How to get a restaurant or bar job in New York City

Your first few days in New York and there after can be hard, especially if you have little money and need to get a job fast. Luckily, New york has a very good system in place for securing a job in hospitality (primarily as a bartender or server) that can get you making money fast.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Computer
• Printer and Paper
• Cell or Home Phone
• Picture of Yourself

1. Understand the system.
   Restaurants in the city that you could potentially work for operate on a type of hierarchy based on the money you will make, the scale of the restaurant, and the requirements for positions. You may make more money at a bar and grill, yet need more experience in fine dining in order to work at a four star restaurant. In addition, New York City establishments at higher end of any facet of this hierarchy will generally consider only, or consider first, those applicants with New York City experience. The more years of New york City Experience, the better.
2. Create Your Resume.
   Whether you are looking for a bartending,serving, or host position, you will need to consider that you are among many. Your resume should be as good as it can be. If you have little experience, try to state your duties at every positions you have worked in a way that is most condusive to what you are applying for. For example,if you are going for a host position, and have only worked a counter at a cafe, then make sure you highlight all of the customer interaction that you have experience in. If you have never served a day in your life, and want to give it a shot, focus on any duties in your previouse positions that bring to focus an ability to move in a high volume situation, provide great customer service, and any experience slightly related to food and drinks. If you are a bartender, fresh out of bartending school, list your school and completion, yet also, highlight any high volume, customer service and experience in financial transactions.
   If you have experience, yet outside of New York, make sure you play up that experience as much as possible. If you are a seasoned New York hospitality employee, adding the area of New York directly behind the name of the establishment will assist you in immediately setting yourself aside from those without NYC experience. (i.e. Mr Joe's-Tribeca). In addition, to playing up your experience, your resume should reflect a stable work history. Because the hardship of hiring employees and tendencies for hospitality employees to operate in a revolving door manner, employers are looking for people who have been at previous positions for a long time. Do not bother putting positions that are less than 3-6 months, and adjust the rest of your dates on your resume accordingly. Make sure you not only have your resume stored in your computer where you can copy and paste it, but also several printed out daily as you go through your job search. Your resume should also highlight personal attributes such as your positive demeanor or honesty and dependablity.
   Your contact information should be clear with an e-mail and phone number. If you do not have a cell phone, than you should change whichever voicemail on a home or even a friend's phone that makes it as personalized to you in order to not raise suspicions about your stability.
   Lastly, in order to be most effective, you will need a picture of yourself that not only you can you print out, but also either send or paste along with your resume.
3. Find your search engines and create your cover letters.
   The best search engine for the jobs that we previousely described, is craigslist.com.
   Most of the job posters on this site have an idea of what the are looking for. However, most of the job listers also recieve around fifty responses to their ads a day. You are fooling yourself if you think that your response will stand out, without a decent picture, a good picture, and a cover letter that reflects what the poster originally described as their ideal employee in their post.
   Imagine you are a manager or owner of an establishment with a vision of what you want in your employees that meets that of what you want portrayed in your restaurant. You are recieving multiple replies, yet do not have sufficient time to go through and interview all candidates. You are gong to open your e-mails and immediately scan the picture, cover letter, and then resume.
   When searching for a job, write down the key words expressed in each ad, then adjust a cover letter, already composed to reflect each ad.(i.e. if an ad focuses on customer service and high volume, adjust your qualities which you listed in your cover letter to reflect that.) A bartending position ad may either look for someone who is capable of attracting a lot of regular clientele or working in a fine dining establishment. You should take all of these things into account when sending your response, in order to give yourself an edge. Sending the same cover letter and resume to each ad will likely waste your time.
4. Look in the most efficient way possible.
   The most efficient way possible to look for these type of jobs is to , as I said bfore, head to Craigslist. Using the cover letter methods that I described before, e-mail every ad that requests only an e-mailed response. Several will tell you thatyou should show up t an "open call", something very signature to NYC. This means there is specific dates and times in which you can show up. The person interviewing will expect a large amount of peopleduring a samll amount of time in which he/she can speak to one on one. This takes the guesswork out of randomly responding to emailed responses and setting up interviews. These are usually the quickest ways to get a job, so if you can make it, then do. In addtion, establishments that only hold "open calls" generally have the most to offer employees, which is why they do not need to give that much flexibility in their interviewing. Some places will give s several day and specific time period for their interviewing. (i.e. "apply Mon-Fri from 3-6pm). While this allows more availability the apply Thursday at 6pm, you are less likely to interview on the spot, and run the risk of just " dropping off a resume" for a place looking to have them for the future.
   Your best bet is to allot yourself enough time to send resumes via e-mail and copy down the addresses and details of those wanting you to shpw up directly.
   Prioritize those that are open calls, after potentially researching the establishment, and organize your places you have to visit, by time, date, and potential.
   Once you have completed what you can for the day, start the process over again, back at the e-mail.
   With this system, you should be responding to employers and interviewers, while stillputting the proces into place.
   Before long, you will make the decision of where you want to work.