Follow The Expert

As I talk with restaurant industry leaders around the country, I ask them
how they are responding, in terms of growth and staffing, to the current market
climate. What I've discovered is that there are primarily three schools of
thought on the matter. One reaction I'm hearing is some
concepts, out of necessity, are making cuts in many areas to insure they weather the storm.

I've found that a considerable number of hiring managers are often lacking a
purposeful direction during their restaurant manager interviews as evidenced by the questions they ask. Upon review of a
candidate after an interview, some hiring managers have no concrete fix on
whether the candidate can achieve the results needed in the position. For this
reason, I have assembled the following guide to assist hiring managers to ask
the questions that will leave them with something more than a good or bad
feeling after an interview:

Accepting a counteroffer from your current employer can stifle and even threaten your career. I'm
not talking about the typical give and take of salary negotiations type of
counteroffers. I'm talking about the possible (and even likely) offer of more
money (better schedule, fewer
hours, etc.) made by your current employer to get you to stay in your current
position once you have turned in your notice.

While money isn't everything, planning for salary discussions and negotiations should be an important part of your job search preparation. Your executive recruiter should be walking you through every step of this process. Following are six steps to help you negotiate a higher starting salary.

Step One: Know your worth in the marketplace.

The key to any successful salary negotiation is information, so do
your homework to assess your competitive value. Find out from
your recruiter what salary range the client company is looking to hire within. Do some
research on your own and find out the pay range for the level of
restaurant management you’ve
obtained. Once you know the going salary range, take into consideration
your skills, education, experience and any unique value (are you
relocatable, bilingual, etc?) you bring to the prospective employer to see where you would rank within that range.