Company Overview
A popular quick-service restaurant chain, Penn Station Subs employs kitchen, customer service, and management personnel throughout a network of roughly 260 East Coast and Midwest locations. Penn Station boasts great food, enjoyable work environments, and fast customer service. The fast food chain also represents an ideal place to find entry-level work and careers in management.
What to Expect During the Hiring Process
Applicants may submit hiring information online or in-person at Penn Station locations of choice. Penn Station Subs interviews generally take place in-store, in one-on-one formats with a hiring representative or general manager. Wearing business casual or professional-looking attire to Penn Station job interviews proves customary and appropriate.
Short Interviews
Workers should expect to spend at least 20 to 30 minutes in each interview; however, most applicants only sit through a single interview session during the Penn Station hiring process.
Potential Interview Questions
Penn Station Subs managers may ask interview questions with some of the following themes:
- "Can you work long hours on your feet?"
- "Are you willing to work evening and weekend shifts?"
- "How would you approach helping a first-time customer?"
Tips for Success
Maintain eye contact with the interviewers while answering each question. Remain as sincere as possible and use examples of how your personality or previous job history qualifies you for the Penn Station position. In some cases, applicants are hired on the spot. If there is no confirmation of hire by the end of the final interview, Penn Station job hopefuls should contact the hiring representative a few days after the meeting.
Penn Station Crew Member Interview Video
Video Transcript
Interviewer: Please describe your job title and primary duties.
Penn Station Crew Member: Primary duties? Just restaurant crew. I mean, due to the fact how they tried to… The erratic nature of how they would try to change up the business, I was working everywhere in there. The only thing I probably didn’t touch was the grill.
Interviewer: What was the work environment like?
Penn Station Crew Member: Work environment. I would say it’s pretty quick pace but at the same time it was pretty fun to collaborate amongst the team members. But besides that, you get a few shaky customers, you get some cool clientele in there every once in a while.
Interviewer: What was your favorite part about working there?
Penn Station Crew Member: Favorite part? I’d probably say just the opportunity to network with people. Just period. That’s networking. You can take it any direction you want to. Different types of people that come in all the time.
Interviewer: Please describe the application and interview process.
Penn Station Crew Member: Well, it was really quick. And going in there, it was literally me for five minutes going up to say hello to the guy. I mean, not the guy, but the manager, shook his hand, we had a seat at the table because they were in need of employees at the time. So with that, they had sat me down and they hired me on that same day. And then the next day I had gotten my uniform, and the application process, it was simple. It was just writing down my past a resume right now my name was school I went to. It was pretty cool.
Interviewer: What questions did the interviewer ask during the job interview?
Penn Station Crew Member: Interview questions. What can you bring to the table being an employee at Penn Station? What do you think you would bring to the team? Will you bring a sense of leadership, team work, problem solving? Things like that.
Interviewer: What other advice would you give to a job seeker looking to gain employment?
Penn Station Crew Member: As far as getting that job, I would say just be coachable and just be ready to learn. And not really, I mean, everybody has their time but until then, you sit and you wait, you pay attention, and you work along with people until you build your way up. And I guess that’s a good starting foundation. Getting into the corporate world and learning how to work with people. That’s just a good stepping stone.
Penn Station Crew Member Interview Video
Video Transcript
Interviewer: Please describe your job title and primary duties.
Penn Station Team Member: My primary duties mainly were working, I started working in the grill, maybe my third week there, but I started with the sub station. That’s where most people start. And you basically wrap the sandwiches and dress them, and then before your shift is over they clean all of their dishes, they hand wash everything. There is no dishwashers or anything. So you hand wash the dishes as well.
And with their meat, they cut, the chicken is like, it’s no frozen by-product or anything, it’s actual raw chicken. So you’d have to cut the chicken and cut certain things out of it, you put that in the… can’t talk. In the Tupperware and also the potatoes, you have to scrub the potatoes and clean them, and you have to scrub them under cold water. So that’s kind of like, your hands are going to be freezing. That was one of my duties. And the last one I would say other than cleaning the dining room is also prepping the cookies and making lemonade.
Interviewer: What was the work environment like?
Penn Station Team Member: So the environment can go from being fun and laid-back to being pretty hectic and fast-paced like that.
Interviewer: What was your favorite part about working there?
Penn Station Team Member: I would say my favorite part is probably the customer service experience. Any job, I like working with people. So you’re going to have people such as around 3:00 a.m. before they close, you have kind of the drunk crew. So that can be pretty interesting. Learning how to diffuse certain situations, or handle those to the best of your ability. So mainly the customer service and also time management, because the meals, when they, someone put the order in, they have to be greeted within five seconds of coming inside. After that they make their food.
While they’re prepping the food it comes through the oven, and the oven, I want to say it’s around 75 seconds. So by the time the meal gets to you, you have to make everything. The whole process has to be under six minutes. So you have to bake their sub, dress it, cut it, wrap it and get it out to them. So that can be pretty hard when there’s a lot of subs coming at you at once. But I would say definitely that was probably one of my favorite parts. Time management. It’s helped me in customer service.
Interviewer: Please describe the application and interview process.
Penn Station Team Member: Yes, I did fill out a paper application. I’m not sure if they do. I know they probably take applications online, but mainly you’re still going to have to fill out another application once you get there, so with your work availability and everything. So you can go in and see if they’re hiring and if they are, they’ll usually have applications at the front by the menu, and you can just get one.
Interviewer: What questions did the interviewer ask during the job interview?
Penn Station Team Member: She asks you and certain… Basically, let’s say you have a customer, and he’s very angry and he wants his food refunded, what would you do in that situation? Or what is a situation that you had to diffuse, and how did you handle it? Also, have you ever been terminated from a job? If so, why? What do you feel like is one of your strongest… What do you feel like is one of your strengths and what would you feel like is your weakness? Questions like that.
