Recruiting interns and trainees through your restaurant website
Hospitality businesses don’t run on permanent staff alone. Interns and trainees from hospitality schools and vocational programmes often make up a large part of the team, and they’re also your business’s future permanent staff. Yet many restaurant websites treat a placement exactly like a regular job opening. That doesn’t work well: an intern is looking for something different than an applicant.
Why an internship asks for something different than a job opening
For permanent staff, we describe in Recruiting staff through your own restaurant website how to set up a careers page and application form. An intern, though, isn’t searching for salary or hours, but for mentoring, learning goals, and whether your business is a recognised training placement. In the Netherlands that recognition runs through SBB; in other countries it might be an approved apprenticeship employer or a partner listed by a local hospitality school. Schools and career advisors often link students straight to a business’s website, so that information needs to be easy to find.
Set up a dedicated placement page
Don’t bury internships at the bottom of your careers page. A dedicated page, clearly linked from your careers page and your footer, makes it easy for schools to point students to and for students to find through a search like “hospitality internship [city]”.
What belongs on your placement page
A good placement page answers the questions a student, and their school, ask first:
- Recognition: are you an approved training business? Mention it clearly.
- Mentoring: who is the workplace supervisor, and how often is there contact with the school?
- Tasks and learning goals: what will the intern actually do, and which skills will they learn?
- Duration and days: how many days a week, and for which period.
- Atmosphere: photos of the team at work say more than a list of requirements.
Make applying easy
An internship application deserves its own form, separate from your guest form and your regular job applications. That way you know immediately when an application comes from a student, and you can route it to the right person. For how to set up that kind of form and keep it neatly separated from your other requests, read Building contact and request forms and managing leads.
From intern to permanent team member
For many hospitality businesses, an internship is the first step toward a permanent role. Show that: a short story about a former intern who grew into a permanent staff member or head chef is more convincing than any job listing. For more on that kind of growth story, and a team page that shows real pride, read Retaining staff in hospitality: how your website helps build a strong team.
Stay consistent with your brand
A placement page that looks like a loose sheet of paper doesn’t build much trust with schools or students. Make sure the page, just like your job listings, matches your house style: the same colours, the same logo, the same tone.
How to approach it
- Create a dedicated placement page, separate from your regular job listings.
- Mention recognition, mentoring, tasks and the duration of the placement.
- Add photos of your team: atmosphere convinces just as well as text.
- Set up a separate, simple application form for placement requests.
- Share a growth story from a former intern who moved into a permanent role.
Give students and schools a clear way into your business. Try Sitebite and put a dedicated placement page online.
