I hear it all the time. The guy at the bartending school promised me exclusive access to their job placement board!! He told me _________ Nightclub (usually the busiest nightclub in town) is looking for people. He also told me that they have placed numerous bartenders at this nightclub and many other hotspots around town. Now you’re sucked in. All you have to do is plunk down your hard earned money, go to school for 2 weeks and bam!!!! You’ll be working at the best bars in the city making tons of cash!!
I’m going to put this in very simple terms. The “free job placement” that bartender schools offer is a total scam. It doesn’t exist. What most of these schools do is just lift help wanted ads from newspapers/craigslist and social networking sites. They then act like these ads are “exclusive listings” that only you have access too. When you go down and apply to these “exclusive listings” a couple of things will happen.
1) Your going to see everyone that was in your bartending class applying also. You will also see people who were in the last two bartending classes who are still trying to get a job.
2) When you tell the owner/manager you just graduated bartending school (along with the other 20 people) he laughs and says he never hires “bartending school graduates”
This cycle will continue a few more times and then you’ll pretty much give up. You spent 500 bucks and you never even got a chance to get behind the bar! Realizing you have been ripped off, you forget about bartending and hit yourself on the head for being so stupid.
Don’t do it.
When I interviewed dozens of bartenders/managers/owners for this website, something stuck out at me. A LOT of them went to bartending school. What struck me as interesting is that they all said that their bartending school experience had nothing to do with them getting that first job. In fact, many of them stated that they kept their bartending school experience a secret from the people that hired them.
My point is this. If you really want to become a bartender, don’t give up. Even if you wasted your money on bartending school, there are tons of people out there who have done the same thing. These same people have gone on to have successful bartending careers. Nothing is going to be handed to you on a silver platter. If you want something that’s worth having, you’re going to have get off your ass and work for it. Best of luck.
Cheers,
Pete
