Write a Restaurant Job Ad That Gets Answered
There is nobody left in the trade, everyone says. There is — they read your ad on a phone between two shifts, see the same three sentences as in the other forty, and keep scrolling. Pick the role, say what is different about your place, and you get an ad you can post — plus the reason every sentence is in it, so you write the next one yourself.
The four moves of a job ad that gets answered
An ad that works does four things, in this order. Draw, tell, offer, ask. Leave one out and you can see it immediately: an ad without "offer" gets no replies, an ad without "tell" gets the wrong ones.
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1
Draw
Open on them, not on you
One or two lines that make somebody in that role read the next one: the station they get, the room, the rhythm, the thing that is different here.
On a phone the headline and the first two lines are all that gets read. Opening with "since 1998 our family restaurant has been known for…" is the most expensive sentence you can write — it costs you the reader before you have said anything.
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2
Tell
Say what the work actually is
The station or the section, the covers, how many people are on, who they answer to, and what the shifts really are. Concrete — not "a varied role in a dynamic environment".
Being vague does not get you more candidates, it gets you the wrong ones: people who discover after two weeks that the job was something else. Being concrete is a filter that works for free and costs you nothing at the trial shift.
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3
Offer
Put the pay in
Pay first if you know it, then contract, hours, how fixed the rota is, meals, travel, training, where it leads.
This is the move most ads skip and the one that decides whether anyone answers. Everybody reads "salary depending on experience" as "so little we dare not say". A figure or a range costs you nothing and often doubles the replies.
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4
Ask
One action, low threshold
One route, not three. "Send a message to this number, a CV can wait" — plus when they will hear back.
Asking for a CV and a covering letter for a runner's job is a threshold that costs you candidates, not a selection. And saying when you will answer is the cheapest trust you can buy: somebody who hears nothing takes the job next door.
Why the ad itself is the lever
Finding staff feels like something you have no control over. Four figures that show you do.
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The pay
The most consistently measured lever there is: an ad that names a figure or a range draws materially more applications than the same ad saying "salary depending on experience". It is also the cheapest fix available — you change one sentence.
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2 lines
On a phone a candidate sees your headline and the first two lines before scrolling on. Everything you want to say about your place belongs after the job and after the pay — never before.
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48 hours
A good cook rarely applies to one place. Whoever answers first talks first — and often talks alone. An ad that sits on a pile for two weeks is an ad you get to post again.
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The rota
What this trade is least trusted about is not the pay but the hours. Being concrete about which days, which services and how many hours is precisely where you separate yourself from almost every other ad on the page.
Every role is weighing something different
A head chef and a kitchen porter do not choose on the same things. The tool knows what each role is weighing and writes towards it — here are four by way of illustration.
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Head chef
Runs the kitchen: menu, costing, ordering, the brigade and the pass. Answers to you, not to another chef.
Answer this in your adHow much freedom do they get over the menu, how big is the brigade, and do you interfere at the pass?
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Chef de partie
Runs one station through service — sauce, larder, grill, pastry — and its mise en place.
Answer this in your adWhich station, how many covers cross it, and what is made in-house rather than bought in?
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Waiter
Takes the room: greeting, ordering, the pace of a table, the bill.
Answer this in your adHow are tips split, how many tables does a section hold, and what does the rota look like?
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Kitchen porter
Keeps the dish pit and the kitchen clean through service — the shift the whole kitchen depends on.
Answer this in your adClear hours, a meal, being paid on time, and whether the language of the kitchen matters.
Where you post it changes the text
Posting the same text in three places does not work: on a job board it is skimmed, on Instagram it is cut off after one line.
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Job board
Skimmed in a list of forty others. Short headings, short paragraphs.
- Put the practical facts high: location, hours per week, which shifts, pay.
- A short list is allowed here — at most five points for the tasks and five for what you offer.
- One application route at the bottom, plus when they hear back.
- No company history above the job.
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Instagram or Facebook
Where most answers in this trade actually come from. Write it as a post, not as a vacancy.
- The first line has to work on its own — nothing more shows before "more".
- No headings, no bulleted task list, at most four short line breaks.
- The application route must be something somebody does on a phone in ten seconds: a DM, a WhatsApp, "drop in on Tuesday afternoon".
- First person, the voice of the place itself.
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Your own website
This reader already chose to be here. The place may be described more fully — but still after the job.
