Everyone wants to be the candidate that stands out.  Many of the rumored tricks are mostly hot air. Others, like attending an elite university, may make you an attractive candidate, but knowledge without experience can be an obstacle.

Here are some common missteps candidates make when applying to larger corporations in the hospitality industry.

Post High School Job Experience

Were you a waitress instead of an intern when you were 19? the path to landing your dream job shows your intent. Did you lifted boxes to pay debts, and another candidate interned within the hospitality industry for an assistant manger. These not only reveal your interest, but it also makes you more interesting and ‘stand out’ from the other candidates.

Your Major

Did you major in liberal arts?  You don’t pick a major like that if you want to work for one of the big hospitality corporations.  Your guidance counselor might have said that it doesn’t matter what you major in as long as  you are passionate.  This may sound great in secondary education, but it doesn’t look good on a resume. A psych, business, or leadership major will stand out. Also, why just one major?  The best advice is to pick majors that are directly relevant to the hospitality industry, and working with people

Community Service

Everyone volunteers today to improve their resume, but what you do says a lot about you. Did you serve soup in a soup kitchen? This may be great if you want to focus on the customer service, entry level of the hospitality industry.  No HR manger will look at a resume and say ‘how sweet, you fed Christmas dinner to homeless children.’

From a success or career coaching standpoint, start standing out when you start your career. Try hunting for sales or marketing positions with a charity.  Look for team management positions.

Communication

The higher you aim, the better your communication skills. This is important in any career, in any industry. If you cannot ‘say what you mean and mean what you say,’ and if you cannot get your point across succinctly then there is no way you’ll sell ideas to a board, or talk your team into working overtime, taking a benefit cut, or network in the business community.

Network

Did you get to know your professors? Did you go the extra mile to network in the business community, or when volunteering a charity?  Everyone has heard a story where a professor, manager, colleague went to bat for someone when writing a letter of recommendation for a job application. Sometimes the name at the bottom of the resume is more powerful than the recommendation itself.

Specialize

The ‘Jack of all trades’ has never been in high demand. If you want to work with one of the top hospitality industries then you must be able to handle one aspect of the corporation. The best restaurant mangers have specific things in common. The best general managers share traits that are different than those shared by the best kitchen managers.

Associating with professionals, interning, and volunteering in the hospitality industry can help you find the niche where you belong, the career where you will excel.

Your GPA Doesn’t Matter

There is little truth to the rumor that a low GPA can limit your future. In fact, companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft place GPA low on the list of prerequisites for their candidates.  Top companies look for the top candidates, people with a track record of success, not successful students.

Don’t Limit Yourself

Even if you have none of the aspects listed in this article, you may still be the restaurant manager some corporation is looking for. You really don’t know what you have to offer a company until you start. You never know what skills you’ve acquired and how those skills can be used to excel in the hospitality industry.

Any job in the hospitality industry can lead to a better career. There are very few ‘dead end’ jobs. Everyone is a job seeker at any given time, at any stage of the learning curve. We all have the opportunity to develop leadership skills. Each problem is an opportunity to learn our problem solving and opportunity development skills.

Leadership development is vital, but many people who are just starting fail in their first attempts because they lack the skills and knowledge needed to succeed. Both success, and failure are behavior habits. When a leader fails, they learn, study more, seek help, and try again. Often, people who are just learning to become managers become discouraged. The myth that some people are born leaders, or have a knack for leadership has kept many talented leaders from developing careers as restaurant mangers.

Controlling the elements of failure + Cause and Effect = Success

Many leaders fail because their plan is not congruent, realistic, and effective. The effective leader is willing to watch the day to day aspects of a business and measure their effectiveness based on results. The distant leader makes assumptions and tracks their success and failures – after it is too late.

Successful leaders share some common behaviors.

1. Listening

They have developed the art of listening. You can learn more about a person, problem, or situation by listening to people. Understanding what a person wants, or needs, can often reveal the solution to a seemingly unrelated problem.

2. Identifying Need

One of the easiest ways to gain control of a situation is by learning to identify what someone needs, then creating a solution that meets the needs. There are always multiple solutions to a problem. Finding the solution that meets your boss’ needs is a vital aspect of career development.

3. Finding Opportunities

The opportunities a successful person looks for are those that will meet the needs of their managers. Selling your ideas doesn’t depend on identifying an opportunity. It is more important to ‘sell the idea’ by identifying how it will solve your boss’ needs. For example, more training is necessary to reducing the time between ordering a meal and placing it on a table. This causes a problem for most restaurant mangers because it effects the bottom line, reducing revenue, and making it look like they are a failure.

