Bar Manager Resumes & Guide

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Bar Manager Resume Writing Guide

Resume Sections:

1. Contact information
2. Profile Summary
3. Employment History
4. Accomplishments
5. Education
6. Skill Section
7. Certification & licensing
8. Extras: Languages/Awards/Publications/Volunteering/hobbies
9. > Professional information

What to Highlight in a Bar Manager’s Resume

Bar Managers make sure the bar’s productivity, preparation, and processes are being maintained. Irrespective of your experience level, there are specific things recruiters will be looking for to make sure you’re the person for the job.

Make sure you don’t disregard any managerial experience you may have, as this position holds many of the same responsibilities and can be quite stressful. Recruiters want to see that you can handle the stress.

We have highlighted several features you will need to showcase in your resume to ensure recruiters call you back.

First up, it doesn’t matter whether you work for the dingy dive bar down the street or the “ooh look at me” establishment on Wall Street. It would be best if you had the right formatting for your resume. To increase your chance at the top job, format your resume like this (in this order):

• Up-to-date contact info in the header area.
• Utilize the resume sections in this guideline with intelligible headings for easier reading.
• Pick the best resume format, most often the reverse-chronological format.
• Use a decent font and good line spacing.
• Unless stated otherwise, always send your resume in PDF.

That right there is a recipe for success just ready to be flame-grilled and served up!  

Then, you want to explain the environment(s) you worked in. Bars are everywhere, in hotels, restaurants, casinos, private businesses, and even retirement homes! So, don’t make the recruiter guess where you worked. They need to know to decide if the job opportunity is the right one for you and them.  

*Cool Tip for a stellar resume: To create a magnificent first impression, show them your abilities by providing the categorized fundamental functions and then adding detailed examples of how you would manage those various responsibilities that you would do daily.

• Developing Time Management and Leadership Skills

The kind of environment you could work in can be quite ruthless concerning physical and mental work due to the fast pace, deadlines, and long hours on the feet. As your training evolves, your time management skills, leadership, and collaborating skills develop. If you have the skills, brag lightly about them to the recruiter.  

• Appreciating Different Cultures

In this environment, you can find yourself being exposed to many cultural things that may not have popped up in other corners of life. This info is gold to the recruiters as it shows them that you’re open-minded, empathetic towards the staff and customers, and can understand and appreciate the different walks of life that find their way into your bar.

• Understand Tastes/ Flavor Science

Believe it or not, the art of making alcoholic drinks like cocktails is a science! It would help if you had the technical knowledge of spirits, their tastes, and how they will work together once combined. Your knowledge of nutrition also comes into play when dealing with different people. Some may have allergies to the original ingredients of the drink they want. It’s up to you to know how to create a substitute that tastes just as kick-ass as the original but won’t send them to the ER.

• Learning Concepts of Math and Accounting

Being able to manage resources is crucial for the success of any bar. Not managing these resources correctly will create major operating problems the bar cannot afford to have. Therefore, it’s to your advantage to explain to the recruiter how your accounting and math skills will help keep the bar from running straight into the ground.

1. Contact information

• First & Last Name
• Email
• Physical Address
• LinkedIn / Portfolio

2. Career Summary/Objective & Examples

Many applications are screened by F&B (Food and Beverage) for both direct and vocational roles. Your resume absolutely has to catch the attention of the recruiter. To do that, you’ll need a kick-ass career summary to put at the top of your first page. Make it bold and utilize a different front to make it stand out if you have to.

A career summary/ objective has three main features:

1. Solid title description.
2. A unique skills/ value contribution.
3. Highest academic credentials.

The summary or objective in a resume is also known as a resume profile.

This intro paragraph is roughly 3–5 lines long. It allows bar owners and recruiters to determine quickly if you’ll fit the bill.  

Which one do you choose to write, in any case?

If you have more than three years of experience in the industry, write a summary. It brings together your management skills and bar experience. It provides a few achievements to demonstrate you’re the best choice.

If you have little/ no bar management experience, write an objective. Instead of an experience summary, it provides the recruiter with your career aspirations and achievements to verify your value.

Pro Tip: We suggest writing the career summary/ objective last. That way, you have a better idea of what to summarize after having written the entire resume.

Examples of Bar Manager Summaries:

Bar Manager Summary 1

"Self-motivated local bar and lounge manager with 4+ years experience (with another two years in restaurant supervision). Looking to utilize knowledge of busy bar management, BoH, FoH leadership, Washington health code laws, and Scottish, Irish, and English beverages and a 27% increase in bar patronage to develop alongside Finnegan Fitzgerald’s as the new bar manager."

Bar Manager Summary 2

"Energetic, adaptable Bar Manager with 13 years experience in all facets of management and service with a recognized track record of driving business and providing superior guest service. Brilliant leadership skills and a proven ability to improve repeat business, management, and staff training and coordinating seasonal events. Solid team-building skills and exceptional conflict resolution abilities ensure satisfaction for guests. Proficient at working professionally with a strong mixology knowledge and menu creation experience as a Bar Manager."

