role of external memory cues in a work-directed educational activity. Michigan: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Breaugh, J. A. & Starke, M. 2000. Research on Employee Recruitment: So Many Studies, So Many Remaining Questions. Journal of Management, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 405-434.
Cobble, S. D., 1991. Organizing the postindustrial workforce: Lessons from the history of waitress unionism. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 44, No. 3, pp. 419-432.
Lashley, C., 2000. Empowerment through involvement: a case study of TGI Fridays restaurants. Personnel Review, Vol. 29, No. 6, pp. 791-815.
Smith, S. E., 2010. What is a Maitre d’? Web.
How the two learning outcomes were met
In bid to meet the required learning outcomes, a thorough research on requirements and recruitment procedures was conducted from journals as well as internet. Books touching on methods of selecting, recruiting and retaining employees were also used during the research. A feasibility study was conducted on one of the competing hotels in Britain to identify how they train and address needs of individual employee and groups.