Restaurant Manager Interview Guide

I've found that a considerable number of hiring managers are often lacking a purposeful direction during their restaurant manager interviews as evidenced by the questions they ask. Upon review of a candidate after an interview, some hiring managers have no concrete fix on whether the candidate can achieve the results needed in the position. For this reason, I have assembled the following guide to assist hiring managers to ask the questions that will leave them with something more than a good or bad feeling after an interview:

INTRODUCTION

1. Ask questions to help the candidate feel at ease about the interview, such as where they live, what activities they enjoy, upcoming holidays, and the weather.

2. Tell me about your current place of employment.
- What type of work do you do/title?
- What are your general areas of responsibility?

3. What are the three things in a work place that are most important to you?

DISCOVERY

4. Tell me specifically what you have accomplished in your current store:
- What are the three most important results you have achieved this year?
- How about last year?
- How about at your last two places of employment?

5. Draw an organizational chart of your current place of employment:
- Who do you report to?
- Tell me about your colleagues.
- Tell me about your direct reports.

6. Give me an example of a major problem you had to solve with your company.
- What was the issue?
- How did you resolve it?
- Who did you ask to help?
- What was the result and outcome? What was its significance?
- What were your three biggest obstacles?

7. This is what I am looking for you to achieve with this company (share with the candidate the top three performance outcomes of the position, in terms of measurable results).
- How would you go about accomplishing these outcomes?
- What resources would you need to do it?
- How would you measure your progress along the way?
- What action steps would you take?

8. Compensation: Where are you at? What range are you looking for?

CLOSURE

9. Based on what I shared with you, do you feel you can do the job?

10. What is your interest level, on a scale of 1 to 10, in this position?

11. What time frame are you looking at starting? When will you give notice?

12. Where else are you interviewing? Do you have any offers? How do you feel about them?

I hope this is helpful to hiring managers as they strive to improve their restaurant manager interview skills.

Brian Bruce, an author of multiple articles published online and in several industry trade publications, has been cited in multiple news stories as an authority in Executive Restaurant Recruiting. He's an Executive Restaurant Recruiter with HHB Restaurant Recruiting and recruits nationally. He can be reached at 405-361-7582 and by email at Brian@HeadHunterBrian.com.