Talking To The Boss Of...The Fastfood Store

Where: At the Ipswich, Colchester and Braintree Burger Kings.
Who: Carl Davey, Area Manager for the Burger King

Carl was educated at Colchester SFC and started as a student crew member for Burger King. After finishing his A-levels, Carl stayed with the company, working his way up through the ranks and has now been there for eight years. He is responsible for three stores and 120 staff.

So how do you go about getting a job at Burger King?

BK advertise in local papers and in store, you can also call in to any store and pick up an application form. You don't have to ask to see the manager,any staff member will help you and you can expect to be dealt with in a polite and courteous manner. You simply complete the form and hand it back in; we then sift through applications and invite people in for interview.

So what Tips would you give to anyone filling out the application form

Do's: Fill it all in so you don't leave any blanks, take your time over it, and hand in a neatly written clean copy. Give as many available times as possible (Remembering we need you for at least 4 hours a day).

Don'ts: Don't worry about the qualifications section if you don't have any. Don't Screw the form up and hand in a crumpled copy because the way you fill in the form and look after it tells us a lot about you.

Anything Else?

You can use references from previous employers, teachers, but not friends and relatives. After these initial stages we will then contact you by telephone to arrange an interview

So what is the interview stage like?

Will be in groups of about 6, it will be a general information session, talking about the basic job requirements and then we see you for 10 minutes individually.

What do you look for at an interview?

Personality, Presentation and Common Sense.

Remember you are dealing with customers, we want you to be outgoing cheerful and SMILEY! We have to communicate with customers, so it doesn't help if you aren't open with us when you come in. Also ONE BIG DON'T, don't avoid eye contact. If you look at the floor, all the time during the interview, you aren't going to get a job with us. Pride in appearance is also an importance too.

What qualities do you look for in your part time employees?

• Urgency,
  Common sense,
  Customer focus,
  Flexibility: you have to be available for weekend working (either Sat. or Sun.),
  Identification with the company and pride in our performance, we want to be the best and we want you to help us be the best,
  Respect for colleagues, management, customers and yourself,
  Honesty,
  Teamwork.

What's involved in the Job?

Your 1st day will be spent looking at induction videos and worksheets, and sorting out your uniform.

REMEMBER: You have to have all of your uniform available for each shift, the uniform has to be fresh cleaned and pressed for each shift as well.

After that you start in the store cleaning floors, tables, toilets and then graduate to the kitchens. Eventually you can graduate to the till if you want to and you can cope with it. We give continual product training and there is a regular 3 monthly appraisal system that is linked to hourly rates of pay

So what's the pay like?

Starting rates of pay are £3.40 per hour that can rise to £4.00 per hour if you are good enough. We pay a premium for after 8pm working and that's approximately 35p per hour

What kind of problems are you often faced with?

We don't have a problem with students needing time off for school or college work, but sometimes, young people don't appreciate that we are here to provide a service to the public and we can only do that if we have a full complement of staff. You are entitled to take time off shift if you give us 2 weeks notice, but if you all decide to take advantage of that on the same night, we can't serve our customers. We do ask you to try to put yourself in our position and think of the company. Problems can also arise due to illness/sickness, some people simply don't turn up and don't phone in and that won't stand.

Anything Else?

For Health and Safety requirements and procedures we have a full programme of staff training in terms of use of equipment and food hygiene, and protective clothing is provided for all essential cleaning jobs. We want to be the best franchise in the area, through teamwork we achieve a high level of customer satisfaction. BUT we also want people to enjoy the job.

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