Every business owner has hired a candidate who interviewed well but was a disappointment on the job. There are no methods that guarantee that your next hire will be your “employee of the year,” but as you staff your restaurant, you can ask some questions during the interview that will help gauge your new employees’ attitudes toward customers and work.

During job interviews, typically restaurant owners focus on the applicant’s experience, rather than his attitude toward customer service. Having worked in a restaurant is not enough to make a decision about whether to hire someone.

In his book, “Lessons in Service from Charlie Trotter,” author Edmund Lawler notes that premier Chicago restaurateur Charlie Trotter looks for more than experience in his servers. “He’s looking for passion and sincerity in a potential service employee,” writes Lawler. Trotter owns one of the most successful restaurants in the country, and he makes the right hire about three-quarters of the time, according to his estimates. Can you afford to have less than .750 batting average? You can learn a lot about how a potential employee approaches his employment, prepares for work, and interacts with customers by asking some questions like these during the interview:

What do you like most about working in a restaurant? If the answer is a shrug of the shoulders or “I really can’t think of anything,” save yourself some time and yell out, “Next!” The answer to this question will tell you how he or she views the job and how much enthusiasm a prospective employee is bringing to it and to your customers. Whether he’s a full-time worker or a student trying to make extra cash, he should still be able to say something spontaneous and positive about working in the hospitality industry. Bear in mind that you don’t have to demand perfect answers. Someone could say, “I like working with people” or “Every night is different.” Those are good answers, too.

Tell me about a time when you went beyond the call of duty for a customer. If you are interviewing someone who doesn’t have much experience, you can change this question and ask, “Give me an example of what you think would be going beyond the call of duty for a customer.” If the applicant is experienced, the anecdote will be revealing. Maybe he tracked down a customer to return a lost wallet or was the one and only waiter who could satisfy a particularly demanding customer.

Or maybe the anecdote would be something you don’t want to hear. A potential hire may give you an answer that sends a chill down your spine such as, “I let his credit card go through even though it was turned down because he told me he’d already mailed the bill in.” You be the judge, but the answer will tell you what the potential employee is willing to do for a customer and the attitude with which he does it.

How do you stay fresh when you are doing the same job over and over? Whether it’s working Sunday brunch week after week or as hostess five nights a week, every job has some elements of monotony. Customers can be challenging night after night, and even the best employees have to work to keep their enthusiasm high. You’re not looking for the perfect employee, and if someone tells you, “I just love work so much that every day I jump out of bed and sing all the way to work,” you could very well question his sincerity. It’s OK to admit that sometimes it’s difficult to stay fresh, but the applicant should be able to offer techniques he uses to keep himself positive about the job at hand.

Tell me about how you handled a difficult customer. The answer to this question will give you two insights into your applicant. First, you will hear how the applicant actually defines a “difficult customer.” Hopefully, it won’t be someone who “insisted on hearing the ingredients in our house salad” or “kept asking for water when we were short-staffed.” Is the applicant’s idea of a “difficult” customer simply a normal customer? You’ll learn a lot about the applicant by his appraisal of “difficult.” Second, you can analyze how your applicant approached the problem and possibly turned a bad situation into a good one.

Source: RestaurantOwner.com