Restaurant Test

Restaurant tests determine the skillset and personality traits of individuals applying for a restaurant-based job.

  • What is a restaurant skill test?

    Restaurant skills tests assess job candidates on their ability to demonstrate the essential skills required to succeed in a customer-facing restaurant position.

    Above all else, restaurant tests determine how trainable a candidate is, how well they would fit into your working culture and standards. Front-of-house restaurant jobs tend to attract candidates new to the job market, and therefore difficult to gauge how well-suited they are based on previous experience.

    Restaurant tests commonly cover topics such as verbal reasoning skills, situational judgement, pressured decision making, comprehension, motivations and personality to get a sense of the most proficient and trainable candidates.

    These tests are usually completed shortly after submitting an online application for a chosen restaurant role. Tests are commonly under timed conditions, based on multiple-choice questions and applicants have approximately two or three days to complete them.

    Given the time pressures, candidates achieving a high score in these tests prove their ability to perform confidently under pressure - another powerful trait for a restaurant professional.

Jump to a section on this page:

  1. What is a restaurant skill test?
  2. Why use pre-employment testing for restaurants?
  3. Which specific tests should you use?
  4. Verbal Reasoning
  5. Job Knowledge Test
  6. FAQs

About the Restaurant Test

Hospitality is known for its high turnover of staff, the industry is fast-paced and at times can be stressful, but always delivers a smile. This means employers need to be able to select candidates with a strong resilience that can match the demands of hospitality culture whilst also demonstrating excellent interpersonal skills, self-motivation, basic numeracy abilities and effective communication.

Restaurant employers will benefit from deploying these aptitude tests by limiting short tenures, matching great candidates with their ideal roles and in turn, having a smooth running restaurant no matter what.

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  • Why use pre-employment testing for restaurants?

    Naturally, you want to find the strongest candidate when hiring, but identifying top people amongst a vast pool of resumes can be difficult. Particularly in the restaurant industry, where most candidates lack experience in entry-level positions and have parallel experience for senior positions. How are you supposed to know who will perform in real life?

    A restaurant skills test removes this challenge and gives employers the ability to distribute skills tests to large numbers of applicants, which return comparative data to analyse. The results give an unbiased ranking of your most well-suited candidates. This strengthens the quality of hires quickly and simply.

    The test will highlight how proficient a candidate is with essential skills required of a restaurant professional such as having good attention to detail, outstanding verbal communication and comprehension, natural customer service abilities and situational judgement that aligns with your company.

    Applicants that meet the requirements of the role can be shortlisted, those who do not can be excluded. Removing the need to carry out fruitless personal interviews.

    Job roles restaurant skills tests would be suitable for include:

Picked Sample Report

View a sample report

Results for the Restaurant Test along with other assessments the candidate takes will be compiled to produce a candidate report. The report is automatically generated and available both online and as a downloadable pdf so they can be shared with other team members and employees alike.

Download sample report

Which specific tests should you use?

The following tests are useful in measuring the quality of your hires for restaurant positions:

  • Verbal Reasoning
  • Personality
  • Job Knowledge Test

Verbal Reasoning

Verbal reasoning tests assess an applicant's ability to digest large amounts of written and oral information, identifying whether the information given is true, implied to be true or completely false.

Applicants achieving a high score on this test have outstanding communication skills to manage the daily demands of restaurant work including, interactions with customers, the team, stockists and delivery people.

Personality

Personality tests can give insight into whether a candidate will be a good team and hospitality cultural fit – for example how they will build rapport with customers, how they will interact with their colleagues, how likeable they are or how aligned to company values they are.

The traits you are tested on are related to qualities you might expect for a team-oriented and customer-facing role such as a restaurant server, waitstaff or front-of-house team member. A perfect restaurant employee would demonstrate skills in the following, which a personality test can capture:

  • Approachable
  • Interpersonal skills
  • Resilient
  • Self-motivation

Job Knowledge Test

Job knowledge tests are particularly specific, measuring a candidates 'job readiness'. The test looks at working knowledge of health and safety, food hygiene and the hospitality industry. Job knowledge tests identify candidates who are less likely to require extensive training to carry out their responsibilities.

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    All our Restaurant tests are written by accredited psychologists and fully validated.

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    For all levels

    We offer Restaurant tests for all levels so you can assess all roles within your organisation.

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    Candidate comparison

    Simple, easy-to-use candidate comparison reports mean you don’t need to be a psychologist to interpret them.

“We used Picked as part of our Finance Graduate Scheme recruitment and it was just what we needed – really simple to send candidates the link to complete and clear to see how the all compared. And great value for money!”
Christina, HR Director, Cancer Research, UK
Christina, HR Director, Cancer Research, UK
Restaurant Test expert

Written by a Restaurant Test expert

Our team of assessment experts is made up of I/O psychologists and psychometricians who are dedicated to making all of our tests as reliable, valid and fair as possible. They strictly adhere to best practices in the industry and stay on top of the latest innovations to ensure job candidates’ unique profiles of characteristics, abilities and knowledge are being measured accurately while minimising bias. They leverage decades of research and advanced predictive analytics to build assessments that link to outcomes that matter, such as job performance, turnover, engagement, culture fit and more.

“Personality profiling allowed us to perform lookalike modelling of our most successful employees and use this as a blueprint for new hires.”
Nick, HR Operations, Airbus, Spain
Nick, HR Operations, Airbus, Spain

FAQs

What is the typical recruitment process in a restaurant?

A typical recruitment process for a restaurant might look like this:

  • Online application
  • Pre-employment aptitude tests
  • Telephone interview
  • In-person interview
  • Job offer
What skills does a candidate in a restaurant typically need?

The key skills required to be successful in a restaurant role include:

  • Outstanding customer service
  • Excellent verbal communication and interpersonal skills
  • Able to work in a fast-paced environment
  • Agile work ethic
  • Positive attitude towards teamwork
  • Self-motivated and willing to take initiative
  • Basic numeracy skills
What is the cost for Picked's restaurant test?

We believe in simple, transparent pricing. We operate monthly and annual subscriptions so you can pick the perfect plan for you. Don't worry if you're not sure: you can always upgrade or downgrade later, or speak to us to discuss the option of a custom made plan to fit your needs. This is all you ever pay – no set-up or hidden fees.

Can I get a free trial?

Yes, sign up (no credit card required) and we'll give you a 7-day trial completely free. You'll get unlimited access to create as many jobs and test as many candidates as you like. You can cancel any time and you won't be charged anything.

“Focusing on data reduced the subjective decision making from our hiring process and allowed us to reduce bias and make better hiring decisions.”
Izzie, Head of HR, iZettle, Sweden
Izzie, Head of HR, iZettle, Sweden

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