“Here is One Blindingly Obvious Secret Eluding Most Would-be Bartenders”
I was still working for a newspaper as the classifieds sales person about ready to give up looking for a bartending job. I had attended bartending school during the mornings and made cold call phone calls during the afternoon to find advertisers. Dreadful. Then one day I received a phone call that changed my life forever.
The conversation took ten minutes. When I picked up the phone I wasn’t a bartender, when I hung up, I was. This call came from a staffing company placing an ad that works with caters, private parties, and weddings. They were absolutely dying to get help. They called to place an ad for cocktail servers starting at $12 an hour (eventually made much more, but hey it was a start).
“You’re hired!” Those were the most beautiful words I had heard that whole summer. Guess what? They didn’t care that I went to bartending school. They said I was hired before I told them. Basically they were just looking for smart, friendly, hard working people. If you can show that to the right staffing or catering companies, you’ve got it made.
The secret is, many large and well known catering companies never staff bartenders or drink mixers as full time employees, but that doesn’t mean you won’t get more than 40 hours. They always use staffing companies that specialize in food and alcohol service. If you want a bartending job interview in three days or less, call up three of the largest catering companies in your city, ask them what staffing companies they use for large events and weddings.
Then call those companies and tell them from the start you are interested in bartending. Before doing this, take the four hours necessary to get state certified in alcohol service (most states require this and can be done online in most cases for anyone 18 and up). Tell the company you are certified and they will most likely have a gig for within a week or two depending on the season. That’s how you get a bartending job interview in three days or less. Forget the newspaper, Internet classifieds, or filling out countless restaurant applications.
Another insider obervation is these companies burn through a lot of people since a lot of people getting into the industry are either super hard working, on time, and consistent, or inconsistent, always late, and flakey as hell. There are more of the latter, so you stand out if you are the former and actually want to do the job verses getting the job because you thought it was “easy” or “mindless,” and just needed a job.
Stay tuned through your inbox and get five more huge tips to getting major bartending gigs. I will show you how to get so many jobs for yourself you’ll have to subcontract your friends. I will even tell you the secrets to how I’ve attended/worked parties with members of the Eagles, Mark Cuban, Mike Modano, Chuck Norris, got paid and had a hell of time doing it. I will show you step by step how I eventually got gigs on my own making 1000s of dollars a month having fun working part time when I wanted to. Is that what you came here for?
Talk to you soon.