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Summary: To get a job as a bartender, start by working as a bar back, memorizing drink recipes and mixing drinks at home. Become a bartender at a bar that seems fitting with tips from an experienced bartender in this free video on bartending.
Micah Bartelme is a professional bartender. Bartelme has tended bar around the world as an international bartender, and he is knowledgeable about thousands of drink recipes.read more
"One of the best jobs you can have as a young person or a recent college graduate is bartending. My name's Micah, and I'm going to talk to you about how to get a job bartending. First, and most important, you have to know how to bartend. Know your cocktails. People come to you for drinks, for good-tasting drinks, drinks like they want. You have to know how to make them right. A couple ways to do this. You can either train as a bar back for several years or several months, whichever works out for you, and learn from other people. You can buy a book with cocktail recipes inside, read up, memorize, and practice your pouring at home before you go and try to get a job. Nobody wants to hire anybody without experience, so it helps to have worked in a bar before, or in a restaurant serving, some sort of interactive serving, customer service experience really helps. Another thing: presentation. When you walk into a bar to try to get a job, be dressed to impress. You're selling yourself. When you're behind a bar you're on stage, you're acting; people can get a drink anywhere. They come to your bar because they like you. So you have to show your potential employer that people are going to want to come to see you. Letting your personality show in your interview is also very important. This is a, bartending is very interactive; there's a lot of back and forth over the bar, a lot of joking, a lot of talking to people. You have to be somebody that people want to talk to. And pick a bar that's going to fit you. If you don't have a lot of experience, you don't want to go to the megaclub where it's high volume, fast pace, and you might get lost or feel behind, or feel like you don't know what you're doing. If you're more mellow, choose a bar that has regular customers that come in and get the same things, has a slower pace. Most of all, pick a bar that fits for you. My name's Micah, and that's how to get a job bartending."
eHow Article: How to Get a Job as a Bartender