A great attitude
Your most qualified candidate might have passed all the relevant exams and done all the right courses, but they could also be a qualified disaster. The wrong attitude can undo every last bit of learning when push comes to shove in a hectic restaurant. So interrogate your candidates from all angles, including the unseen ones; the ones beneath the surface. If certain behavioural buttons will be pushed on the job, find ways to push them in the interview process.
The right attitude
This is allied to but quite different to a great attitude. The right attitude is about fit. Unless you're a start up, you have an existing group of personalities acting as a team, a team that forms the culture of your restaurant. So does your new recruit fit that culture? Analyse their personality traits and make a good guessimate as to whether they are likely to mix. If not they’ll be flies in the soup of your staff culture.
Stickability
An applicant with a dozen previous restaurant positions to their credit might seem experienced, but pay close attention to the durations of each; they may have a long history of short stays. Any CV that reads like a supermarket receipt should be viewed with caution and close scrutiny. Your seemingly experienced candidate may either be a prolific deserter or the recipient of serial sackings.
Ambition
Do you want your kitchen hand to have horizons extending no further than the dish racks? Kitchen hands don't generally have qualifications, but that doesn't mean they can't have ambition and ability beyond the menial. Employ people who want to grow into better roles and you’ll create a driven culture of progress and promotion from within.
Flexibility
Rigidity is fine for girders, but your restaurant employees need to be Play Dough, constantly remoulding to match the circumstances hour by hour, day by day. Dealing with quiet nights requires a mindset. Dealing with frantic nights requires a different mindset. Private functions, happy hours, lunches, dinners, weekdays, weekends, work days, holidays, Valentines, Christmas, Halloween; they'll all create a different dynamic for staff to deal with, and that means the ability to adapting to different occasions is important.
Honesty
It kind of goes without saying, but how do you gauge honesty in a job interview? Gut feeling is a good start, but plenty of people are charmers and cobras rolled into one. Eye contact when answering pertinent questions is a decent gauge. But better still, catch them off guard. Ask them what they least like about their CV. Ask them their pet hates, their most embarrassing work-related moment. Those that are comfortably transparent in their own skin will be happy to divulge, and they are the ones you can probably trust.
A thick skin
Again, it probably goes without saying, but if your chef is from the Gordon Ramsay School of Etiquette, your staff will need to be graduates of Boot Camp. If you seek a more laid back, volatility-free environment, hire a chef who allows for more flexible recruitment elsewhere.
