The food and restaurant industry is rumoured to grow 12 percent each year providing approximately  1.9 million jobs, of which about 47,000 are at management level. About one-third of adults have worked in some kind of restaurant at some point in their life.

Skilled and experienced staff are a great asset to the restaurant industry.  Most people get their skills from years of experience but having formal training on top of this is the best way to get a higher renumeration.

The food and restaurant industry have many areas where someone could specialize in such as marketing, human resources, customer relations, business/accounting services or food technology.  Hospitality Management schools offer courses in any of these areas but someone with a diploma in business and who also has management experience could also qualify for a position somewhere in the industry. Most of the hospitality courses take anywhere from 2-4 years to complete depending on the school and this includes the training you want to specialize in.  Some colleges offer interships and co-op programs.  Also, some restaurants even offer their own training programs which is a great way to learn as you get the needed experience for a great career.

There are many different areas to consider working in if you train in the restaurant and hotel industry such as admininistration, culinary services, hotel maintenace and marketing. A manager’s duties besides learning different functions of all the departments including the kitchen, bar and banquet serivces, also includes the hiring of employees and the overseeing of them. This industry also requires housekeeping staff who are usually required to work shifts which are suited to a person who can work under these conditions. There are also many important positions just in the kitchen in the restaurant such as the food and beverage manager, chef or overseeing the other kitchen staff.

Like working in other industries, the hotel and restaurant industry requires devotion and hard work whether you’re in a management position or work under management.  Customer service standards are always high and seem to be getting higher in today’s society. All employees should be clean, well groomed and polite.  They should always be aware of the latest ways to improve their customer service and improve business.

  Always show off your great personality if you’re working with the public. This will help to form a great relationship with your customers. If the hospitality industry appeals to you and are thinking about a career in it, there are many great schools to choose from and many great places to work which could be close to home or around the world. It could take you anywhere you would like to be!

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We as the public usually only see the bright side to a restaurant job.  Media never seems to portray the ugly side of anything.  Many jobs are portrayed on television totally different from what they really are in true life and then the public start to believe that is the way life should be.

An excellent example of a false media portrayal of job function is a bartender.  A bartender is a skilled employee who mixes drinks at a bar but there are just as many other important employees who also make up the big picture in a business. Their interactions with the public depend on what type of establishment they work in.

If a bartender is working in a high end or fancy type of restaurant, he/she may have little or no contact with the customers.  It would be the wait staff that would be interacting with them. In a smaller, more casual bar setting, the bartender could be constantly interacting with the customer.  Depending on where they are working, whether it be a restaurant or a dance club, determines how much they deal with the customer.  Bartenders make great tips if they are dealing with the public and give great customer service just like any other employee that works in the service industry.

The media has made many bartenders that we see in our favourite tv show week to week a superhuman adviser who lends out advice with any given problem. If this were true this person wouldn’t be a bartender but would be working in another profession. Bartending can be hard work but can also be fun.  As any other job in the service industry, it requires excellent customer service skills at all times and also a good knowledge of the job. There are many bartending schools that train people (males and females) to qualify them for a good bartending job.

It amazing what we see in the media.  Wow a bartender is as fantatic as Superman..not quite.  What we watch and read has such an enormous effect on the public and what they believe in. People in the entertainment business know how to entice us into watching something by making making it look glamorous.

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