Top 12 Catering Manager Skills to Put on Your Resume
A sharp, memorable resume can tilt the odds in your favor in hospitality. For catering managers, it’s all about demonstrating you can plan, cost, and deliver events that feel effortless to guests and profitable to the business. The right skills, framed clearly, make hiring managers pause and pay attention.
Catering Manager Skills
- Menu Development
- Budget Management
- Event Planning
- Customer Service
- Staff Training
- Inventory Control
- Safety Compliance
- Vendor Negotiations
- Culinary Expertise
- POS Systems
- CRM Software
- Project Management
1. Menu Development
Menu development is the thoughtful creation of offerings that match client tastes, dietary needs, budgets, and event themes, while balancing seasonality, production realities, and profitability.
Why It's Important
It shapes guest experience, controls cost, showcases your culinary strengths, and drives repeat bookings. A smart menu anchors smooth operations and a healthy margin.
How to Improve Menu Development Skills
Blend curiosity with discipline. Test, measure, refine.
Know your audience: Survey clients, review past event feedback, and map common preferences and restrictions.
Track trends and seasonality: Watch flavor, format, and dietary trends; plan around seasonal products for better quality and cost.
Craft a clear concept: Build menus that align with the event’s story—cohesive, memorable, and executable by your team.
Develop and test recipes: Standardize yields, plating, and prep steps. Document everything.
Partner with suppliers: Confirm consistent quality, pricing, and availability before promising items.
Cost each item: Calculate plate costs, target food cost percentage, and set pricing that protects margin.
Close the feedback loop: Gather client and staff input after events; adjust underperformers.
Train the team: Ensure servers and cooks can describe, sell, and execute every item.
Design for clarity: Make menus easy to read; highlight crowd-pleasers and profitable specials.
Review quarterly: Use sales and waste data to prune, tweak, and refresh.
Do this consistently and your menu becomes a living asset—tighter costs, happier guests.
How to Display Menu Development Skills on Your Resume
2. Budget Management
Budget management means planning, tracking, and steering all catering costs and revenues—food, labor, rentals, logistics—so events land on target and the business stays profitable.
Why It's Important
Margins in catering are thin. Strong budgeting protects cash flow, quality, and pricing credibility.
How to Improve Budget Management Skills
Build granular budgets: Forecast per event and monthly. Include food, labor, rentals, disposables, transport, contingency.
Track in real time: Use accounting and catering software to compare actuals vs. plan; act fast on variances.
Cut smart: Negotiate with suppliers, engineer menus for yield, and trim waste without denting guest experience.
Boost revenue: Offer upgrades, tiered packages, and surge pricing for peak dates.
Review and refine monthly: Roll lessons learned into next month’s forecast.
Use the right tools: Catering platforms (e.g., Caterease) and standard accounting software make costing, scheduling, and invoicing cleaner.
Clarity in numbers gives you room to deliver excellence without surprises.
How to Display Budget Management Skills on Your Resume
3. Event Planning
Event planning covers concept through teardown—venue coordination, timing, catering logistics, rentals, staffing, and on-site execution—so service flows and guests feel cared for.
Why It's Important
It’s the difference between chaos and calm. Good planning keeps costs controlled, clients delighted, and crews aligned.
How to Improve Event Planning Skills
Unpack the vision: Clarify goals, guest profile, dietary needs, timelines, and constraints early.
Budget with intent: Allocate spend to what guests will notice most; protect a contingency fund.
Choose reliable partners: Build a bench of trusted vendors for rentals, florals, staffing, and transport.
Engineer the menu: Design for scale, travel, and holding—food that arrives beautiful and safe.
Plan for “what if”: Create backup plans for weather, supply hiccups, and equipment failures; brief the team.
Go greener: Reduce single-use items, donate leftovers safely, and favor seasonal sourcing.
Debrief every time: Collect client and staff feedback; document wins and fixes.
Keep learning: Attend industry sessions, cross-train, and refine checklists relentlessly.
How to Display Event Planning Skills on Your Resume
4. Customer Service
Customer service for catering means attentive communication, clear expectations, quick problem-solving, and service moments that feel personal, gracious, and steady under pressure.
Why It's Important
Happy clients come back—and bring friends. Reputation is currency in this business.
How to Improve Customer Service Skills
Respond fast, speak plainly: Confirm details, timelines, and budgets; avoid jargon.
Personalize: Map preferences, allergens, cultural needs; reflect them in menu and service.
Make operations visible: Use project boards and run-of-show timelines so nothing slips.
Invite feedback: Short surveys and post-event calls surface issues and praises you can act on.
Train the front line: Service scripts, escalation playbooks, and calm under fire—practice it.
How to Display Customer Service Skills on Your Resume
5. Staff Training
Staff training builds a team that can execute safely, consistently, and warmly—from kitchen prep to floor service to breakdown.
Why It's Important
Well-trained teams reduce risk, elevate guest experience, and keep events on schedule. Morale rises when people know the play.
How to Improve Staff Training Skills
Assess gaps: Observe shifts, review guest feedback, and pinpoint skill shortfalls.
Tailor the curriculum: Combine food safety (e.g., ServSafe), hospitality basics, and role-specific SOPs.
Make it interactive: Quizzes, drills, and scenario practice beat long lectures.
Coach on the job: Shadowing, station rotations, and micro-briefs before service.
Invest in growth: Offer paths to lead roles; pair new hires with mentors.
Measure and iterate: Track errors, timing, and guest notes; refine training quarterly.
How to Display Staff Training Skills on Your Resume
6. Inventory Control
Inventory control means keeping the right food, beverage, and disposables on hand—no stockouts, minimal spoilage, tight cost control.
Why It's Important
Too much stock ties up cash and spoils. Too little stock tanks service. Control equals confidence.
