Pizza Hut Restaurant General Manager Interview Questions & Reviews

Interview Details – One phone interview, one interview with area manager and one interview with region manager- total 3 to 4 hours

Negotiation Details – none

Interview Details – Online Application needed, resume Helpful. When completing an online application you will also need to do an on line assessment, roughly 100 questions. This online questionnaire id used to determine if you are a good fit for the company.
   If you pass then you will receive a call from an area coach (what PH calls their supervisors). The questions you will get will vary from area coach to area coach, to a small degree. If you pass the first interview you are then scheduled for a second. During the second you will be interviewed by at lest 2 area coaches.
    Overall a very detailed interview,

Negotiation Details – During the negotiation I was asked what salary I would consider. What I asked for was 10K over the then max salary (I was latter able to verify this). I was offered a salary that was 1/2 way between the base and max. I was also told the bonus rate and figured it would make up the difference of what I wanted.
  Recently they have reduced the max salary to 36K, Their bonus is structured on beating plan and beating last year. Because of this if you get a new store it is easy to max out this bonus. But between about 8 months till about 24 this bonus is next to impossible to receive. After that Pizza Hut says that the average bonus is in the $400 range per period.

Interview Details – Was promoted from within. Interviewed with two Area Coaches, Regional Coach, and Regional Training Manager.

Negotiation Details – I was made an offer. Was too naive to negotiate (i.e. I sold myself too cheap).

Interview Details – I was hired as a driver. The area manager met me and decided he wanted to promote me to assistant manager. After 8 months he had an opening for general manager and he promoted me to fill that spot.

Negotiation Details – I didn't negotiate because the first offer was very fair and I accepted it.

Interview Details – I applied to the RGM position online.The online application consisted of the normal questions, and upon submitting it there is a personality assessment as well as a rather quick and easy aptitude assessment. Total time to complete: 30-40 minutes. Level of difficulty: (1-10) 3

So approximately 3 days after I submitted my online application and resume I received a phone call from a HR recruiter. They proceeded to do a very standard prescreening which consisted of the following questions. Level of difficulty: 3
1. What made you apply to Pizza Hut?
2. What experience in management do you have?
3. Have you ever managed a restaurant before?
4. Tell me about your past/current jobs.

This is a pretty indepth interview. My interviewer was the District Manager of the store I wished to go to. They asked numerous questions about my previous experience, my outlook on management and what I was looking for in a job. Some additional questions were:
1. Tell me about your previous management experience.
2. What specifically were you in charge of?
3. Tell me about a difficult management decision you had to make and its outcome.
4. What do you look for when hiring on new team members.

You should really know your resume well during this interview, because the DM will question all parts of it. They will cover financial acumen, staffing, responsibilities and more. The things they are looking for are people with a true passion for customer service and a commitment to succeeding. Level of difficulty: 8

So 3 days after my interview with the DM, I was scheduled to meet with yet another DM from a different region. I won't spend much time explaining the process, as it is almost identical to the first interview, but it is VERY IMPORTANT that you know your resume and previous jobs well. They do rely heavily on your resume to formulate questions. Level of difficulty: 6 (lower because you've done it already)

So after meeting with TWO district managers, and the prescreener, you would think you are ready for a job offer. But at Pizza Hut that's not quite how it works. 3-4 days after the second DM interview, you are scheduled to go on a RJP. Which stands for Realistic Job Preview. They will send you to an existing restaurant to meet with the Restaurant General Manager and you will work a 4-5 hour shift and learn the in and the outs of this particular restaurant. The RGM will start with a quick interview, that is quite similar to the prescreen and the DM interview. Be prepared to repeat yourself.....again. The RGM will then walk you through the restaurant and show you all the different areas. They encourage you to ask as many questions as you can, to interact with the team and to help make the food if necessary (or you feel comfortable). Basically this is a great opportunity for you to decide if this is exactly what you would like to do for your career. They (Pizza Hut) get an opportunity to see how you interact with the team, and if you seem genuinely interested in the position. There is no real difficulty assigned to this phase.

So, about 1 week later you are contacted by your recruiter and they inform you that the Vice President of the company would like to meet with you for your "final interview". This (for me) was the most stressful interview. The VP at the time of my interview was a very serious individual who offered up some tough questions.
1. How would you turn around an underperforming restaurant?
2. Describe to me your previous P&L's and percentage spent on costs.
3. Tell me about your most difficult financial decision and its relation on your bottomline.

Now if you are new to business and are not accustomed to dealing with lifelong business men, this will be a very intimidating interview. There are tough questions asked and you will really have to think about your responses. Level of difficulty: 9

So you have come this far, and you have spent the better half of a month interviewing with every single person (so it seems) in the company. The offer comes down.....and it's less than impressing. I had 3 years experience in a high volume entertainment complex and was offered $35k annually. This was difficult and a significant drop from my previous job. But after discussing the salary with the HR recruiter I was basically told that if I had previous experience in a restaurant I would have gotten more, since I did not.....this was it. I took the job based on a poor job market and the fact I was unemployed for quite sometime.

All in all this is a very long process, but not without it's good points. I really did enjoy the RJP (for which you are paid) and it gave me a chance to get an understanding of what it would be like. They (Pizza Hut) do preach about being an individual outside of work and having a family etc..... it seems like they understand there is more to life than work.

Negotiation Details – There is no real negotiation with this. They determine an offer and it is up to you to decide whether or not to take it.