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Manager Job Interview: You Can Stand Out

There are many ways that a restaurant manager can stand out in the job interview. This blog has covered this topic, but I wanted to cover some of the more unexpected ways to stand out.

Ignore Online Blogs

Too many online blogs repeat the same information. This repetition makes it seem like they know the right way to handle a job interview. Unfortunately, many of these blog articles are just copying each other because the authors are not familiar with the hospitality industry, or the responsibility of the HR` manager who is conducting the job interview.

Good Hire vs Bad Hire

First, you need to determine whether you are a good hire. What is this company looking for?

  1. What money can you make the restaurant or hotel?
  2. Can you reduce waste?
  3. Can you improve customer retention?
  4. Can you reduce employee turnover, bring training ‘in house’, improve employee performance and moral?
  5. Are you a natural at marketing?

The company will invest a lot of money into you – can you repay that money and earn a profit? I’ve had several management candidates state that they can reduce employee turnover by 15%. I asked them to do the math, and that only covered 35% of their salary. Okay, so what else do they have to offer the company.

Management candidates are not hired to manage people and do paperwork. They are hired to keep the business profitable. If you are unaware of how much you are saving/costing the company then how can you ‘sell’ yourself?

Know Your Topics

You told the job interviewer that you can lower employee turnover. Can you show how you did it? HR managers are skilled at their job. If you cannot describe an event with detail, dates, and people (not full names) then you probably didn’t have much impact on the success of the project.

If you are good at employee retention then you can, not only, describe your employee welcome gift, but you can discuss how your employee welcome package has evolved, what worked and what didn’t. You can describe what is in the welcome package, what works, and what doesn’t work.

If you have created the handbook you can discuss employment laws, what wrongful dismissal is, or what toxic communication is. In fact, you probably have a sanitized ‘blueprint’ of your employee manual. I even have a few ‘old’ copies so that I can show the job interviewer how my manual has improved as I studied employment laws, life coaching, and employee empowerment.

Job Interview Questions

All management candidates are told to practice their interview questions so they come smooth and easily. We have an article that goes into this topic in more depth, but I want to mention the topic here.

Write out all your answers to interview questions. Then ask yourself ‘how’, ‘when’, and ‘why’. Never accept your first answer. In fact, keep working on your answers, researching, until each answer is about 1 page long. Then, if you have time, study so that you can back up your claims.

Example:

Job Interviewer, “‘How do you handle employee complaints.”

Management Candidate #1: “I am a good active listener. I allow employees to meet their emotional needs.” On many of the job interview sites this is an acceptable answer. It uses the right catch words and gives the job interviewer the information needed.

Management Candidate #2, “Employees have an 8 question form to fill out. This gives me the opportunity to learn whether they are visual, auditory, or hands on. Once I know this I try to approach the employee and communicate in their style. I lead them to give me more information, looking for the cause’ of the conflict, not just the symptoms. Using this information, I coach them, giving them the opportunity to identify their own needs, and find a workable solution to the problem that they own, as long as it fits within the workplace environment and company guidelines.”

Both employees said the exact same thing. Candidate #1, ‘tells’ you what they would do, but doesn’t give you any indication that they have the skills needed to accomplish the task. Candidate #2  gives you the impression that they are describing a situation which really happened, and they are talking you through from problem to solution.

Secret to Standing Out

The secret to standing out in a job interviewer is being able to explain to the company what you can do for ‘them’, what you can do for investors, how you can decrease their work load, and increase profits.

 

Read More: How to Stand Out in a Job Interview

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