When looking for a job, will you put your part-time work experience as a student on your resume? Most workers often believe that work experience must be highly relevant to the ideal job position, but "having worked in a burger shop" may unexpectedly be the key to standing out from the crowd of job applicants. Many entrepreneurs even openly admit that they worked in a fast food restaurant. Starting as a waiter?
Cultivate leadership from making burgers and washing dishes! Fast food restaurants are like management proving grounds
The story of Jensen Huang working as an engineer after graduating from Stanford University, starting a business with his partners at the age of 30, and gradually leading NVIDIA to grow is well known. But if you click on Jensen Huang's personal page on LinkedIn, you will find that his "career start" actually started from washing dishes, cleaning toilets and other chores at the American fast-food restaurant Denny's.
In public speeches in recent years, Jensen Huang has also constantly emphasized the importance of his first part-time job at Denny's when he was 15 years old. He believes that the seemingly inconspicuous job in a fast-food restaurant taught him discipline and diligence. and humility. In his previous speech at Stanford, he even joked that Denny's is like his alma mater. By sharing his experience of cleaning toilets in schools and washing dishes in fast food restaurants, he called on the students in the audience to pursue success. problems that need to be overcome first.
Michael Erickson, director of Strategic Communications, recalled his experience working at McDonald's 40 years ago. He still remembers standing in front of a frying pan all day long to prevent the smell of oil from entering his home after work. , would take off his greasy uniform in the back garage before entering the house. For him, the experience of working at McDonald's was not only hard work, but also taught him how to serve a group of customers he had never imagined in a high-pressure environment.
Erickson points out that when communicating with customers later in his career, it will be more credible if he says that he made a hamburger at McDonald's when he was 16 years old. He said that this special experience is especially favored by clients in the food and hotel industries, because most of the marketing and public relations talents they see may not have actually walked into the kitchen and understood these jobs.
The working experience in the fast food industry seems to be like a "testing ground" for leaders and senior executives in the early stages of their careers. They learn how to cope with pressure and solve problems quickly in fast food restaurants. These experiences have become the core foundation for cultivating leadership. Many Leaders who started out in fast-food restaurants tend to be more empathetic and display humility and a people-friendly attitude.
Contrary to "quiet resignation", what are the characteristics of people who have worked in fast food restaurants?
Although jobs in the fast-food industry are often labeled as low-paying, Webster's Dictionary even defines "McJob" as "a low-paying, low-skilled job with no opportunity for advancement" (although the prefix Mc comes from McDonald's, However, the industries referred to are not limited to the fast food industry). But executives who have had similar experiences and now have control over employment rights may not necessarily think so.
When Erickson interviews employees, he will pay special attention to job applicants with similar experience. He believes that this group of people shows a spirit of not being afraid of challenges, which is a trait that people who have never worked in the fast food industry cannot easily possess.
Because when you are in a low-paying but high-efficiency job, you must develop a strong resistance to stress. This group of people is almost like standing on the opposite side of "quiet quitting". In high-pressure labor work, whether it is cleaning toilets or processing orders, they put in an all-out attitude.
When these job seekers are ready to leave the fast-food restaurant and enter the next stage of their careers, they are often more likely to become "model employees" in the team. Because they have learned how to focus on solving tasks rather than passively communicating and waiting for promotion opportunities. They are familiar with getting along with people from various backgrounds and are grateful for all opportunities, proving that they are proactive in career development.
References: Tech Informed, WSJ