Waiter / Waitress CV Example

How to write a waiter CV summary

Your summary is three or four lines at the top of the page. It should tell a restaurant manager what type of service you know, how much you can handle and what you want next. A strong summary for a waiter or waitress covers:

• Type of venue: casual dining, gastropub, hotel restaurant, fine dining, café, banqueting or events. Managers hire for similar service styles first.
• Volume: the size of the restaurant in covers or seats, and how many tables you run on a busy night.
• What you can do without being shown: wine service, carrying three plates, silver service, coffee, cocktails, card and cash payments on a particular EPOS.
• Your next step: another waiting role, head waiter, supervisor or assistant restaurant manager.

Skip lines like friendly and outgoing team player. Every applicant writes them. A manager learns far more from runs a section of eight tables in a 120-cover restaurant.

What to put in your experience section

For each job, give the venue type and size in one line, then three to five bullets. Hospitality managers know the job description of a waiter, so your bullets should show how busy it was and what you did well.

• Covers and section size: covers per service, tables per section, sittings per night, breakfast numbers in a hotel.
• Sales: average spend per head, wine or dessert sales, specials you pushed, any upselling target you beat. Tips are personal and don't belong on a CV.
• Service quality: review scores, mystery diner results, guest comments named in team meetings.
• Responsibility: opening and closing, cashing up, leading the shift, training new staff, taking bookings.
• Events: weddings, private dining, conferences and banqueting, with guest numbers.

If you have worked short summer seasons or several venues at once, group them under one heading such as Seasonal waiting roles, 2018–2020 with a single bullet per venue. That keeps the page tidy without hiding the experience.

Food safety, allergens and alcohol training

Front-of-house staff are expected to know allergen procedures and basic food safety, so show your training clearly in a certificates section with the year you completed each one.

• Food safety: a basic food safety or food hygiene certificate, such as a Level 2 Food Hygiene certificate in the UK or a primary food safety course in Ireland.
• Allergens: any allergen awareness course. Restaurants across the EU and UK must give customers information on the 14 regulated allergens, and managers like to hire servers who already know how to check and record them.
• Alcohol: responsible serving or age-verification training, and a personal licence if you hold one, since it can make you eligible for supervisor shifts in bars and restaurants that sell alcohol.
• Wine and drinks: WSET Level 1 or 2, a barista course or cocktail training. These help most in hotel and fine-dining applications.

If you don't have a certificate yet, many employers will train you in your first week. Say you are happy to complete it rather than leaving the section out.

Skills that restaurant managers look for

Split your skills into service skills and the way you work under pressure. Be specific about service: silver service, wine service and decanting, carrying three plates, barista coffee or Lightspeed and Square EPOS are much more useful than customer service.

For the softer side, choose things that matter on a busy floor: keeping calm when the kitchen is backed up, reading a table to know when to approach, handling a complaint before it reaches the manager, and working smoothly with runners, bartenders and the pass. If you speak other languages, list them with your level. In tourist areas and hotels, a second language often decides between two similar candidates.

Length, layout and availability

One page is enough for most waiting staff, and two pages only if you have many years including supervisory roles. Use a clean layout with your phone number at the top, since many managers ring rather than email to arrange a trial shift. A photo is optional and depends on the country; in the UK and Ireland it is usually left off.

Hospitality managers plan rotas weeks ahead, so add one line about availability if it helps: Available evenings and weekends, full-time including split shifts or summer season from June. If the advert mentions a particular style, such as fine dining or high-volume brunch, move your most similar job and the matching bullets to the top before you send it.

Waiter CV summary examples

Waiter CV bullet point examples

• Ran a section of eight tables in a 140-cover restaurant, serving up to 90 covers on Saturday night across two sittings.
• Increased dessert and coffee sales on my section by 22% in three months by describing the specials at the end of every main course.
• Trained nine new servers on the EPOS, table numbers and allergen checks, cutting their time to working a full section alone from three weeks to ten days.
• Served silver-service dinners for weddings and corporate events of up to 220 guests, coordinating course timings with the kitchen and the events manager.
• Acted as allergen champion for the front of house, checking every flagged order with the pass; no allergen incidents were recorded during my two years in the role.
• Opened and closed the restaurant four days a week, including cashing up two tills and completing the end-of-day report with no unexplained variances.
• Achieved 94% and 97% in two mystery diner visits, the highest scores in the group's six restaurants that quarter.
• Handled breakfast service for up to 200 hotel guests on peak weekends while keeping table turnaround under 40 minutes.
• Recommended wines from a 60-bin list after completing WSET Level 2, raising average spend per head on my tables from €52 to €60.

Skills for your Waiter CV