- Short headings: the page is scanned before it is read.
- Say what the team looks like and who they answer to; this is the one channel where that fits.
- Put a photo of the actual kitchen or room with it, never stock imagery.
- One application route, plus when they hear back.
Which tone do you choose?
The tone is not a matter of taste: it has to fit your place and the person you want. A candidate notices immediately when an ad sounds like somebody else.
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Warm
The voice of a host: first person plural, ordinary words, somebody who would like to meet this person. Fits most places and most floor roles. Choose this if you are unsure.
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Professional
Calm, correct, businesslike. Full sentences, no emoji. The voice of a well-run place that pays on time. The safest tone for a management role and for a group or a hotel.
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Direct
Short sentences, concrete facts, nothing decorative. The voice of a kitchen that says what it means. Works very well for kitchen roles — but it is not a list of demands and it is never rude.
Six mistakes that kill a job ad
Most job ads are not badly written. They are indistinguishable — exactly the same as the one from the place two streets away.
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"Salary depending on experience"
Everyone reads this as "too little to dare say". Put a figure or a range in. If you genuinely do not know yet, say honestly what you can say — not nothing.
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"Young, dynamic team"
That is an age criterion and it does not belong in a job ad. It also appears in every second hospitality vacancy, so it no longer says anything either.
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"No 9-to-5 mentality"
To the reader this means unpaid overtime. What you actually mean — that it sometimes runs late — you can simply say honestly, together with what they get for it.
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The place before the job
Three paragraphs about your passion and your history, and only then the work. Turn it round: the job, the pay, and then who you are.
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A twelve-point list of requirements
Every extra requirement drives off exactly the people who were wondering whether they were good enough — and those are often the better ones. Keep it to what genuinely matters.
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No clear way to apply
"Send your CV and covering letter to info@" is a threshold for a runner, not a selection. One route, low friction, and say when you will answer.
What may not be in it
A job ad may not select on age, sex, origin, religion, disability or family situation. In hospitality it rarely happens on purpose and almost always through the same handful of phrases.
- No age, not even wrapped up: "young team", "young and hungry", an age range, "recent graduate".
- No sex: "waitress" when you would also hire men, "boys for the dish pit", "girls for the floor".
- No mother tongue and no nationality. Ask for the language level the work genuinely needs, and only if it genuinely needs one.
- No photo with the application, and no questions about children, health or family situation.
How the vacancy check works
The score below adds five things up to a hundred points. They are not chosen at random: they are the five things that decide whether a good candidate sees your ad, opens it and answers it.
- Pay stated (25 points)The heaviest of them all, and the only one you can fix tonight for free. An ad without a figure is not even opened by a share of the candidates.
- Reply speed (25 points)Within one day is strong. Somebody who answers after ten days is talking to a person who already works somewhere else — however good the ad was.
- Number of channels (15 points)A job board, your own Instagram, WhatsApp and the window are four different ponds. Four is enough; one is too few.
- Applications per month (15 points)Enough to actually choose from. Past about twelve a month your own time has become the constraint, not the ad.
- Days to hire (20 points)Every day the vacancy stays open you pay in overtime and agency shifts. Inside two weeks is strong; after six the gain is gone.
Frequently asked questions
Is this tool free?
Yes. You need no account and install nothing. You get five ads a day; that is what generating them costs and it is comfortably enough to get one vacancy right in two or three versions.
Do I really have to state the pay?
You do not have to do anything, but it is by far the biggest lever you have. If you do not know the figure yet, give a range or say what you can say. "Salary depending on experience" is the one formulation you are better off leaving out entirely.
Is what I type stored anywhere?
What you type goes once to the language module to write your ad and is not stored anywhere else. What you see in the tool stays in your own browser.
Can I post the ad as it is?
Read it through once and change one detail so it is genuinely yours: a name, a day, something only you know. Also check that every promise — pay, hours, contract — is actually true.
My role is not in the list.
Pick "Other role" and type what you call the job: sommelier, pastry chef, cleaning team, night reception. The tool then writes towards that role.
What do I do with the applications that come in?
Put them on the free hiring board below. It keeps track of who was called, who is coming for a trial shift and — most importantly — who has been waiting three days for an answer.
Which language does the tool write in?
The language of this page. If you are hiring in another language, use the language picker at the top to open the same tool in that language.