Find a bartender job: Resume

July 10, 2:44 AMBartender ExaminerKathleen Neves

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It seems like nowadays, most of the bartending job ads on craigslist request that candidates email them their resume. Every now and then an ad might state a specific time and date for applicants to come by the establishment in-person and hand in their resume. Sure, most of us had some sort of professional resume made at some point, but maybe you have never made a resume for bartending before. Or maybe you don’t have any bartending experience to put on your resume. What is a bartender who has never made a resume before or a new bartending job applicant to do?

First of all, resumes should be typed. Being a bartender isn’t exactly a formal job. You either have experience or you don’t. You’re either hired or your not. If you want to help stand out among other applicants and increase your chances of landing an interview, you should have a resume. Make sure that your resume is typed and keep it to one page. Having a one-paged, typed resume makes it easier for bar managers to determine your background experience and skill level. Bar managers are busy and don’t have a lot of time to decipher a bartender job applicant’s resume.

Secondly, the resume should be designed specifically for a bartending job. If you are a bartender with a lot of bartending experience, organize the resume by the name of the bar, how long you’ve worked there and give a description of the bar itself. Bartending is bartending. If you are an experienced bartender, you don’t need to list over and over all of the bartending duties you perform behind the bar. A bartender job description is rarely going to change. What experienced bartenders should focus on are the different kinds of bars they’ve worked in (hotel, lounge, restaurant, nightclub, neighborhood/dive bar, etc). Bar managers will find an applicant who has worked behind different types of bars very attractive. Don’t assume that all bar managers are going to be familiar with all of the bars you’ve worked in. You have to tell them so don’t wait to do it in the interview. Perk their interest in the resume.

What if you don’t have any bartending experience? This is where it becomes vital that you make sure all of the information on your resume is relevant to bartending. You have probably worked a few jobs in the past where you have learned a number of skills. You want to take inventory of the transferable skills you have and put them on your bartending resume. Some transferable skills might include customer service, being able to multitask and work well under pressure, accurate cash handling, being able to manage people effectively, being a team player and having a great personality.

Personality goes a long way behind the bar. When people freak out to me about not being able to remember all of the drink recipes, I remind them that only ten percent of bartending is drinks. The other ninety percent is personality. Sure a bartender should know the basic drink recipes for what most customers will order, but what keeps the customers coming back is the charming personality of the person behind the bar. A bar manager would much rather hire a person who is eager to learn, good with people and has a positive, upbeat attitude rather than the experienced, grumpy bartender with a bad attitude and an unwillingness to learn and grow. Grumpy bartenders scare and/or upset customers and are bad for business.

The quickest way for a resume to find it’s way in a recycling box is by it having typos. This is why it is important to have other people give your resume a good once-over before you start handing it out to bar managers. A person can look at their resume a million times, but they might constantly skim over the details, missing simple mistakes such as misspelling “the.” The more eyes you have looking over your resume, the less chance you will have of having a typo or misspelling and the better your resume will be.

Keep in mind that a resume is always a work in progress. A person only has a beginning bartender resume once. With each bartending job a person has, the more they increase their work experience, learn new skills and work in different environments. Your resume should always be kept current and reflect all of your related work experience and acquired skills.

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