You know, to be honest, a lot of hospitality based businesses (such as travel/tourism) prefer to hire prior wait staff. Working in the restaurant industry is probably THE MOST customer service related industry. Employers know this.

In the job description you could start by “I met customers needs by…”
restaurant based jobs provide skills in: customer service, communication (oral and written), leadership qualities, deadlines, working well under pressure, working well with peers, ability to handle stressful situations with decorum, ability to anticipate customers needs, organizational skills, honest, personable, approachable, ablility to promote a product, team player, cash handling experience, self motivated, reliable, etc.

you can relate virtually ANY desirable work quality to restaurants/reception, etc.

Good Luck

Obviously, you have good customer skills, are used to working with a diverse population, able to multitask, and think on your feet. You are also able to communicate effecively, and are open. I was a waitress for 9 years and a receptionist/vet assisstant for 2 years, and that’s the stuff I put in my resume. Good luck

Whenever I write a resume, I just use a search engine to find sample resumes. Some of them are really good and give you lots of ideas and great adjectives

I would suggest going to a career center. Your (or the local) college or university career center probably offers free workshops and you can make an appointment with a career counselor to fine tune your resume and cover letter. They also have lots of free resources to help you out too. I went to some free workshops offered by my university and they gave me lots of great tips to help my resume, cover letter, interview skills, and how to find job openings. Even just checking out a few university career center websites might help (see my attached link).

Your resume may not be the problem…only a potion of jobs are posted externally and even then, they often already have someone in mind. Find ways to put yourself out there and find opportunities others are missing.

Play up your excellent telephone skills and typing skills. Put down any programs you have that would be useful (ie: MS office, word, excel, etc), highlight your customer service skills.