However, your general manager is only focused on the bottom line and only sees career development as another expense. Selling the idea of training requires outlining the long term cost savings, return on investment (ROI), and how the general manger will be able to present this ROI as his/her personal success.

You have goals and dreams. The creative strategy took years to develop. You have a strong focus on the goals, but nothing happens. Dreams crash, not in a quick dive, but slowly they are eroded by the day to day tasks that eat the time needed to execute your goals.

The problem is what we term as the ‘whirlwind’ or tornado. This is a continual, ravenous, insatiable vortex that draws everything inside but produces nothing. It involves all those daily tasks which drain our energy.

This is one of the most devastating obstacles to the ambitious performance minded professional. They watch other people succeed while their goals quietly fade from their bucket list. Not because they are lazy, not because they hire the wrong people.

The problem lies in the fact that the goals are forward looking and all the data, numbers, plans are backward focused. They report what has been done and accomplished. The numbers, strategies, and perspectives never deal with the day to day activities which destroy our goals.

The art of execution is one aspect of success that must be conquered if you want to reach your goals.

What is a goal?

A goal can be anything you want to achieve. This doesn’t mean that goals are all worth chasing. There are some very defined elements to the art of execution that need to be adhered to if you want to change behavior patterns and learn how to turn your dreams into a tangible reality.

1. Avoid emotional based goals. The goal must be tangible when you finish or else you won’t be able to measure success. If the goal is not ‘real’ then the tasks needed to create a strategy will also be insubstantial. They will be swallowed up in the day to day ‘real’ jobs.
2. Eliminate goals that you cannot describe verbally and communicate effectively.
3. Eliminate goals that do not have benchmarks and milestones. Can you accomplish X by a certain date? If not, strike that goal from the list.
4. Scratch off solo goals. No one is an island. No one can build an empire single handed, or it isn’t an empire. You need to have input from others. You cannot do all the work alone. Once you have help you need to learn how to identify achievers and understand how to reward tem so they will perform better.
5. Establish a mindset of execution. People waste most of their day doing mundane tasks that do not generate a reward whether it be creation, financial, or social. People need to learn how to focus on tasks that meet the goal, and reduce the time spent on, or delegate those which are inconsequential.
6. More important, they need to learn how to do this without the ‘labour’ force feeling being treated like they are the low man on the totem pole. A pyramid is more stable than a flag pole. When the leader focuses more on people, the lower they are, then the performance increases. When looking at ‘input’ and ‘cost’ view the goal as a pyramid. Turn the pyramid over so it is a funnel to see how the rewards return to the ‘head’.
7. Be a leader. Let people choose their own destiny, but hold them accountable. Let them choose whether they want to participate and make things happen, or sit back and complete the mundane jobs. Once they choose, support them where they are. Like Morpheus in The Matrix who asked ‘The red or blue pill’, every strategy needs one person who can influence the destiny of the entire team.

Dear Recruiting Professional,

2012 is off to a great start!  In my first “address” of the year, my first order of duty is to get the word out that the National Association is changing.  Some of you are aware of the changes that have already begun.  But, please allow me to explain.

We have new leadership.  With that new leadership comes fresh ideas.  What I am talking about is simply EDUCATION, REPRESENTATION AND ASSISTANCE.  We are here to educate you.  We are here to represent you and we are here to assist you.  It’s that simple.

You will begin to see programs that you can be a part of – that will definitely help your businesses and your individual recruiters and employees.  One great example is the improved delivery of our certification program.  Credentialing participants will now have the opportunity to view a “Learning Session” recorded from a Certification Immersion Class (CIC).  As most of you know, this is a certification prep class.  We have informally dubbed this program the “E-CIC,” as it is a self-paced course allowing you to view the class at your own speed.  Participants in this original CIC class in the past have experienced a pass/fail rate of 10 points higher than if they study on their own.  Members will have the ability to view this class at no cost.

This is only the beginning of what the NAPS is doing to help get you educated.  Our Annual Conference is our “flagship” of education.  Our conference is always packed with the best speakers in the country, making this event something you can count on, year after year.  This year is no exception with over 175 already registered.  Do not hesitate to visit www.recruitinglife.com for learn more about this fantastic event.

