Server Resume Examples

As a professional server, you need to convey your ability to handle POS systems, work well in a high-stress environment, and — most importantly — serve, attract, and retain customers. Follow these tips to learn how to convey you can perform these duties on your resume.

1. Include these key server resume skills

Restaurant hiring managers are looking for strong server skills to decide if you’re a worthwhile candidate.

Soft skills are essential for a server because they relate to how you interact with other people (so your colleagues and customers), handle your workload, and adapt to new situations (like COVID-19). You need effective soft skills as a server to make your customers feel at ease.

Here are the top soft skills for a server:

• Customer service skills
• Interpersonal skills
• Good memory
• Time management skills
• Ability to keep calm under pressure
• Knowledge of food–wine pairings
• People skills

There are also key hard skills you need to handle a service industry role.

Hard skills are skills you learn through training or education, and important ones for server candidates include:

• Point of sales (POS) systems
• Foreign language skills (for example, if you’re serving Spanish-speaking customers)
• Math skills
• Knowledge of alcoholic beverages
• Ability to use restaurant appliances (blenders, ovens, etc.)
• Writing skills

When you’re writing the skills section of your resume, try to include these key server skills if you have them. And if you have other relevant abilities to service-industry work, include these skills on your resume too.

Additionally, if you have any certifications, such as a Certification in Food Handling and Safety, place these certifications on your resume to show the hiring manager you’re well-versed in kitchen safety. This is especially relevant to protect you, your customers, and colleagues from COVID-19.

2. Write a convincing resume summary

Your resume should start with an effective resume summary so that the hiring manager can see you’re a skilled server who can handle a heavy workload while retaining customer loyalty.

Here’s why our server resume example’s summary is so effective at conveying the qualifications and talents of the applicant:

First, it starts by stating their years of experience:

7+ years of experience in food preparation and service…

Second, it highlights their earned titles or certificates:

Certificate in Food Handling and Safety.

Third, it emphasizes their knowledge of the business:

Keen knowledge of wines, entrees, and the responsibilities of a successful waiter or waitress.

Fourth, it states the position they want to fill:

Aiming to…effectively perform a server position at your restaurant.

This example resume summary would put our candidate on most hiring managers’ shortlists because it includes achievements, is well written, and targets the managerial job opening.

3. Describe your server experience with hard numbers

Adding hard numbers to your job description bullet points helps the hiring manager understand the scope of your responsibilities as a server, and emphasizes the depth of your experience in the industry.

The easiest way to include numbers in your server resume is to simply state the size of a restaurant you worked at, or mention how many seats it had.

These examples show how to include numbers on a resume:

• Write patrons’ food orders on slips, memorize orders, and enter orders into Square POS to direct the kitchen staff in 150 square yard restaurant

• Present menus to patrons, answer questions about menu items, and make recommendations upon request in a 70+ seat restaurant

By simply adding numbers, your resume will immediately be better than the vast majority of your competition because you’ve provided context to your experience.

To really impress the hiring manager at a busy restaurant however, you’ll need to do more complex research, like in this example:

• Memorized restaurant’s wine stock and the meals they should accompany, leading to daily wine sales averaging $150, fully 20% higher than company average

Most restaurants — especially big chains — track their servers’ sales statistics for the purposes of budgeting (and to support low performers). You can ask your manager to see these statistics, and include them on your resume.

4. Use strong action verbs to begin your bullet points

Strong action verbs are key to presenting your accomplishments on your resume in the best possible way. Action verbs replace dull bullet point starting phrases like “Responsible for” and “Tasked with” to highlight your accomplishments as a server instead of telling hiring managers what duties you performed.

Start your resume bullet points with some of these server-oriented action verbs to make you seem like someone who takes the initiative rather than someone who simply performs the serving duties your supervisor gives you.

Action verbs for your server resume