5 Tips For Hiring Your Food Truck Catering Staff

One of the most important elements in offering food truck catering services is to know when and how to hire temporary or full time food truck catering staff. Hiring in the food service industry has always been a daunting task if you are not sure what your hiring needs are.

Some food truck owners have a basic full time staff which run the day to day operations while hiring others on a job by job basis depending on their projected workload and their schedule. Unfortunately, the food service industry has high turnaround rates, making it difficult to retain the best employees for temporary and part time catering staff.

Hiring Food Truck Catering Staff

Finding potential catering employees

This can be done by placing a help wanted ad in the newspaper, website (like Mobile Cuisine), inquiring at a local culinary or hospitality schools or using word of mouth. Hiring friends or family may present problems down the road, so this practice should be avoided if possible. It could create tension with other catering staff, and disrupt a team environment.

Selecting candidates for an interview

Look for potential candidates who have previous catering or food service experience. Also look at their employment history to see if they change jobs frequently or have large gaps in employment. It’s hard enough to train someone how you want things done, just to have them leave a week later. This only leaves you with starting the whole process over again.

Setting up interviews

Once you have your list of potential candidates, take one day and set up interviews. This ensures that you have set some quality time aside to give this task your full attention. Two days may be required due to candidate’s schedules, but if they really want the job, they will try to accommodate the date you set. If a candidate keeps rescheduling, this should be looked at as a red flag that they might not be the most reliable person to show up for those short notice gigs.

Conducting the interviews

Take note that this step is critical to the hiring process. Pay attention to all of the detail is needed. Read over candidate resumes before meeting with them. Take special notes of appearance, personality and their ability to relate to others. Hiring people who can relate to your catering customers is critical. If they can’t speak proper English or are not easily understood, you will get as frustrated as your customers will in dealing with them.

Post interview process

Never hire anyone on the spot. Always give yourself the opportunity to review all of your candidates before making any decisions. That last one you interview may be the perfect fit for the catering job. Always contact references and previous employers before making any job offers. This will help you make sure you just weren’t give a lot of lip service. Many candidates will tell you what you want to hear, rather than being honest about their own situation.

Post your food truck job openings at Food Truck Jobs.

The Bottom Line

It’s a tough job to hire food truck catering staff, and picking the right candidate can be challenging. It’s always a good idea to set aside some quality time for the interviewing process. It will help to avoid distractions and let you fully concentrate on finding the catering staff that best meets the needs of your mobile food business.

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