About the job

Restaurant Waiter / Waitress

Take orders and serve food and beverages to patrons at tables in dining establishment.

Top activities and tasks for this job:

• Take orders from patrons for food or beverages.
• Check with customers to ensure that they are enjoying their meals and take action to correct any problems.
• Check patrons' identification to ensure that they meet minimum age requirements for consumption of alcoholic beverages.
• Collect payments from customers.
• Write patrons' food orders on order slips, memorize orders, or enter orders into computers for transmittal to kitchen staff.
• Prepare checks that itemize and total meal costs and sales taxes.
• Present menus to patrons and answer questions about menu items, making recommendations upon request.
• Remove dishes and glasses from tables or counters and take them to kitchen for cleaning.

The Restaurant Waiter / Waitress Pre-Employment Assessment was designed to help you hire staff in this role. The test provides a whole-person evaluation by measuring job-relevant cognitive ability, personality, knowledge, skills, and relevant behavioral history. Each component provides important data for hiring decisions. Cognitive ability has been linked to overall job performance in most jobs and correlates with a candidate's ability to learn new skills and to solve complex problems. Personality characteristics determine how well the candidate will fit-in with a corporate culture. Knowledge and skills indicate how much training will be needed before a new employee becomes productive. Finally, relevant behavioral history detects counter-productive behaviors that can impact job performance.

The Restaurant Waiter / Waitress test includes an animated work simulation in which candidates meet customers, colleagues and supervisors in a job-related context. Post-test surveys indicate the majority of candidates react favorably to these simulations.

The specific attributes measured include:

Following completion, the test produces a Candidate Selection Report that includes an overall score and detailed scores for each attribute. The overall score weighs each of the factors based on research and analysis from the U.S. Government's Occupational Information Network (O*Net). O*Net represents over a decade of dedicated research evaluating the relative importance of various factors that lead to success in almost 1,000 different job roles.

The Candidate Selection Report also provides expert interview questions that help you probe critical or low-scoring areas, along with a guide for noting your evaluation of the candidate's responses. Consistent use of an interview guide is an important part of gaining better candidate insights and making better hiring decisions.