From all this education comes Professional Success.  These following facts contribute to our Professional Success:

• Recruiters with the Certified Professional Consultants “CPC” and/or Certified Temporary Services “CTS” designations outperform and earn more money than non-certificants.
• Recruiters that continue Professional Education by attending the NAPS Annual Conference outperform and earn more money than non-participants.
• Recruiters that participate in their Professional Associations (NAPS) outperform & earn more money than non-participants.
• Recruiters that educate their Candidates and Clients through giving back through Professional Service outperform and earn more money than those non-participants.

It’s all about making yourself better and better at what you do – through continuing education.  Not only do you feel better about it, but your customers (your clients and your candidates) can see that growth and experience in you as well.

Thank you in advance for taking time to make a difference!  I look forward to seeing you in San Antonio at the NAPS- September 2012 Conference.

Sincerely,

Robert Krzak, Chairman of the Board, NAPS

“Unemployment discrimination” and the jobless
By: Elaine Quijano (CBS News)

Of the 14 million Americans currently unemployed, 6 million have been jobless for more than 6 months.

CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano reports that many job seekers say being unemployed is being held against them.

Delores Barnes always goes job hunting armed with her dossier of documents, including her birth certificate.

Two years ago, she was laid off from her supervisor job with New York’s Children’s Services. Ever since, Barnes has been looking for work to support her and her nine-year-old daughter, Savianna “I can’t give up. I’m on a mission. I have a daughter, and she’s like, I have to be strong for her. I have to show her that you just don’t give up,” Barnes says.

Yet no amount of persistence can overcome the simple fact that some employers don’t want to hire the unemployed. In job posting after job posting, companies require that applicants “must be currently employed.”

“They have that perception that they are the dead weight, therefore they want the strong people who are currently employed,” says Robert Krzak, president of Gecko Hospitality.

Krzak says some companies won’t even consider unemployed job candidates.
“If there is a candidate out there who has been out there in the job market for six months or even a year or more than a year, a lot of companies are very suspect of that, because why aren’t they working?” Krzak says.

“It’s discriminatory and the fact that just because you don’t have a job you can’t compete for a job,” says Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. DeLauro is sponsoring a bill aimed at stopping the practice.

“These are competent people. They have lost their job through no fault of their own,

Why shouldn’t they have an opportunity?” DeLauro says.
Barnes says the practice doesn’t make sense, hiring people who have jobs when so many don’t.

Barnes is now training to be a computer technician, and says she’ll keep pounding the pavement, even though with some companies she can’t even get her foot in the door.

“Who does she think she is?”

I’m sure that ran across your mind as you read my headline.

“We pay good money to agency recruiters! THEY should be asking the question…How to provide a great service to US!”
Believe me, we think about that all the time. Most of us are consumed by that question! We have attended dozens of motivational seminars, logged multiple webinars, and read countless books on how to provide a great value to our clients.

In spite of our earnest endeavors, however, frustration can develop in the Recruiter/Client relationship. Maybe you consider us over-enthusiastic. Or not enough. Maybe you hear from us every day. Then we disappear. Maybe it seems we aren’t acting with urgency. Maybe we ask “Why?” a little more than you’d like. You don’t want to completely sever the relationship with us, because the next candidate we provide could be your next hire! But we are doing things you consider perplexing.

I believe I can help you with that. I recently surveyed Third Party Contingency Recruiters with multiple agencies, in several markets, and across various disciplines…and I captured their thoughts on relationships with clients. It’s a glimpse into the world of the Agency Recruiter. It is my hope that reading a sampling of their answers below could only strengthen the bond between you and those you choose to work with.

It’s no secret that we Recruiters are handling multiple positions with multiple companies in a given time period. And it’s also no secret that some of our clients get the red carpet treatment, while others don’t. So I asked my Survey Group…”What motivates you to give certain clients 110%?” Surprisingly enough, the answer was *not* “the client who pays the best fee.” Instead…

-A client who views, and treats me as a partner, not a vendor or commodity.
-A client who works with me exclusively or as part of a very limited number of recruiting firms.
-A client who takes the time to get to know my background and qualifications.
-A client who listens to me when I say to them: “Just trust me. Even though this resume is not your ideal profile, I believe you need to interview this person.”
-A client who gives me repeat business…of course when I’ve earned it.
-A client with a consistent message…rather than changing their position regularly.
-A client who continues to communicate as they move our candidates through the interview stages, and provides honest feedback.