How to Improve Inventory Control Skills
Adopt digital tracking: Use inventory software for real-time counts, par levels, and automated ordering.
Audit routinely: Cycle counts and monthly full counts reconcile books with reality.
Sharpen supplier cadence: Align delivery schedules to prep days and event peaks.
Forecast from history: Use past event data and seasonality to set pars that make sense.
Go lean: Apply just-in-time practices where feasible; standardize SKUs.
Chase waste: Track trim, leftovers, and returns; fix root causes.
How to Display Inventory Control Skills on Your Resume
7. Safety Compliance
Safety compliance is strict adherence to health, hygiene, and workplace safety standards to protect guests, staff, and your brand.
Why It's Important
It prevents illness and injury, avoids fines and closures, and signals professionalism clients can trust.
How to Improve Safety Compliance Skills
Follow current codes: Align policies with the FDA Food Code (2022) and local regulations.
Train and certify: Provide food handler and manager certifications (e.g., ServSafe) and refresher courses.
Audit relentlessly: Use checklists for receiving, storage, temps, sanitation, and transport; document fixes.
Build a safety culture: Encourage reporting, reward safe practices, and brief hazards before shifts; incorporate OSHA guidance.
Keep records tidy: Logs for temps, cleaning, pest control, training, and corrective actions.
Maintain equipment: Schedule preventive maintenance; replace worn items before they fail.
Run an FSMS: Implement HACCP—identify hazards, set critical limits, monitor, and verify.
How to Display Safety Compliance Skills on Your Resume
8. Vendor Negotiations
Vendor negotiations cover pricing, terms, quality standards, delivery windows, and service expectations with suppliers across food, beverage, rentals, and more.
Why It's Important
Better terms and reliability drive lower costs, higher consistency, and fewer last-minute scrambles.
How to Improve Vendor Negotiations Skills
Do your homework: Know market prices, substitutes, and your volumes.
Build real relationships: Reliability goes both ways; pay on time and communicate forecasts.
Be unmistakably clear: Quality specs, delivery windows, and packaging details—put it in writing.
Trade smart: Offer longer commitments or consolidated orders for better rates.
Seek value beyond price: Ask for credits, rush support, buybacks, or added services when discounts aren’t possible.
Keep options open: Qualify secondary vendors to preserve leverage and continuity.
How to Display Vendor Negotiations Skills on Your Resume
9. Culinary Expertise
Culinary expertise blends technique, flavor balance, menu engineering, and presentation—scaled for events and rock-solid under time constraints.
Why It's Important
It lifts the food from acceptable to talked-about. Execution quality drives reviews and referrals.
How to Improve Culinary Expertise Skills
Train broadly: Take workshops across cuisines and methods; strengthen fundamentals.
Earn credentials: Professional certifications validate skill and discipline.
Practice with purpose: Prototype dishes for transport, holding, and high-volume plating.
Study and taste: Read, stage, and benchmark against standout caterers and restaurants.
Join communities: Engage with culinary and hospitality groups; swap ideas and techniques.
Walk the floor: Observe guest reactions; tweak seasoning, texture, and plating accordingly.
Explore industry expos: Discover products and tools that improve consistency and speed.
How to Display Culinary Expertise Skills on Your Resume
10. POS Systems
A POS system centralizes orders, payments, inventory links, and reporting—critical for off-site events and on-premise operations alike.
Why It's Important
It speeds service, reduces errors, and gives visibility into sales and costs in the moment.
How to Improve POS Systems Skills
Integrate the stack: Connect POS with inventory, accounting, and CRM for clean data flow.
Go mobile: Tablet and handheld ordering (e.g., Toast, Square) shrink lines and bottlenecks.
Tune the interface: Customize menus, modifiers, and quick keys to match your workflow (Lightspeed, TouchBistro are examples).
Mine the reports: Use item sales, hour-by-hour trends, and voids to optimize staffing and menus.
Train and support: Provide refreshers and keep vendor support contacts handy (e.g., Shopify POS).
How to Display POS Systems Skills on Your Resume
11. CRM Software
CRM software keeps client data, proposals, menus, timelines, and communications in one place—nothing slips through the cracks.
Why It's Important
Cleaner follow-ups, tighter coordination, and personalized service lead to repeat business and referrals.
How to Improve CRM Software Skills
Simplify the experience: Customize fields and views for proposals, tastings, and event milestones.
Connect your tools: Sync with calendars, email, inventory, and accounting to avoid double entry.
Use templates: Create branded proposals, contracts, and menu templates to move fast with consistency.
Track inventory tie-ins: Link menu items to availability so sales promises match stock reality.
Centralize communication: Log email, calls, and SMS threads for a full client history.
Collect post-event feedback: Build a simple survey workflow and tag insights for future planning.
Make it mobile: Ensure full functionality on phones and tablets for on-site updates.
How to Display CRM Software Skills on Your Resume
12. Project Management
Project management pulls everything together—scope, timeline, budget, staff, vendors, kitchen, and service—so the client’s vision becomes a smooth reality.
Why It's Important
It reduces risk, aligns teams, and delivers events on time and on budget. Less firefighting, more finesse.
How to Improve Project Management Skills
Set crisp objectives: Use SMART goals to lock scope, success criteria, and deadlines.
Communicate like a metronome: Cadenced updates, clear run-of-show, and single sources of truth.
Use purpose-built tools: Catering software (e.g., CaterZen, Total Party Planner) for scheduling, costing, and client management.
Guard the calendar: Time-block prep, pickups, pack-outs, and buffers; apply the Pomodoro Technique for focus.
Stress test plans: Tabletop exercises for contingencies; assign owners for rapid response.
Close the loop: After-action reviews with vendors and staff; roll insights into SOPs.
How to Display Project Management Skills on Your Resume
