Job Placement?
Job placement?! Seriously, any bartending ‘academy’ promising its students a job placement program is just blowin’ smoke. When I graduated from a bartending school in Midtown Manhattan back in ’89, their idea of job placement was to send every student that had recently graduated their program to the same 5 crappy-ass restaurant/bars to apply for 1 position that MAY open up in the future.
I spent 2 weeks applying for the same position as everybody else I graduated with before realizing it was a fruitless search. Now, it was nice catching up with everybody in the interview lobby, but my chances of landing a quality job was non-existent.
What many if not all bartending schools will NEVER tell you is that the best way to escalate to a bar position is to have a job within an establishment already, then move up from within. Why won’t they tell you this? Because that would make the traditional bartending school totally obsolete, which is the way it should have been viewed from the very beginning.
Truth is, in order to become a successful and effective bartender, you really only need to know about 50 drink recipes off the top of your head. The rest will fall into place. And once you’ve made a particular drink 5-10 times, guess what… You’ll know it forever! I remember wowing one cook I worked with on the first day of the job; A customer ordered a Manhattan, sweet, up w/ rocks on the side.
Now, that sounded like Greek to the cook, but I can make that drink in my sleep. Even after a 4-year hiatus to serve in the U.S. Army Old Guard I could still make that drink without so much as an afterthought. The secret? I already knew how to make a Manhattan, just add a little more Sweet Vermouth than usual and save the ice for the customer, so he could enjoy every last drop of alcohol.
So, not to ramble, but keep this in mind… Don’t get sucked into a $500-1000 bartending course with the promise of job placement. They can’t deliver. If you don’t believe me, research it a little. Ask some former students what they think of the job placement process thru the school. If the school isn’t providing unique leads based upon the individuality of the student, it isn’t worth considering.
Simply put!