So I followed up with this question: How does a client fall into disfavor with you?

-When the client sends out mass emails to a dozen different recruiting firms with their needs list. It signals that I’m just a vendor to these companies, and not a partner in talent acquisition.
-When they only want to communicate via email, and never by phone. This doesn’t permit me to ask relevant questions about their projects and get a ready answer.
-When they take a pass on my candidates and will not explain why. I need this information so that I may redirect my search or narrow my focus.
-When they give me “urgent” job orders. Then they take several weeks to schedule interviews with my candidates. I worked extra hours to respond to this “urgent” need. What changed?
-When they give us a job order, interview our candidates, and decide to fill the position internally. We are willing to accept that our candidates may not have been as good as their internal. However, we also suspect we are being used to “comparison shop.” That’s not fair.
-When the client changes the criteria of the job order so many times, it feels like a moving target.

So then I became even bolder, and asked my Survey Group: “What one thing do you want a client to know…but are a little scared to tell them?”

-Don’t ask us for a discount without a reason. If you want a certain amount, or percentage off my going rate, be willing to agree to an exclusive. Or volume orders.
-We are inclined to give priority to clients who use us frequently and take our work seriously.
-If you ask for a dramatically reduced fee arrangement, and if I agree to it, you will not get the best talent in the market from me. The best candidates will be directed to clients who honor the work I do with a fair rate.
-There’s no reason not to return my messages. I am working for free out here, until I find the right candidate for you. The least you can do is return my calls.

I turned the tables on my Survey Group, by asking them to take some responsibility for client relationships that have gone awry. So I posed this question: “What one thing did you do to a client that you regret?

-Didn’t return their calls/messages quickly enough. They found another recruiter who did.
-Didn’t cover the search adequately, and the client found their candidate on their own.
-Didn’t respond with urgency. I thought I had the exclusive and all the time in the world.
-Didn’t replace candidates who had been eliminated from the search with more candidates. I thought I had my superstars the first time.
-Didn’t check in on my client after submitting four candidates. Just thought he/she could take it from there.
-Tried to read the client’s mind. I should have just called or emailed and asked the question.
-Wasn’t sensitive to the hiring authority’s schedule and demands. I kept calling him in the middle of the day when he was busiest and couldn’t concentrate. I should have asked which time of the day worked best, or set up a standing appointment.

People get fired every day. It’s not often when a Recruiter fires their Client, but it does happen! So I asked my Survey Group, “Have you ever fired a client, and why?”

-I caught my client in a mistruth more than once. I couldn’t trust them after that.
-The client was passing on my candidates. I found out a year later that they were called directly and hired outright.
-The client was looking for ways to avoid paying my invoice. Gave me a lot of excuses.
-The client waited a whole year to pay the invoice. We had to call collections.
-The client didn’t disclose to me that they had already known about my candidate. But they watched me go through the process, scheduling interviews, checking references, negotiating the package, without this disclosure. And in the end, I was told I would not be paid for the placement.
-Never making the hire. The client gave us multiple positions to fill. Lots of talking and talking. But no traction. No results.

I acknowledge that I have shone a light on very real and very raw observations and experiences of a sample group of Third Party Contingency Recruiters. And after reading this, you might be tempted to wave the white flag, retreat to the corporate office, and just do this recruiting thing yourself.

That was not the intention. You just got a rare glimpse into the world of the Agency Recruiter. Now you know how we tick, and how your behavior can affect our results. Therefore, I encourage you to continue to use our services, and remind yourself why you originally engaged us in your recruiting efforts. Your reasons will likely match the answers to my Survey Group’s final question: “What value do we provide our clients?”

-We give our clients their jobs back! When they are not screening, scheduling, checking references, networking, and asking for referrals, they are attending to the rest of their responsibilities. Let us do the footwork!
-During the recession, Human Resource Departments were decimated. But Recruiting real talent cannot stop. View us an extension of your HR Division!
-We provide industry (or market) specialization, and a network to go with it! What may take the client months to place…we might be able to accomplish within weeks.
-Empty positions cost a company money and customer loyalty! Rather than settling for someone that you could find in a short time…use a Recruiter to produce a larger selection of qualified and interested candidates.
-If the client is uncomfortable calling desirable employees from their competitors, reach out to me! I’ll do the calling!
-If the client is at the end of his/her rope…and if they’ve looked everywhere for the perfect candidate…
I might be the solution! I might be aware of the person for which you have been combing the earth!

