Bartending jobs are strange, in the sense that many people wind up doing it at some point in their lives, but few people have it as their life's ambition to be a bartender and thus very few people who tend bar remain doing so for their working lifetime, although it does happen, especially in a case where a bartender is employed by an upscale establishment. It's also true that bartending jobs can pay pretty well and can allow full timers who work in the right places to afford all of the normal living expenses, including owning a home; and those who do this job appreciate having an income at the end of every working day or night.
There really aren't any concrete credentials needed to find bartending jobs except minimum age requirements (in some states, the minimum age requirement for tending bar is younger than that for being able to drink). Employers—which may include restaurants, hotels, airports, train depots, catering establishments, casinos, social halls, amusement parks, event organizing companies, cafes and bistros, taverns, pubs, or nightclubs—vary in what they are looking for, and many a person with no bartending experience gets hired and trained on-the-job. Some employers do prefer those with experience, but what most employers are looking for is aptitude.
If there is anything that tends to definitely give an edge to a bartending applicant, it is a certificate from a bartending school. Bartending schools teach courses that last one to two weeks, after which time the "student" has "graduated". Usually costing just a few hundred dollars to attend, these schools teach students how to mix dozens or even hundreds of drinks, the proper way to pour or mix certain drinks, the different kinds of alcohol ("well", "top shelf", etc), and how to interact professionally with customers. This latter part is crucial because alcoholic beverage servers may have to deal with people who have had too much to drink, or don't hold their liquor well and get rude, demanding, improperly flirtatious (especially in the case of a female bartender), even violent.
However, many employers really don't care if someone has attended a bartending school or not. Those with bartender aptitudes are people who are outgoing, naturally tending to be friendly, have the ability to multitask (such as when a bartender needs to memorize one incoming order while putting together and serving another one), possess superior customer service abilities and skills, and are great listeners (these people might wind up listening to many a person's tales of woe, lost love, and so on and so forth). Indeed more than mere beverage servers, bartenders should also have a flair for being entertaining, to keep customers happy and get repeat business for themselves or their establishment.
Women may sometimes have an advantage over men of similar qualifications in getting hired as bartenders, because if they're good looking employers may prefer them in order to make their bar more attractive; men tend to go out drinking by themselves more often than women do and may be attracted to stay longer at a bar where they have the chance to talk up a beautiful woman who is expected to be friendly and who represents a captive audience. However, there is not truly any sexism in bartending and men abound in the profession.
In line with the fact that bartenders are more than just beverage servers, their job description includes many duties such as: keeping the bar area clean; arranging the bottles and glasses in a certain way; keeping fruits for garnishing drinks prepared; collecting correct payments from customers and giving back correct change; operating the cash register; keeping stock of inventories; cleaning the glasses and other bar equipments; serving food, sometimes in the restaurant area; checking customers' IDs if their age is questionable; supervising the junior bartenders and barbacks; and making sure to keep in compliance with local and state drinking laws.
The average annual pay across the United States for full-time bartenders is $41,000, much of which comes in the form of tips. Bartenders receive a base pay which is typically but not always minimum wage, but the bulk of their money comes from tips. The better a bartender does her job, the bigger the tips will tend to be and the more frequently customers will come back to tip again. Some bartenders use their position to advance to other, higher paying jobs such as restaurant manager.
Bartending jobs represent an excellent way for many people who are new to the workforce or have been out of it for a while to get gainful employment.