Bar Manager Summary 3

"Proficient Bar Manager with over eight years in the foodservice industry in a management capacity. I hold an Associate Degree in Hotel and Restaurant Administration and have worked in the restaurant’s main responsibility areas. My present occupation as a Bar Manager of The Pig and Lettuce has provided me with the experience of working in a hotel environment. My proficiencies and expertise will address the necessities of your bar, the Fountainhead at the Moor."

Bar Manager Summary 4

"A vibrant, results-oriented Bar Manager providing focused leadership to drive sales and profitability in this competitive market. Well-known for exceptional communications skills, both with staff and guests; capable of resolving problems quickly and fairly, ensuring satisfied customers and happy employees. Reliably achieves performance goals through persistence, enthusiasm, and initiative. Manager with the capacity to motivate staff members and transform under-performing teams into record-breaking units. Well-organized with a track record that proves self-motivation, persistence, and the creativity to attain both personal and corporate goals."

3. Employment History

Regardless of if you’ve worked in the town bar, fancy restaurant, or you have no real experience at all, this section is essential, so get it right!

Here’s how to nail your bar manager job description resume section:

• Reverse chronological order is the most popular, so put your most recent job first and go backwards from there.
• Put your title at the top with the company name, then the dates you worked there, and about 4-6 bullet points.
• Give fewer bullet points the further down the list of jobs you go.
• Start each point with an action word.
• Highlight quantifiable achievements, and not only the usual bar manager job responsibilities.
• Mold every resume to the particular job you’re applying for. Please avoid spamming every bar around with the same one.

*Pro Tip: If you lack on the bar management experience side of things, don’t panic. Provide your most relevant bar and management-related duties you’ve had in the bullet points. Pick responsibilities that showcase your knowledge of drinks, leadership, management, etc. Write it up in the exact way you would if you did have experience. In other words, the format doesn’t change.   

Just a quick note, save your resume as a pdf document. It looks good and helps keep the format of your document in line.

Examples:

Bar Manager at St Tropez Seafood Restaurant

(Feb 2021 – Dec 2023)
Liable for building a friendly and professional bar service team and guaranteed well-trained staff and always supportive of patrons needs.

• In charge of bartender and barback recruiting, developing, training, and managing employee relations, performance evaluations, and benefits.
• Changed bar menu and the related snacks menu to the season, vendor promotions, or holidays.
• Kept an eye on customer data, making actionable decisions founded on bar traffic, and responsible for providing help to the chef for meal prep and guaranteeing all cooking equipment is well-maintained and fully operational.

Bar Manager at Gladstone Culinary Emporium

(Feb2018 – Jan 2021)
Accountable for promoting and managing bar hygiene and safety policies, ensuring the 370 sqm bar area stays clean and neat.

• Designed, executed, and monitored systems that guaranteed restaurant excellence and obtained high operating standards.
• Consistently keep up to date of local, state, and federal knowledge of laws for compliance across all restaurant operations.
• Delivered professional and friendly service to restaurant guests, outstanding quality and consistency of food execution in an appealing, well-maintained environment.
• Helped with inventory and ordering, stocking, and maintaining all bar items.

Job Descriptions

Below we have made a list of some key duties that recruiters will expect to see in your resume. You may use these duties in your resume (provided you did them and modify the words a bit to relate to the job you’re applying for), or you can use them as guidelines when writing your own. Molding your words to those used in the job ad will help you get past the applicant tracking systems' screening process (ATS).

Examples

A Bar Manager may:

• Conducting staff meetings daily, before lunchtime and dinnertime, guaranteeing everyone knows the daily specials and promotions, and gently reminds the staff to deliver top-notch service at all times.
• Performing usual checks on all bar areas and restaurant operations, like stock levels bar and inventory of the bar, production schedules, work shift schedules, equipment inspections, hygiene of dining area and toilets.
• Reviewing sales levels during cut-off times; conducting investigations if required, if there are discrepancies in cash to sales reports.
• Patrolling the floor; making sure customers are well looked-after, dealing with any problems that arise.  

• Providing help to areas that are falling behind.
• Collaborating with Executive Chef and bartender regarding monthly specials.
• Collaborating with the restaurant’s in-house marketing team concerning creating promotional materials and campaigns.
• Reviewing the Profit and Loss statement provided by Accounting; preparing sales plan established on target revenues.
• Recruiting, selecting, and hiring employees for the restaurant and management team.

• Training new staff members on restaurant guidelines, customer service policies, and dining and kitchen operations.
• Writing the bar’s policy manual.
• Attending to all problems raised by the bar’s clientele.
• Participating in food and drink testing as the bartender and Executive Chef prepare it.
• Tracking and monitoring food cost and inventory levels closely.

4. Accomplishments

We are aware that people like to copy and paste the list of duties they did in their previous job to fill this section. The problem with that is, there’s a huge difference between a duty and an accomplishment. No one’s going to pat you on your back for doing what you were supposed to be doing in the first place.

