Chick-fil-A Resume Example & Writing Guide

With 3,000+ restaurants across the U.S., Chick-fil-A is one of the country’s most popular fast-food restaurants known for its crispy chicken sandwiches delivered with fast and friendly service. With 140,000 employees in various roles, the company also prides itself on being a welcoming space for team members and allowing students and young people to gain valuable work experience.

If you’re ready to serve up sandwiches and smiles, there’s likely an opening at a Chick-fil-A near you. To land the job, you’ll need a clear and organized resume that highlights your customer service skills and willingness to learn. Any previous work in fast food or customer-oriented roles is also a plus. This guide will show you how to create a great Chick-fil-A resume that makes a strong first impression.

Resume guide for a Chick-fil-A resume

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This resume guide and corresponding Chick-fil-A resume example will cover the following:

• How to write a Chick-fil-A resume
• Choosing the right resume format for Chick-fil-A
• How to add your contact information
• Using summaries
• Adding your Chick-fil-A or relevant experience
• Listing education and relevant experience
• Picking the right resume design/layout
• What the job market looks like, and what salary you can expect

How to write a Chick-fil-A resume

The very first step in writing your Chick-fil-A resume is understanding what sections to include. Your resume should contain the following elements:

• The resume header
• The resume summary (aka profile or personal statement)
• The employment history section
• The resume skills section
• The education section

Chick-fil-A is a large corporation, so naturally they hire candidates in a wide variety of fields including HR, IT, marketing and communications, design, operations and supply chain, quality control, recipe development, and more. However, the vast majority of their team members work in customer-facing roles as hourly associates, team leads, and store managers. For the purposes of this guide, we’ll cover writing a resume to work in a Chick-fil-A restaurant. If you are interested in corporate roles with the company, check out our wide collection of resume guides in categories like sales, marketing, HR, and more.

When crafting a resume for a position at Chick-fil-A, it's crucial to highlight your customer service skills prominently. If you’ve ever eaten at a Chick-fil-A before, you know that the staff members are trained to use the phrase “My pleasure!” when serving customers. This is because the company places a strong emphasis on providing exceptional service, so demonstrating your ability to engage with people effectively is key. Highlight any previous experience in customer-facing roles, whether it's in retail, hospitality, or any other relevant field. Showcase your ability to handle challenging situations with grace and maintain a positive attitude under pressure. Additionally, emphasize any teamwork or collaboration experiences, as Chick-fil-A places value on employees who can work well with others to achieve common goals. 

Here are a few more tips to succeed in creating your Chick-fil-A resume:

• Tailor for the job. While your Chick-fil-A resume may share some similarities with other resumes you submit for fast food positions, you should still strive to customize it for the job description and the company. At the very least, include the Chick-fil-A store name in your summary.
• Create a polished image. You can quickly stand out from other candidates by creating a clean and organized resume. You won’t need elaborate design touches, just an easy-to-read font and a header that showcases your name and contact details.
• Consider the ATS. Large companies like Chick-fil-A use ATS systems to filter candidates and ease the load of hiring managers. Read the box below for more info on overcoming this obstacle.

Choosing the right resume format for Chick-fil-A

When selecting the best resume format for applying to Chick-fil-A, it's essential to consider simplicity, clarity, and relevance. If you have previous experience to show, we recommend using the reverse chronological format, which lists your work history starting with your most recent position and working backward through all relevant experience. This format is effective for showcasing your experience and career progression, making it easy for Chick-fil-A recruiters to see your relevant work history at a glance. Be sure to focus on roles that demonstrate your customer service skills, teamwork abilities, and any previous experience in the food service industry.

Students and first-time job seekers may opt for the functional format instead, which emphasizes your skills and qualifications over your work history. This format is beneficial if you have limited work experience or if your previous roles are not directly related to the position you're applying for. Start by creating a skills section where you can list skills such as communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and attention to detail—traits that are highly valued at Chick-fil-A. Then, provide examples of how you've demonstrated these skills in various contexts, such as volunteer work, extracurricular activities, or part-time jobs. Make sure to tailor your skills and experiences to match the job description and showcase how you can contribute to Chick-fil-A's success.

Lastly, a combination format can be effective for applicants with a mix of work experience and relevant skills. This format allows you to highlight both your work history and your key qualifications in separate sections to provide a comprehensive overview of your background.

Include your contact information

Your contact information is arguably the most vital information on your resume. Without it, the hiring manager wouldn’t be able to get in touch with you for an interview—no matter how great of a candidate you are! Your personal details are found in the header at the top of the page. Here are the key pieces of information to include:

• Full name & title. List your first and last name. Use the title of the role you are pursuing.
• Professional email address. Use a clean format like [email protected]. Don’t use a quirky, unprofessional email address.
• Phone number. List a number where you can be readily contacted, with a professional voicemail greeting.
• Location. List only your city and state. Don’t list street address or zipcode. It’s both outdated and unsafe.
• LinkedIn. Candidates for team lead or store manager positions should have a LinkedIn profile that is active, relevant, and shows your leadership experience.

Don’t include:

• Date of birth. Not necessary and could potentially lead to age discrimination.
• Personal details. Marital status, social security number, passport number, etc.

Make use of a summary

In a competitive job market, recruiters often spend mere seconds reviewing each resume, making it essential to provide a concise overview of your qualifications and career goals upfront. That’s where your summary comes into play. A well-crafted summary on your Chick-fil-A resume serves as a powerful introduction, allowing you to immediately capture the attention of hiring managers and showcase your key qualifications. These 3-5 lines at the start of your resume are the place to highlight your most relevant skills, experiences, and accomplishments in a clear and compelling way to help the location manager quickly understand why you're the ideal candidate for the role.