by Alexis Grant

The digital revolution may have changed the hiring game, but for most applicants, the resume is not dead.
Candidates can now expect to be Googled and scoped out on social media, but in most cases employers still want a resume to learn about your skills, experience, and career path. A resume also makes it easy for them to make the case for hiring you to colleagues or bosses.
Here are five common misconceptions about resumes and how you should approach them during your job search:
1. It has to fit on one page. We’ve all been told at one time or another to keep our resume to one page, but this old standard no longer holds true. If you have enough experience to highlight on two pages, go for it.
Of course, if you’re new to the workforce, one page should suffice. But now that resumes are often entered into an applicant-tracking system, it’s more important than ever to include keywords that help the system match you to appropriate positions — and you might need more space to do that. This is even more essential to workers in certain technical fields who need to list, for example, fluency in multiple technical languages.
So experienced applicants, if you need the room to show how you’re the best candidate for the position, don’t be afraid of that second page.
2. You need an objective statement. Objective are out, professional summaries are in. As our blogger Alison Green often points out, objectives often don’t help your case, and they have the potential to hurt it. Hiring managers want to know you’re passionate about working for their company, not any company that fits your vague description.
A professional summary, on the contrary, allows whoever’s recruiting you to understand what you have to offer in a quick skim. It’s also an opportunity to present your experience in a way that applies to your goals and the company’s goals. Don’t just summarize what you’ve done; take it a step further and show what you have to offer the company you want to work for.
“Companies who are interviewing you don’t care about your objective, they care about their objective,” says Tony Beshara, a recruiter and author of Unbeatable Resumes. He advises against both an objective and a summary on a resume and says job seekers should dive right into experience.
3. You have to include all of your past experience. A friend who’s looking for a new job after only a few months with her current company asked me recently whether she needs to include the last few months on her resume. Here’s what I told her: You don’t have to include anything on your resume. What you include is up to you.
Everything you write on your resume has to be true, of course, but omitting certain positions that won’t help you get your next job and replacing them with experience that will put you in a better light is not only acceptable, it’s smart. Your resume is your chance to tell your career story, so weave that story in a way that’s beneficial to you.
In this case, the friend would likely have to explain a gap in employment if she left off her most recent job, which might be a good reason to include it. But nothing has to be on your resume.
4. Once you send it in, you’re off the hook until you hear back. With a crowded job market, following up is more important than ever. Even if the company asks you not to follow up with a phone call or email, you have plenty of other options. Research the company on their website, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and look for ways to connect with employees. Figure out where those employees hang out online or in person. Contact them in a non-annoying way, establish what you have in common, and you might earn an “in” with the company.
You can also research the hiring manager specifically. And if the company has a Facebook page or Twitter feed, interact with them there. Your goal is to come across as interested and enthusiastic, but not desperate. Failing to follow up after submitting your resume is a sure-fire way to let it disappear into a black hole.
5. It has to look interesting to catch a hiring manager’s eye. Yes, you want your resume to be interesting, but more in content than appearance. Aside from the content you choose to include, the next most important aspect of your resume is that it’s easy to read. De-cluttering, or getting rid of experience that’s not relevant or necessary, is one way to do this. Another is to use bold type, bullets, and plenty of white space.
For the average position, your resume is in competition with 110 others, Beshara says. “If it doesn’t hit them in the mouth real fast by having what you’ve done and who you’ve done it for [front and center], it gets passed over,” he says. “They move onto the next one.”

Company’s Q2 Partnerships Join an Impressive Base of 18,000 Restaurants Nationwide

