How to Record a Barista Video Job Ad

Date modified: 2nd June 2025 | This article explains how you can record a barista video job ad inside the Pilla App which you can share with external candidates. You can also check out the Job Ads Guide for more info on other roles or check out the docs page for Managing Videos in Pilla.

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Barista roles attract two completely different populations. There are students and part-timers who want flexible hours and rent money—reliable, transient, primarily concerned with schedule accommodation. Then there are coffee professionals building careers in specialty coffee—passionate, ambitious, evaluating your roaster relationship and equipment as carefully as you're evaluating their latte art. Your video job ad needs to signal which audience you're speaking to, because the student and the aspiring Q grader want entirely different things.

Step 1: Open with the Opportunity

What makes this role worth taking depends entirely on who you're hiring.

Recruiting coffee professionals: Lead with your coffee program. Who roasts for you—a relationship roaster who visits quarterly, or commodity beans from a distributor? Do baristas participate in cuppings? Is there pathway to training roles, or exposure to roasting? Competition support? These details separate specialty cafés from places that happen to serve coffee.

Mention equipment by name. "We run a three-group Linea PB with Mythos grinders" communicates more than paragraphs of generic description. Coffee people know what that means. They also notice when you don't mention it.

Recruiting for flexibility and reliability: Lead with schedule accommodation. Can students work around lectures? Are shift swaps easy? How much notice for rotas? Part-time candidates often juggle multiple commitments—their primary question is whether this job fits their life, not whether they'll develop a palate.

Be clear about hours. "15-25 hours per week, primarily mornings" lets candidates self-select immediately. Vagueness wastes everyone's time.

Hotel and restaurant barista roles: Frame this within the broader hospitality context. Opportunities across departments. Guest profile and service standards. How coffee integrates with food service—are you the breakfast bar or part of fine dining? The candidate pool here often overlaps with general hospitality rather than coffee specialists.

Step 2: Show Your Café's Personality

Film the space during a real shift. The 7am queue tells a different story than the quiet 2pm lull—show whichever represents the experience you're hiring for.

Equipment communicates investment: Your espresso machine is the first thing coffee-focused candidates evaluate. Single group suggests low volume; a three-group La Marzocco signals serious operation. Show your grinder setup—single dosing or hopper-fed? EK43 for filter? Batch brew system or pour-over bar? Specialty candidates read these details like a language.

If your equipment is basic, that's fine—but you're hiring different people. A Sage Barista Express behind the counter and a coffee obsessive behind it is a mismatch waiting to happen.

The working environment: Counter layout and customer flow. How close is the till to the machine—are baristas taking orders and making drinks, or is there role separation? Kitchen integration if you serve food. The back-of-house reality: a proper prep area, or a cramped corner?

Solo versus team: Small independents often have single-staffed mornings. Some people love the solo rhythm—owning the space, building regular relationships, controlling the playlist. Others need company and find it isolating. Be clear about typical staffing levels.

Customer demographic: Laptop workers camping for hours? Commuters grabbing takeaways? Weekend brunch crowds? The customer base shapes the job. A café full of regulars who want to chat is a different experience from a station concourse where you'll never see the same face twice.

Step 3: Paint a Picture of the Role

"Barista" covers everything from pushing buttons on an automatic machine to dialling in single-origin espresso to 0.1g precision. Candidates need specifics.

For specialty operations: Walk through your quality standards. How do baristas dial in each morning—what parameters are they adjusting, and how much latitude do they have? Do you track extraction percentages? What's the expectation for milk texture—microfoam standards, latte art requirements, alternative milk handling?

Explain customer education expectations. Are baristas expected to discuss origins and processing methods? Recommend pour-over for the single origin? Or just make the drink and move on?

For volume operations: The pace matters more than the coffee. How many drinks during the morning rush? What's the queue management approach—one person on drinks, one on till, or everyone doing everything? Is there food service alongside coffee, and what does that involve?

Candidates from specialty backgrounds may not realise how different high-volume work feels. Someone used to crafting 8 drinks an hour will struggle with 40.

