Restaurant Manager Resume & Cover Letter Guide (w/ Tips, Examples)

Before serving up diners your best service, you need to convince the owner that you're the best personnel to run the place by serving the most outstanding restaurant manager resume. 

Either at a fast food joint or a Michelin star-awarded restaurant, a restaurant manager is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operation, training new employees, ensuring a positive customer experience, and making sure the fiscal health of the establishment.

In order to become an excellent restaurant manager who is able to lead the restaurant to success, one has to showcase exemplary leadership, communication, multitasking, and firm decision-making skills, just to name a few. 

Writing a unique restaurant manager resume could be challenging, it needs to cover all your skills and work experiences and still manage to impress the recruiter in a split second.

We understand that crafting a resume sometimes can be overwhelming and takes a lot of time because most of us aren't quite sure where to start. There are 6 crucial steps and let us break them down for you.

Depending on where you are on the globe, the terms CV (curriculum vitae) and resume might refer to different things. Thus, one has to pay attention to what is requested. 

Usually, for a restaurant manager position application, recruiters ask for a brief and most relevant summary of your skills and experiences, which is called a restaurant manager resume.

Meanwhile, comprehensive and extended information of your work history and skill sets is called a restaurant manager CV. A CV is rarely requested for a job application because it could be more than two pages and recruiters normally scan through applications within seconds.

Ideally, you want a format that serves your skills and experiences the fastest in the best way possible to the hand of the restaurant owner. As someone who bears many responsibilities, avoid elaborating on the generic restaurant manager duties on your resume, and put the focus on the accomplishments met instead. 

Leave no stone unturned!

Go on the internet and search for restaurant manager resume examples (or restaurant manager CV samples). The purpose is to paint a picture of how the end result should look like. 

Submitting a generic resume might be the easiest and fastest way to get your application reviewed, but it definitely is not the most effective and high-yielding option. Like any other employers, restaurant owners like to know that the person they trust most to run their business has a deep understanding of the restaurant and its value, vision, and mission.

To increase one’s chance and make the cut, one should always craft their restaurant manager resume to align with the job description, required skills, and experiences.

If a resume is a tool to market the jobseeker's value and skills, an application letter (a.k.a. cover letter) is an apparatus to sell and seal the deal, as it might decide if one lands an interview or not. 

Jobseekers are able to elaborate on one of the achievements mentioned on the resume in the cover letter. Therefore, the tone of a restaurant manager's cover letter should be persuasive and supportive of the resume.

Comparable to a food expeditor's duty, the submitted restaurant manager resume and cover letter should be free from grammar mistakes, irrelevant word choices, and spelling errors. Additionally, any information included should be true, updated, and relevant.

1. Resume Header

The essential personal information that should be included is no less and no more than:

• Full name
• Professional email address
• Phone number

2. Resume Headline

The function of a resume headline is to let readers know in a glimpse where you are on a professional level and is placed under the applicant's name.

3. Resume Summary

Regardless of how impressive your work history and skills are, the restaurant manager resume summary section can be the make or break. This short paragraph should entail the most notable achievement and strongest skills relevant to a restaurant manager position. 

4. Resume Objective

This section is to emphasize what you seek in the new role.

5. Skills

A restaurant manager resume skills list is not only a fraction of the resume itself. Aside from work experience, recruiters put a lot of consideration into candidates' skill sets before inviting them for an interview. 

On a restaurant manager's resume, one could either point out one’s strongest skill that sets them apart from the competition or the highly required skill.

To keep up with the job, a blend of soft skills and practical skills is required, just like the below example:

Tip #1

Make some tweaks and tailor the restaurant manager resume according to the posting. Each restaurant has its preferred qualifications. In order to appeal to the hiring team, the jobseeker should consider adjusting the resume, be it the writing style or which skill to put on top.

Tip #2 

Consider this, the content of a restaurant general manager resume and restaurant floor manager resume will be slightly different because each role requires different expertise.
Slip in the keywords related to the job description and job posting into your restaurant manager resume to increase the chance of getting an interview.

Tip #3

Use quantifiable data in the form of percentages or statistics when describing your achievements. Numbers allow a more definite illustration for the recruiters to measure a candidate's ability.

Tip #4 

Present your application in an ATS-friendly format, which means submitting a restaurant manager resume pdf and leave the MS Word file for your own viewing.

Tip #5 

Choose your words carefully by selecting action verbs to elaborate on your accomplishments and duties. You want to appear as someone with a strong initiative on your restaurant manager resume.

Tip #6 

Focus on achievements instead of explaining previous work responsibilities.

One more thing to make your job application complete is to write a cover letter. We've prepared a comprehensive guide for ,a href="https://www.cakeresume.com/resources/restaurant-manager-resume">writing a cover letter for restaurant manager position for you to refer, but here are the five basic items to keep in mind.