Fast Food Cover Letter Sample

Working a fast food job is an excellent way to build strong communication and customer service skills. Such skills help you work your way into fast food management or transition to a different industry.

To land a great restaurant job, you need to submit a strong application with a carefully written cover letter.

Here are three tips for writing a solid fast food cover letter:

1. Start with a strong introduction

You’re a customer service expert, so you know how important a good first impression is. The best way to make a positive first impression is with a strong cover letter for your target fast food restaurant position.

After writing a polite cover letter greeting (ideally including the hiring manager’s name), it’s time to write a first paragraph that captures the reader’s attention. Here are some quick do’s and don’ts for your cover letter opening:

Do: Show your passion for your work, letting your personality shine through.

Don’t: Use casual language. Fast food managers seek employees who can handle customer-facing situations, so show your professionalism.

Do: Include the company name and position title. Fast food outlets often have multiple positions open at once; stating the company’s name and the job you’re applying for helps clear confusion.

Don’t: Make your intro paragraph too long. Too much text at the top of the page (or anywhere, for that matter) makes the hiring manager move on to the next cover letter.

Aim for an introduction like the one from the above cover letter sample for a fast food job:

I’m ready to put my 8+ years of experience in the fast food industry to work for you as a [Position Title] at Burger King. My passion for leading my team to deliver stellar customer service is obvious in my attached resume, which includes the following career highlights.

2. Include relevant fast food service skills

Fill your cover letter with relevant skills. Many fast food companies receive hundreds of applicants per day so they use applicant tracking software (ATS) to filter applications based on keywords. What that means for you is this:

If you don’t inject hard skills and soft skills relevant to the fast food industry into your cover letter, it may not even reach the hiring manager.

Fast food workers must be personable, hardworking, and comfortable performing physical tasks like cleaning and lifting boxes. A fast food company’s ATS looks for terms like the following:

• Customer service skills
• Communication skills
• Money handling
• Conscientiousness
• Physical fitness
• Energetic
• Food safety
• Cleaning skills
• Conflict resolution
• Point of sale (POS) software
• Microsoft Office
• Employee training software

3. Showcase your achievements (with hard numbers)

Hiring managers are always impressed by results. When writing your fast food cover letter, you must include hard numbers that support the achievements you claim.

If you worked as a cashier, include the amounts of money you handled and how many customers you served. Were you a fry cook? Mention the many menu items you mastered or the total of items you produced per hour.

Even if your main task was cleaning, you can mention your team’s customer satisfaction rating. Clean facilities are key to customer satisfaction, so put that rating in your cover letter.

Here’s a perfect example from the above fast food job cover letter sample:

• At Subway, my customer satisfaction rating is 99.9%
• With McDonald’s, I reduced cold storage costs by 10% via innovative solutions
• I managed $2,000 in cash each day at McDonald’s
• I lead my team at Subway to successfully serve more than 350 customers daily