No one can skip the name of McDonald’s while talking about well-known brands worldwide. This food service business is located in over 100 countries with billions of customers each year. Their tradition of innovation and consistent hard work has made them a popular name in the food service sector. They are more focused on a better environment based on customer experience rather than creating a new McDonald’s. Almost 80% of restaurants are operated by franchisees and they are owned.
McDonald’s is also among the largest employers of entry-level since approximately 2 million people are working on the payroll of McDonald’s. Most of the workers at this fast-food business chain are below the age of 18. This makes them a teen-friendly workplace as most of their employees are young having no prior experience. In this guide, we have tried to clarify the basic yet important concerns of people who are interested to land a job at McDonald’s. So, let’s keep the ball rolling.
Age Limit
You can work at McDonald’s at the age of 14 or older. However, a 14-year-old teen is permitted to work in a few locations. They need to have a work permit since some states allow applicants to start work at the age of 14. Those states include Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. According to the department of labor guidelines, 14 years old teens can’t work overnight and eight-hour shifts. However, due to a severe shortage of labor, some states have lowered the application age and acknowledged 14-yeard old to gain a work permit.
McDonald’s hires 15-year-olds to work in customer service positions. Moreover, 16 and 17-year-olds can perform various tasks at McDonald’s.
Entry-Level Positions Available at Mcdonald’s
McDonald’s offers many entry-level opportunities to younger and older teens and adults. These employment opportunities include guest services representative, crew member, and cook. Here is a brief overview of these positions.
Guest services: Working as a guest service representative at McDonald’s is suitable for 14–16-year-olds. This position requires you to deal with customer order placement, customer inquiries, and ensuring customers get their ordered food. This is a very basic position that doesn’t involve much experience and cooking food. You can learn different skills working in this position.
Crew member: This is another entry-level position suitable for 14 to 16-year-olds at McDonald’s. This position requires you to effectively deal with placing orders, taking care of store cleanliness, helping in food preparation, and handling cash registers. You don’t need to cook food since you will only help in its preparation. Cooking is not available for an employee under 16 as some states don’t allow it.
Cook: A cook is an entry-level position but it’s not suitable and available for employees under 16. In many locations, it is available for those who are 16 and over solely depending upon the child labor law of the state. If a state allows an employer under 16 to work as a cook, then it is also available for those who are under 16 in that particular state/location. This position requires you to prepare McDonald’s food items using the grill, assembling and packaging them for delivery. This is a regular position which is a part of “crew member” but due to busier stores, you may be required to focus on only cooking.
Perks of Working at Mcdonald’s
As said earlier, most of the employees are so young so there is no need to get a high school diploma or GEDs to gain employment at McDonald’s. Having prior work experience may facilitate you in landing a job but if you don’t have it just go with the entry-level workforce.
Hourly employees get one free meal per shift, training classes, McCrew care insurance, and a wage review after every six months. Apart from that, they can also use Gold Card Plus Program which offers discounts to McDonald’s employees on shoes, movie tickets, clothes, and car rentals. Moreover, their employees also get discounts from Childtime Child Care, Kinder Care, and LaPetite Academy. Not to mention, if you are working there, you can also apply for the McDonald’s scholarship to pay for your college expenses. Some perks are restricted to only full-time employees. It’s better that you ask for the benefits package when you apply there.
To sum it all up, most McDonald’s locations need their employees to be 16 and over. However, some locations accept employees 14 and over. This entirely depends upon the child labor law of that state. For employees under 16, parental consent and a work permit are required. Moreover, there are also some restrictions on the hours of work each day and week for minors. With a positive attitude, friendly behavior, willingness to learn, and punctuality at work you can make your working hours much more comfortable and easy-going. Moreover, these are also important behaviors to work with anywhere.