The full job beyond coffee: Food preparation—toasties, plating pastries, managing display cases. Cleaning—machine maintenance, floor mopping, bathroom checks. Stock and inventory. Opening and closing procedures. Most barista jobs are at least 30% not making coffee.

Physical realities often glossed over: Standing for entire shifts. Repetitive strain from tamping and steaming. Heat from machines in small spaces during summer. Early mornings—5:30am starts for 6am openings are common.

Step 4: What You Actually Need

Different venues need different skills. A specialty café hiring for coffee knowledge and a high-street chain hiring for reliability are looking for completely different attributes.

Specialty coffee technical requirements: Espresso understanding: the relationship between dose, yield, and time. How grind adjustment affects extraction. Diagnosing shots by taste—sour, bitter, balanced. Milk steaming technique: stretching, texturing, temperature control. Latte art isn't just aesthetic; it indicates milk quality.

Manual brew competency if you offer pour-over. Understanding why V60 and Chemex produce different cups. Familiarity with brewing ratios and timing.

Volume operation requirements: Speed and consistency under pressure. Memory for regular orders. Till accuracy and cash handling. Multitasking—steaming milk while pulling shots while taking payment. These are different skills from craft; don't assume they transfer.

Experience calibration: "6 months café experience" and "6 months specialty experience" describe different candidates. Be specific about what you need and what you'll train. If you'll teach latte art but need someone who understands extraction, say so. If you need reliability more than coffee knowledge, say that.

The morning person question: Opening shifts dominate barista work, and they start early. Someone who's not functional before 9am will struggle with 5:30am starts regardless of their coffee skills. This seems obvious but causes constant turnover in cafés that don't select for it.

What matters more than you'd think: Reliability matters more than talent in most café contexts. A mediocre barista who shows up every shift on time is more valuable than an excellent one who calls in sick every other week. Small teams can't absorb absences.

Step 5: Make the Offer Compelling

Barista wages cluster in a narrow band. What differentiates roles is often everything else.

The money:

  • Independent cafés: £10-12/hour, tips variable (often £1-3/hour extra)
  • Specialty coffee: £11-13/hour, sometimes less tips due to lower volume
  • Chains: £10.50-12/hour, corporate benefits, more predictable hours
  • Hotels: £11-14/hour plus service charge

Total earnings vary significantly. A busy high-street café with strong card tipping might outpace a quieter specialty shop despite lower base rates.

Schedule flexibility often matters most: For students and part-timers, this trumps pay. How far ahead are rotas published? Can shifts be swapped easily? Are managers accommodating about exam periods or changing availability? Rigid scheduling loses candidates to competitors who offer flexibility.

Coffee-specific perks: Free drinks on shift—obvious but mention it. Staff discount or free beans to take home? Training budget for SCA courses? Cupping access? Equipment discount? These cost little but signal that you value coffee people.

Career pathways if they exist: Shift supervisor. Senior barista or training roles. Management track. Exposure to roasting or sourcing. For career baristas, development opportunities matter more than marginal pay differences.

The part-time reality: Many barista candidates are explicitly looking for part-time. Don't oversell full-time ambitions if you're hiring for 20 hours a week. Equally, if you need full-time availability, state it clearly to avoid candidates who can't provide it.

Step 6: Tell Them How to Apply

Match application complexity to role seniority. A specialty head barista role might warrant a proper application; a part-time café position shouldn't require a cover letter.

For most barista roles: "Pop in with a CV when we're not slammed—mornings are usually quieter after 9." "Email us your experience and availability." "DM on Instagram." Low friction wins. Candidates often apply to multiple places simultaneously; the one that responds fastest gets first pick.

Be clear about:

  • Hours you're actually hiring for (morning/afternoon/weekend)
  • Minimum commitment you need
  • Whether you're hiring immediately or building a pipeline
  • Trial shift approach (always paid—the industry's reputation for unpaid trials is earned and damaging)

Response speed matters: Good barista candidates—especially students at term start—often take the first reasonable offer. A week-long response time means they've already started somewhere else.