Arlington Heights, IL (PRWEB) July 20, 2011
Restaurant.com announces the addition of six new restaurant chain locations to its rapidly growing program. The latest multi-unit partners include:
• Surg Restaurant Group – Restaurant.com is excited to welcome Surg Restaurant Group’s creation, Distil, with a fourth location in the Milwaukee metro area.
• Nicky’s Mexican Restaurants – Adding a creative Mexican taste from Louisiana, Restaurant.com welcomes seven Nicky’s Mexican Restaurants to the mix.
• Giordano’s – Serving Chicago’s Famous Stuffed Pizza for more than 35 years, Giordano’s has added its Rosemont, Ill. location to the Restaurant.com program.
• Tara Thai – The word “Tara” means water, commonly found in Thai folk literature. Tara Thai restaurants offer a unique and relaxing atmosphere, featuring a variety of underwater art. Seven east coast Tara Thai restaurants are now on the Restaurant.com program.
• Shula’s – Providence, R.I. is now home to the 13th Shula’s chain location on the Restaurant.com program. Named in honor of legendary NFL coach Don Shula, Shula’s 347 Grill offers everything from gourmet salads to fresh specialty fish, and exclusively serves Premium Black Angus Beef® burgers and steaks.
• Levy – Loft 610 in Omaha, Neb. is now the second Levy Restaurant location on the Restaurant.com program. Chef Ben invites customers to gaze out at Turner Park or cozy up to the warm glow of the stunning wine wall.
• Leona’s & The Hop Haus – Under the same multi-unit operation, Leona’s and Hop Haus have 14 Chicagoland locations on the Restaurant.com program. Both restaurants take pride in their cozy, family-owned atmospheres.

“Creating partnerships with chain restaurants is an exciting venture,” says Restaurant.com CEO, Cary Chessick. “Restaurant.com brings family and friends together, helping deepen relationships and create lasting memories one dining experience at a time.”

“Restaurant.com has certainly increased the exposure of Leona’s Restaurants and the Hop Haus to the city of Chicago and beyond,” says Marc Fishman, Leona’s and Hop Haus Marketing Manager. “With over 2.5 million appearances in search results, and thousands of tables filled, Restaurant.com has been instrumental in bringing first time customers to our business. Survey results have provided us with ‘spotters’ at all our locations, helping keep our operation team vigilant while increasing customer satisfaction across the board.”

Each new Restaurant.com partner has a custom web page on Restaurant.com, featuring a personalized description of the restaurant. The profile includes type of cuisine, menu items, décor, pricing, and hours of operation for each participating location. Restaurant.com partners benefit from the program’s extensive marketing efforts, which create greater exposure and increase customer traffic. The company never sends its restaurant partners a bill, only hungry diners.

The Restaurant.com program supplies restaurant operators with recurring custom reports that combine data from each chain location. Operators can evaluate total and individual location-specific program results with information such as profit estimates, number of tables filled, web page traffic and more. Restaurant.com also sends surveys to guests to collect feedback about their dining experiences. The survey data can be used to help modify menu items, improve and reward service, plus support in-house incentive and loyalty marketing programs. The company also includes consultative marketing services that reveal best practices, lessons learned and tips for more effective interactive marketing.

Restaurant.com has nearly 500 chain locations among its rapidly growing network of more than 18,000 restaurants nationwide. In 2010, the company filled more than five million tables across the country and generated more than $340 million in revenue for the restaurant industry.

Restaurant.com helps deepen relationships and create lasting memories one dining experience at a time. The company offers savings at more than 18,000 restaurants nationwide with more than 45,000 daily gift certificate options. Restaurant.com brings family and friends together to relax, converse and enjoy dining out. Restaurant.com customers have saved more than $500 million since the Arlington Heights, Ill.-based company was founded in 1999.

Gerry Oher
Restaurant.com

Dear Candidates,

Do you stress over taking online assessments? I used to give the Thurstone Test, (110 questions in 20 minutes timed ) for all my candidates.  The test does not care how many questions you get wrong, but rather how many you get right. ………. Many candidates don’t do well on timed assessments because they get stuck on a question or spend too much time on each question, because they want to make sure it is correct…. and then time runs out ….so maybe they only get to answer only a portion of the questions. Lets say you answer up to question number 71 out of 110 questions, so what does that mean? Well that means time runs out and you didn’t answer 39 questions….

If you left 39 questions unanswered, then, you, the candidate has a 0% chance on getting any of those questions right which could be the difference of getting an offer and not getting an offer. So, I suggest that for a timed portion on the test, approach it this way and your chances of getting an offer might increase significantly. Here is the answer to the test!!

