

Most high-end restaurant jobs have longer waiting lists than Damon Baehrel. Stand out from the casual crowd with an upscale fine dining resume and get your dream job!
Looking for a job in a fine dining establishment?
Good for you!
There are plenty of benefits that come with working in a high-end restaurant, whether you’re front- or back-of-house. There are networking and career development opportunities, ambitious, passionate people on your team, prestige—
And of course, an impressive salary.
Unfortunately, with plenty of benefits comes plenty of competition. How can you make sure that the restaurant will call you in for an interview, out of the hundreds of applicants?
Easy—
Serve them a fine dining resume more unique and exclusive than a dinner at Le Bernardin!
This guide will show you:
Want to save time and have your resume ready in 5 minutes? Try our resume builder. It’s fast and easy to use. Plus, you’ll get ready-made content to add with one click. See 20+ resume templates and create your resume here.
Fine dining resume made with our builder—See more resume templates here.
Keeping your options open? Check out our guides for other positions:
Ida Williams
Server
804-493-8637
ida.t.williams@gmail.com
linkedin.com/in/ida.t.williams
Summary
Proven fine dining server with 8+ years of experience and excellent customer service skills. At Ferier, reduced the table clear and reset time by 50% and maintained a 98% customer satisfaction rate. 6-time employee of the month at Bareal. Eager to provide uniquely luxurious dining experiences for Cabara’s guests and apply my expertise towards maintaining your restaurant’s impeccable reputation.
Experience
Fine dining server
Ferier
September 2018–June 2021
Key Qualifications & Responsibilities
Key Achievement:
Server
Bareal Food & Wine
June 2014–September 2018
Key Achievement:
Education
Springfield High School, Springfield, IL
Graduated in 2014
Skills
Languages
This is how to write a perfect fine dining resume:
Presentation is everything. You wouldn’t expect to start your first shift at a Michelin-starred restaurant in jeans and a t-shirt, right?
Of course not—
You’d wear a fancy uniform that would make you instantly recognizable as a high-end professional.
It’s the same with your resume: first impressions matter, so it’s crucial to get the layout of your resume just right.
Here’s how to format your fine dining resume:
Well done!
Your new resume is sleek and elegant like the Eleven Madison Park cocktail menu. When you save your document, keep in mind that the best resume format to submit is a PDF—though some restaurants may ask for a Word Doc resume instead.
Still not sure about your table setting? Read more: How to Format a Resume: Best Resume Formats & Samples
Here’s some food for thought:
When you walk into a restaurant as a customer, you can instantly tell whether it’s a unique, upscale place or a generic diner.
It’s the same with resumes: recruiters spend just a few seconds deciding whether to keep reading or move on.
So—
This is where your resume career profile comes in.
Sometimes called a resume profile or an introduction, this short paragraph just below the header should grab the reader’s attention and immediately show that you’re a high-end professional.
There are two types of career profiles:
And here’s what to include in your career profile:
Creating the perfect career profile can be tough. If you’re having trouble, leave your resume introduction for dessert. Complete the rest of your resume first—it’ll be much easier to compose an intro once you know your ingredients!
Appetizers not quite ready to serve? Read more: Resume Introduction: Guide, Examples, and Expert Tips
The work experience section of your resume is arguably its most important part. Get it right, and you’ll get more reservations than The French Laundry. Get it wrong, and your resume will be discarded faster than you can say turn and burn.
Here’s how to add experience to your resume:
If you have lots of experience to share, make sure you tailor your resume to the specific role. A fine dining server job description for a resume will be different from a hostess resume, after all!
Read more: What Counts as Relevant Experience for a Resume?
For most non-managerial positions in fine dining restaurants, a degree is not necessary—
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t mention it on your resume.
Simply list your highest level of education, complete with the name of the school/college and the dates of attendance or graduation.
If you’re writing a resume with no work experience, expand more on your academic experiences. You could talk about:
Want to see a demo? Check here: How to Put Education on a Resume: Guide and Examples
It’s a good idea to list your best professional skills in a separate section—
It shows your understanding of the job requirements and helps ATS software make sense of your resume.
Here’s how to come up with a great list of skills for a fine dining resume:
Cleared and reset! Those are the skills to put on your fine dining resume.
And here’s a specific example, based on a fine dining server job description:
When making a resume in our builder, drag & drop bullet points, skills, and auto-fill the boring stuff. Spell check? Check. Start building a professional resume template here for free.
When you’re done, Zety’s resume builder will score your resume and tell you exactly how to make it better.
Hey!
It’s almost closing time!
Just one more step—
Include some additional sections on your resume, such as:
None of these are essential, but giving your resume a bit of comp treatment could give you the edge you need to outperform the competition.
Are hobbies and interests on a resume a bad menu choice? Not necessarily. Read more: How to Put Hobbies on a Resume: Examples of Best Hobbies to Use
Resumes and cover letters are like foie gras and Côtes de Gascogne:
Sure, you could have one without the other, but why on earth would you want to?
In all seriousness, sending an application without a cover letter could ruin your chances of getting your dream job. As our HR stats show, almost half of recruiters will only consider applications that include a cover letter!
So, here’s how to write the perfect cover letter:
There’s no need to overdo it: the optimal cover letter length is under one page.
Plus, a great cover letter that matches your resume will give you an advantage over other candidates. You can write it in our cover letter builder here. Here's what it may look like:
See more cover letter templates and start writing.
Check, please!
That’s it—
If there was a Michelin rating for fine dining resumes, yours would get an instant three stars!
Thanks for reading! Was writing a fine dining resume easier than you expected, or perhaps more difficult? Are you writing a fine dining resume for a waitress job? Or bartender? Maybe you can offer some advice of your own? Drop us a line in the comments below!
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