Head Waiter CV Examples & Writing Guide

An invented candidate with a believable path: runner and waiter, then waiter and trainer in a hotel restaurant, now head waiter running a section and the pre-service briefing. Notice that every job names covers, spend per head and the number of staff directed.

A general manager hiring a head waiter is filling a gap on the floor, not looking for a nice person. Four things settle it.

• The restaurant you came from. Seat count, service style (casual, premium casual, fine dining, hotel, banqueting), covers per service and spend per head. A 90-cover casual restaurant and a 240-cover fine dining room are different jobs.
• Whether you actually directed people. Number of waiters, runners, commis waiters and bar staff you assigned and corrected. "Head waiter" with no headcount reads as a courtesy title.
• Wine and upselling numbers. Attachment rate, spend per head, dessert and digestif sales. This is the part of the job that pays for itself.
• Training that lets you work from day one: Level 2 Food Hygiene (Level 3 for supervisors), allergen awareness and Challenge 25. Having them already saves days of induction before your first service.

“Nine out of ten head server CVs say 'provided excellent customer service.' The one I call says 200 covers, a £70 average spend, five servers on the section and what happened to comps after they took it over. Give me the room and the numbers and I will interview you the same day.”

Three or four lines. Style of restaurant, years, section size, one sales number, training. Only use a career objective if you are stepping up from waiter for the first time.

The rewrite is always the same move: add the restaurant size, the headcount you directed and the money. Here are the duties head waiters really do.

Three groups: what you know about service, what systems you run, and how you handle a restaurant under pressure. Twelve lines is plenty.

• Service knowledge: steps of service, silver service and guéridon service if you have done them, table-side preparation, coursing and pacing, wine and cocktail pairing, cheese and after-dinner service.
• Floor leadership: section and station allocations, table plan building, pre-service briefing, closing duties sign-off, break rota, running a shift when the manager is off the floor.
• Systems: Toast, Lightspeed, Oracle Simphony (Micros), Zonal, Square; OpenTable, ResDiary or SevenRooms for bookings and guest notes.
• Money: bill accuracy, comps and voids policy, cashing up and tronc or tips allocation, float counts, upselling specials and wines by the glass.
• Compliance: allergen handling and the 14 allergens, Challenge 25 and refusing service, temperature and cleaning checks, opening and closing safety walk.
• Languages: a second language is a real advantage on the floor and in the kitchen. Say the level plainly (conversational, fluent) rather than 'proficient'.

None of these is a licence that waiting staff legally need in the UK, but the first three are what most restaurants expect and the rest separate a head waiter from a waiter. List the awarding body or provider and the year.

In England and Wales the Licensing Act 2003 puts the personal licence on the designated premises supervisor, not on waiting staff, so a head waiter needs training rather than a licence. If you hold a personal licence anyway, list it, because it lets you authorise alcohol sales when the manager is off. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own licensing rules.

Most head waiter jobs go to waiters who were already doing the work without the title. Your job is to make that visible.

1. 1Count the shifts you ran as closing lead, opening lead or shift lead, and put the count on the page.
2. 2Name how many waiters you trained and what happened to them: passed the menu test, stayed past six months, moved to their own section.
3. 3Add the section you carried at your busiest: tables, covers, spend per head. A large station handled well is the closest proof to head waiter work.
4. 4Show one thing you improved for the whole floor, not just your tables: a closing duties sheet, a wine tasting habit, a better ticket flow with the pass.
5. 5Get your training current before you apply. Level 3 food safety and Challenge 25 training cost little and remove a hiring objection.
6. 6Mirror the restaurant's own title. Restaurants call this job head waiter, restaurant supervisor, chef de rang or maître d' depending on the style; use the advert's word.

• One page for most head waiters, two at most, reverse-chronological. Headings: Personal Statement, Experience, Skills, Training and Qualifications, Education. No photo and no date of birth: that is standard on a UK CV.
• Put covers, seats and spend inside the employer line: 'Coastal fine dining restaurant (140 seats, £1.1m a year)'. It saves the reader a guess.
• Restaurant groups screen through systems such as Harri and Fourth, and many adverts come through hospitality job boards. Mirror the advert's words: 'steps of service', 'covers', 'spend per head', 'EPOS', 'wine service', 'food hygiene', 'Challenge 25'.
• List availability if you can work the shifts nobody wants: Friday and Saturday dinner, bank holidays, split shifts. It is a real hiring factor.
• Send a PDF named Reyes-Antoine-Head-Waiter-CV.pdf. Restaurant managers lose files called CV.pdf.
• In the US this job is often advertised as head server or captain, the document is called a resume, and employers expect US food safety and state alcohol server certificates. If you are applying there, follow US resume conventions instead of this page.

One last check: make the dates add up. If your personal statement claims eight years of service experience, the jobs listed have to cover eight years without gaps you cannot explain.