•  The goal is to finish the test no matter what… So, if you have a 20 minute timed assessment test, set a timer or your watch to let you know at the 19 minute point,…you only have 1 minute left, and you should stop and just guess at all the remaining questions. Yes, just guess, and make sure there is an answer in each of the questions so you finish the test. The choices are usually A,B, C, D, options and you actually have a 25% chance of getting the answer right on the remaining 39 questions which is better than 0% if they are left unanswered… ( This is based on my experience from the corporate level and the candidate level)

 For candidates that ask me what type of questions they ask on the personality profile test, I am give this scenario as a question to open their mind: ( just an opinion)

Question: 1

 Is it better for a restaurant to have :

1.  Great Food
2.  Great Service
3. Great Location
4. Great Manager

 What would you think? ( no right or wrong answer here ) but here is my answer:

 I get a variety of answers, none of which were my answer. Usually of the candidates that I started asking this to, they say 1) Great Food or 2) great service…. I say great, because they are great answers!! Some candidates have asked me my answer and I tell them there is no right or wrong answer because every company has different skills and expectations that they are looking for……. but my answer would be… 4) a Great Manager

 Candidates say really, why? I say, because in my opinion, if you’re a great manager, you can control what hourly staff gets hired, you can train the cooks to make sure the food  is great, and you can train the servers to give great service. Being a great manager allows you to manage the process.

There is No right or wrong answer here, just different viewpoints to consider prior to taking an assessment…

 Anyway, just sharing some thoughts!!

Best Regards

Chef Dennis

Restaurant chains are starting to remove salary freezes in an effort to recruit and retain employees.

After two years of salary freezes, restaurant chains are starting to increase employee pay in an effort to secure their loyalty, according to a new survey by consulting firm Hay Group and the Chain Restaurant Compensation Association (CRCA).
The survey cites a projected median budget increase of 3 percent for all restaurant employee groups in 2011, slightly above the projected 2.8 percent increase in general industry.
The salary increase for chain restaurants was 2 percent in 2010, when 30 percent of the surveyed chains reported a salary freeze. None of the 39 CRCA organizations in the most recent survey reported a complete freeze for this year.

Tom McMullen, CRCA vice president, says the projected 3 percent increase in salaries reflects a general increase in confidence in the restaurant industry.
“The increase is driven by a relatively healthier economy in general and in the restaurant sector in particular,” says McMullen, citing increases in restaurant traffic and revenue in 2010 over 2008 and 2009, when the economy was in a historic tailspin.
While the 3 percent increase is still behind prerecession numbers—salary increases were 3.5 percent in 2006 and 2007 and 3.1 percent in 2008—it represents a significant improvement over last year and a sign that restaurants are feeling more optimistic after the recession, McMullen says.
“If you look 12 months ago, the chain restaurant business wasn’t in as good shape,” McMullen says. “2009 and 2010 were the low points of the last 10 years. So we aren’t fully back to where we were, but at least [the level of salary increase] is heading north from where it was.”
“The industry is obviously in competition with other industries for employees, so compensation and benefit levels have to remain competitive.”

Still, not every chain restaurant is on board with lifting its salary freeze; none of the fast food chains interviewed for this article had lifted an implemented freeze this year.
El Pollo spokeswoman Julie Weeks wrote in an e-mail that the 400-unit chain’s salary freeze will remain in place “as of now … [but] that may change.”
Other quick-serve chains might also need to change their position on salary freezes soon; one reason for lifting a freeze, McMullen says, is concern among restaurant chains that they will lose employees if they don’t increase their salaries.
“A lot of organizations that enacted a salary freeze in 2009 were loath to do that in 2010 and 2011,” he says. “It’s much more palatable to have a salary freeze for one year. Companies that are forced to do that two years in a row jeopardize employee engagement levels and really jeopardize employee retention levels.”

The prospect of mass quitting may be small, with national employment down 7 million jobs from before the recession. But the labor market is improving—national employment grew by 2 million jobs in the last 14 months—and restaurants once again need to worry about retaining their workforce, says National Restaurant Association senior vice president of research Hudson Riehle.
“It is not surprising that industry hiring growth has accelerated and salary levels are increasing as the general economic condition firms up,” Riehle says. “The industry is obviously in competition with other industries for employees, so compensation and benefit levels have to remain competitive.”
Before the recession put millions of people out of work, recruitment and retention were the restaurant industry’s perennial top challenges, Riehle says. And as the labor market slowly improves, he says there needs to be “a recognition within the restaurant industry of the importance of developing career paths for employees.”
This, in turn, will help the restaurant industry recover from the recession years, Riehle says, citing the “strong correlation between length of tenure and increased sales per square foot.”
In the here and now, the increased pay for chain-restaurant employees is a sign that the restaurant industry expects sustained, if slow, business growth, at least in 2011.
Until then, it serves as a reminder that the general economy, including the restaurant industry, continues to absorb the effects of the Great Recession.

“There is still a long way to go,” Riehle says.