So, rather think of what your hard work helped to accomplish in your last/ current job. Ask yourself, what have I done that I’m most proud of?

You may even have other awards you couldn’t put in your experience section, so put those awards here! These awards/ recognitions may include international recognition, honors, publications, and testimonials that are pertinent to the job you’re applying for.  

Direct the recruiter to conclude you’re simply the best person for the job by providing the applicable obligations, after that, adding your achievements. This will put you in a good position to grab that interview spot.

If you want to make your accomplishment statements stand out, then quantify them. Use number values, specific time frames, percentages, that sort of thing.

When thinking about what to write for this, try answering questions like “How much?” or “How many?”

Here are some examples with quantification:

• Initiated new concepts, resulting in increased income and growth by 86%.
• Cut inventory expenses by 35% by evaluation and streamlining of vendor selection processes.
• Aided in the development and growth of clientele, generating a profit increase of 58%.

Check out the same statements without quantification:

• Initiated new concepts, resulting in increased income and growth.
• Cut inventory expenses by evaluation and streamlining of vendor selection processes.
• Aided in the development and growth of clientele, generating profit increases.

To quote Pitch Perfect: “This number is like an elephant dart to the public’s face.”   

5. Education

This is a critical section of your resume. You may be thinking that your education isn’t all that important for this job, but we promise you if you think like that, you won’t get a job. In this section, you list your academic history, as well as any awards/ achievements you’ve received in your past studies/ practical training.

Some things to keep in mind:

• If you have five years or more experience managing a bar, only provide your institution of study, degree, and major. If you think it will help your application, give any applicable coursework.
• If you’re a bit green to the industry, provide a little extra, like your favorite fields of study, extracurricular activities, applicable coursework. If you’ve graduated recently, you can still give your high school a mention.
• If you’re in the process of completing college, then include high school as a secondary entry.

*Pro Tip: When we say applicable coursework, we mean anything to do with food service and/or management, like food and beverage, hospitality management, health and safety, public speaking, leadership training.

Write up your education in this order:

• Starting and completion date of degree/ diploma (if it was a short course, just give the end date).
• Full name of degree/ diploma/ course.
• Institution’s full name.
• City name/ abbreviated state name.

Don’t worry if you didn’t complete a formal degree/ diploma. Professional development courses, in-service training, and workshops should also be given the attention they deserve in this section.

Here are some examples of a Bar Manager’s Resume regarding education:

2013 – ServeSafe Certified, American Food and Beverage Association, Online.

2016 – First Aid/ CPR Diploma, Red Cross Academy, Online.

2014-2017 BS Management in Hospitality. Miami University, School of Hotel Administration, Miami, FL.
Relevant Coursework: Bar Management, Hospitality Supervision, International Wine & Beverage Pairing, Hospitality Business Operations.

6. Bar Manager Skills

As with all industries, this one needs you to have certain technical skills, but don’t get caught up with those because potential employers also want to see your soft skills. These are basically your personality characteristics and traits that speak to your fit as an employee who may add value to the establishment.  

Do yourself a favor though, don’t just copy and paste a bullet point list of these skills. It’s boring and about as wanted as a touchy-feely drunk at the bar. Instead, this is what you want to do:

• Write down all your technical and soft skills that relate to bar management.
• Get the job advert and read it through, highlighting the key skills they want in a candidate.
• If any of the skills line up with your skills, use the exact words used to phrase those skills in the job advert in your skills list in the resume.
• Then type up your skills list in a skills matrix (as shown below). It looks good and is super easy to read.

*Pro Tip: Make sure your skills list is balanced, with an equal number of technical bar skills (menu planning, mixology) and soft management skills (verbal communication, time management)

Technical Skills Examples

Soft Skills Examples

7. Qualifications & Certifications associated with Bar Managers

Optional Extras Bar Managers

And we are nearly done! You have the main ingredients for your killer resume, and now it’s time for some spice! Below are some of the popular extra sections you can use:

These may help you to stand out from the rest of your competition:

• language skills
• certifications
• projects
• memberships
• awards
• licenses
• volunteering gigs
• hobbies/ interests

Download Bar Manager Templates in PDF

 

Professional information on Bar Managers

Sectors: Food & Beverage, Hospitality, Events, Tourism, Government, Entertainment
Career Type: Services, Client Relations
Person type:  Manager, Planner, Overseer, Designer, Supervisor, Implementer, Creator, Motivator
Education levels: From High School Diploma to Bachelor’s Degree
Salary indication: $ 40 082 per annum (BLS)
Labor market: Subject to 1% growth from 2019 – 2029 (BLS)
Organizations: Restaurants, Pubs, Hotels, Food & Beverage Venues, Holiday Resorts, Fast Food Establishments, Schools, Military Establishments, Restaurants, Pop Up Eateries, Functions, Events, Bars, Guest Houses, Motels, Conferences, Conventions