Your First Waitress Resume – No Previous Work Experience

Why you need a great resume.

Picture yourself already as a waitress.  You’ve been there for a year and it’s time for your annual review.  During the past year, you’ve done a great job and your manager is thrilled with your work ethics.  He can give you an awesome review because he has seen your work.

Now, getting back to your resume – the manager doesn’t know you from the other 100 people who have applied for the waitress position.  Where does he/she start?  Why should they select you?

This is where your great waitress resume comes into play.  The hiring manager must be able to visualize you in the position based on what you have written on your resume.

Sounds simple right?  Think again…

Sure you have good qualities and skills that would effectively serve your employer.  However, a resume is just a snapshot of your life and how it will benefit the company.  Problem is… all this needs to be on a single sheet of paper (2 pages at the most).

It’s a known fact that most managers sift through resumes in a similar fashion. And the mojority will end up in the trash can or buried deep in the back of a file cabinet.

Here are some reasons why they end up in the trash -

• Too long
• Doesn’t make sense
• Too hyped up
• Unprofessional
• Childish
• Too many grammatical errors
• Too many mis-spelled words
• Difficult to ready

and much more…

Basically a manager doesn’t have time to read thoroughly through all the resumes that come across their desk.  So if you don’t pass the “glance” test, you won’t be a candidate.

I myself as a manager look for these things -

• Neatness
• Professional looking
• Easy to read
• Good grammar
• Good spelling

and those are just to pass the “glance” test or first round of elimination.

Why are these points important?  Remember, the manager doesn’t know you.  You could be the best employee ever, but if it’s too difficult to read what you are about.  Then the manager feels you would be a difficult employee to supervise.  That’s why it’s imperative to have a clean resume.

Once the stack of resumes have been sifted through the 2nd round of elimination takes place.

This is where your experiences, education, skills, objective and references come into play.

Since this may be you first real job, your resume qill need to focus more on your qualities and skills. Most managers realize that entry level positions usually have applicants with little to no work experience.

So what could you possibly write that would persuade a manager to hire you?

They want someone who is

• Honest
• Friendly
• Courteous
• Faithful
• Loyal
• Dependable
• Quick learner
• Prompt
• Independent
• Even tempered
• Forgiving
• Energetic
• Motivated

So consider these terms and how you have proved these points thorugh paste activities.

I’ll go over resume format or layout in another post. I just wanted to emphasize the importance of a quality resume and how important it is to put some thought into it before just submitting anything.

If the place you are seeking a waitress position is a corporate company, they may have a Human Resources department.  What they do is sift through the applications and resumes and file them according.  When a location has an open position then they forward the relevant resumes to the hiring manager.

In other words, your waitress resume would only be sent to the manager if you stated that you are seeking a waitress position.

In the next post, we’ll dive deeper into the parts of a resume.

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