Restaurant and hospitality resume keywords

We counted the skills in 114 open restaurant and hospitality job postings from 18 employers, including sweetgreen, Equinox and HelloFresh. The ones employers ask for most are sales (59% of postings), food safety (59%) and compliance (54%). 15% of the postings mention AI, though often in the company's description rather than as a skill the job needs.

Top skills and tools in restaurant and hospitality postings

#	Keyword	Share of postings
1	sales	59%
2	food safety	59%
3	compliance	54%
4	guest services	51%
5	hospitality	49%
6	customer experience	47%
7	inventory management	39%
8	onboarding	28%
9	audit	28%
10	troubleshooting	27%
11	dashboards	25%
12	restaurant management	25%
13	customer service	24%
14	budgeting	21%
15	P&L	21%
16	store operations	21%
17	forecasting	20%
18	housekeeping	18%
19	cooking	17%
20	food preparation	11%
21	catering	10%
22	partnerships	7%
23	marketing	5%
24	janitorial	5%
25	retail	5%
26	account management	4%
27	electrical	4%
28	OSHA	4%
29	SQL	4%
30	process improvement	4%

Share of the 114 postings whose description names the skill (plurals and common spellings, such as “JS” and “JavaScript”, count as one).

Soft skills employers mention

communication · 54%coaching · 46%leadership · 13%reporting · 6%ownership · 4%decision making · 4%attention to detail · 4%cross-functional · 4%problem solving · 3%customer focus · 3%

Show these through results in your bullets (“led a team of six”) rather than listing them as adjectives.

Languages

Spanish · 4%

How to use these keywords on your restaurant and hospitality resume

Start with the posting, not this list. These are averages across 114 jobs; the one you're applying for has its own priorities. Use this page to spot common gaps, then match the specific posting.
Name skills the way employers do. If you use “sales”, “food safety” and “compliance”, write those exact words. Applicant tracking systems and recruiters search for them, and a close synonym can be missed.
Put each skill in a bullet that shows a result. Naming guest services inside a bullet about what you achieved with it, with a number where you can, is stronger than listing it alone in a skills section.
Add only what's true. If you've worked with “guest services”, “hospitality” and “customer experience” but your resume doesn't say so, add it. If you haven't, leave it out: interviews expose padded resumes quickly.

More about restaurant and hospitality jobs

Resume keywords for other jobs

How these numbers are calculated

Every figure comes from open restaurant and hospitality job postings on MANY Hired, imported from employers' own career pages. For each posting we pick out the skills, tools, certifications and qualifications its description names, then count how many postings ask for each one. A job counts as restaurant and hospitality by its title. Updated November 8, 2026.