Interviewing for Catering jobs

Interviewing for catering jobs is no different to interviewing in any other sector in that there are a few basic things to consider in preparing for an occasion which may effect the rest of your life.

Lets look first at some human facts which apply when you first meet people, and the implications for inteviews.

• First impressions really do last. Whatever they, and you see when you enter the room, and beofre anyone speaks, will influence feelings towards each other for long after diolgue starts.

• To amplify this with an example, if your shirt has a huge coffee stain on it, and this is what they see first, your potential employers head will have filled with all sorts of negative judgements before you have chance to speak, even perhaps to explain than someone just spilt coffee on you while you were waiting. You need to make sure that when you make your entrance, you are smart and clean ( personal hyegiene is imperative for catering jobs) and you are wearing your best smile.

• Interviews for catering jobs are formal affairs. ALL interviews are formal affairs. Never make any assumptions otherwise. You should be dressed for a formal meeting and your manner should be formal, no slang, no bad language, no matter how relaxed your interviewer makes you feel.

• Do your homework. Recruiting managers want someone is is REALLY keen for THEIR catering jobs, not just someone who 'wants a jobs'. To demonstrate this, do your homework on their company. How big are they in terms of staff, perhaps turnover. What are they good, how do they sell themsleves against their competition. Do they have a particular mission statement? All this sort of thing is often on company websites, make sure you read up on this to ensure you can back up claims that you REALLY want this job.

• Turn up on time. Interviewers see interviews as the tip of the iceberg, anything they see will get bigger. If you're late for your interview, it's not a great omen for the jobs itself! Leave yourself more than enough time to get to the venue.

• Document your history/experience. Whatever your backgeound is, whether it's in relevant catering jobs or other, document what you think is releavnt esperience. Employers will want as many examples as possible that you have the right skills for the job. You will make your interview much easier if you think of these in advance. Get hold of the job description in advance and come up with as many examples as you can of having do the necessary skills before.

And finally, don't panic, enjoy your meeting, there are plenty of catering jobs out there, if this one doesn't work out, there's plenty more fish in the sea.