Begin your summary by describing yourself and your key attributes as related to the Chick-fil-A role. Then mention your most relevant experience while keeping the details for further down the page. Finally, tie your summary back to the company and its mission. This could mean emphasizing your passion for delivering exceptional customer service, your proficiency in working collaboratively within a team, or your dedication to upholding Chick-fil-A's values of integrity and excellence.

A compelling summary can set a positive tone for the rest of your resume, encouraging recruiters to delve deeper into your qualifications and consider you as a standout candidate for the position. By incorporating a well-written summary into your Chick-fil-A resume, you can significantly enhance your chances of securing an interview and ultimately landing the job.

You can find adaptable Chick-fil-A resume examples summary below:

Outline your Chick-fil-A work experience

​​When writing the employment history section of your Chick-fil-A resume, start with your most recent experience and work your way backward through all relevant roles in the past 10 years or so. For each entry, create a subheading with your job title, employer, dates worked, and location. Make sure to use bold or italics so that this information stands out clearly from the rest. 

Then create 4-5 bullet points that describe your duties and accomplishments. As an hourly associate, you may not feel that you have a lot of achievements to show, but you can still write your bullet points in a results-based way that shows the impact you had on your previous employer. 

Here’s an example of average bullet points for a fast food position:

• Handled customer transactions at the register
• Cooked a wide variety of menu items
• Took orders at the drive-thru window

Now check out these results-based bullet points:

• Handled 200+ customer transactions per shift with speed and accuracy
• Expertly executed 15+ menu items paying extra attention to special requests
• Process 150+ drive-thru orders with a positive attitude and friendly service

In your experience section, you should also begin your bullet points with action verbs that highlight your key qualities and sense of initiative. Here are a few examples: 

Certainly! Here's a list of action verbs tailored for a fast-food resume: Assembled, operated, managed, organized, communicated, collaborated, resolved, upheld, maintained, executed, assisted, and interacted.

Take a look at the car sales employment history resume sample below:

Include the relevant key skills that make you a great Chick-fil-A candidate

When crafting the skills section of your Chick-fil-A resume, focus on highlighting qualities and abilities that are directly relevant to the role and align with Chick-fil-A's values and expectations. 

Your skills section can be broken down into hard skills, which are technical or on-the-job abilities like operating the register and POS systems or cooking menu items, and soft skills which are personal traits like commitment to customer service or the ability to learn quickly and work in a team. Make sure to include a balance of both of these types of skills on your resume. Here are some examples from our Chick-fil-A resume sample:

Detail your education & relevant Chick-fil-A certifications

Many Chick-fil-A locations are staffed by students and recent grads meaning you don’t need an advanced degree to join the company. However, you should still place your education on your resume in order to give the hiring manager a clearer sense of your background. As with your experience section, make sure to list your degrees and diplomas from most recent to oldest. Give the certification name, school, dates attended, and location. Recent grads and students can also add bullet points that contain their academic achievements like GPA, awards, or leadership positions.

See the education section from our adaptable Chick-fil-A resume sample below.

How to write a Chick-fil-A resume with no experience

If you’re writing a Chick-fil-A resume with no experience, the good news is that you still have a great chance at landing the job. The company prides itself on providing summer jobs and part-time work to entry-level job seekers and students, so Chick-fil-A managers are used to showing newcomers the ropes when it comes to fitting into the restaurant’s team.

That being said, you still need to craft your resume to show that you’re the most teachable and motivated candidate. Do this by highlighting transferable skills, relevant coursework, extracurricular activities, and any volunteer work that demonstrates qualities valued by Chick-fil-A. Start by creating a strong objective or summary statement that emphasizes your enthusiasm for joining the Chick-fil-A team and your commitment to delivering exceptional customer service. Highlight any customer-facing experiences, such as babysitting, tutoring, or participating in school clubs or sports teams, that showcase your communication skills, teamwork abilities, and dedication to helping others. You can emphasize any leadership roles or responsibilities you've had, even if they were in academic settings.

Pick the right resume layout and design for a Chick-fil-A resume

Your Chick-fil-A resume layout doesn’t need to be over-the-top. A clean, professional design that is easy to read and showcases your experience is better than a complicated format. Choose a professional font with one accent color or a neutral color scheme. Bullet points are a great way to organize information under each section, making it easy for managers to scan and identify key details quickly. Keep the overall layout clean and uncluttered so that the focus remains on your qualifications and interest in the Chick-fil-A role.

One of the quickest ways to create a great Chick-fil-A resume is by using a professionally designed resume template. These designs ensure that the formatting is correct and the style is attractive to both hiring managers and ATS systems. This is the best way to ensure you make a positive first impression. With Resume.io’s intuitive resume builder, you can even save different versions for different roles you apply to.

Chick-fil-A job market and outlook

With 3,000+ locations, there are many Chick-fil-A positions waiting to be filled. As with many fast-food jobs, turnover is high which means that employees often leave and managers must replace them. While it’s hard to estimate the number of Chick-fil-A jobs open at any given moment, chances are you will have no trouble finding a job with the restaurant chain.

What type of salary you can expect at Chick-fil-A

The pay of hourly associates at Chick-fil-A depends largely on the location of the restaurant. Some restaurants start at around 10 dollars per hour, while others pay up to 16 dollars per hour in periods of increased demand or locations with a higher cost of living.

Full text adaptable resume example

Key takeaways for building a Chick-fil-A resume

Your Chick-fil-A resume is the first step to serving chicken sandwiches at one of America’s most beloved fast-food chains. Chick-fil-A prides itself on friendly and efficient customer service so make sure to focus on the company’s values and missions when writing your resume. 

A clear and concise layout is also important to make a strong first impression. Our online resume builder makes it easy to create a clear and convincing resume to land a Chick-fil-A position in no time.