Interviewer: How were you notified that you received the job?
Penn Station Team Member: I would say it took them about two weeks to contact me, and it mainly depends on the manager, because I first started off with Theresa, and they were going in between managers. So some managers like to get you in and out, some managers like to do other things first before. But from the time… Your background check takes about a few days, I would say a few days to a week. So you definitely have to wait for your background check to go through.
After they hire everyone, they’ll, let’s say if you start at the beginning of the process, they’ll probably hire that entire week. So if you start at the beginning of the week, you’re definitely going to have to wait maybe a week before they even put your background check in. So I would say at least two weeks it took for me, and they ended up calling me. So she, yes, she did call me and they will get your cellphone number afterwards so they’ll text you about a few things as well. So that’s mainly how we communicated.
Interviewer: What set you apart from other candidates?
Penn Station Team Member: Probably because I had prior work experience I worked at Steak ‘n Shake, and I worked at there. I worked at Steak ‘n Shake ever since I was 15 going on 16, I would say. And I did not stop until maybe my freshman year of college, so I had a lot of customer service experience, especially in the food industry.
Interviewer: What other advice would you give to a job seeker looking to gain employment?
Penn Station Team Member: I would say customer service, especially in the food industry can be very stressful. So you should just know how to handle those type of situations under stress. I will also say for uniform, your shoes are very important, especially because in the back, since I did say we did hand wash things, there’s going to be a lot of water. So nonslip shoes. In the winter you could wear boots. So I wore black boots. Your boots have to be black. Wear comfortable pants, something that’s stretchy because you’re going to be bending over a lot. So that’s some advice that I’ll give.
Especially like when I said with the natural hair, make sure you have it pulled back because with the hats you can’t have it out. So with anybody, you always have to have your hair pulled back. Can’t be your face. No super long nails. I don’t think your nails can have like any outlandish polish on them. And also natural hair colors. I don’t think you can wear like pink or blue hair.
And be friendly. I would definitely say that, because especially if you do not have the experience, having a friendly personality can mainly take you up a lot. Because they did have a prior manager and he wasn’t friendly at all, and a lot of people reported him. So even though he had the experience, he was demoted. So definitely have a great personality.
Penn Station Crew Member Interview Video
Video Transcript
Interviewer: Please describe your job title and primary duties.
Penn Station Crew Member: At Penn Station, it was an entry-level job. There wasn’t any specific position. My boss had me working a bunch of different things, like cashier, making lemonade, dishwashing, pretty much whatever he wanted me to do.
Interviewer: What was the work environment like?
Penn Station Crew Member: It was pretty much like a fast food atmosphere; everything was quick, everything had to be done really fast. As far as the workers, they were pretty much my age, maybe a little older. It’s nothing too crazy.
Interviewer: How would you describe the application and interview process?
Penn Station Crew Member: Application process, I believe was paper, so it was pretty much a general paper application. It did take a while for them to come back, so I would suggest keep calling if you don’t hear back from them. That’s what I did, and I got an interview from them a few months later. It was pretty relaxed. I had to fill out some other tax paper work, and then I was hired.
Interviewer: What questions did the interviewer ask during the job interview?
Penn Station Crew Member: One is: “Have I ever worked in the fast food industry?” My reply was “No”, and I still got hired, so I don’t know if that’s the make or break. “Have I ever been convicted?”, of course. “What would you bring to the company?” That’s a pretty generic interview question. “How long would I be available to work?” Since I was a college student, he wanted to know how long I would be around before I went back. Besides that, it wasn’t a long interview. He hired me the same day.
Interviewer: What other advice would you give to a job seeker looking to gain employment?
Penn Station Crew Member: What to expect is to be flexible, to pay attention, because it’s a very quick learning curve. They throw a lot at you at once, especially during training, because there’s a lot of different tasks and responsibilities, and you have to do them fast. So if you can’t keep up, it’s going to kind of hurt you. So, pay attention, make sure you have good customer service, and pretty much pay attention to detail too, because everything, as far as making sandwiches, there’s a specific way to make sandwiches, there’s a specific way to wrap them, specific way to present them. So, everything has to be uniform. That would be my advice.
Penn Station Team Member Interview Video 2
Video Transcript
Interviewer: Please describe your job title and primary duties.
Penn Station Crew Member: At Penn Station, it was an entry-level job. There wasn’t any specific position. My boss had me working a bunch of different things, like cashier, making lemonade, dishwashing, pretty much whatever he wanted me to do.
Interviewer: What was the work environment like?
Penn Station Crew Member: It was pretty much like a fast food atmosphere; everything was quick, everything had to be done really fast. As far as the workers, they were pretty much my age, maybe a little older. It’s nothing too crazy.
Interviewer: How would you describe the application and interview process?
Penn Station Crew Member: Application process, I believe was paper, so it was pretty much a general paper application. It did take a while for them to come back, so I would suggest keep calling if you don’t hear back from them. That’s what I did, and I got an interview from them a few months later. It was pretty relaxed. I had to fill out some other tax paper work, and then I was hired.
Interviewer: What questions did the interviewer ask during the job interview?
Penn Station Crew Member: One is: “Have I ever worked in the fast food industry?” My reply was “No”, and I still got hired, so I don’t know if that’s the make or break. “Have I ever been convicted?”, of course. “What would you bring to the company?” That’s a pretty generic interview question. “How long would I be available to work?” Since I was a college student, he wanted to know how long I would be around before I went back. Besides that, it wasn’t a long interview. He hired me the same day.
Interviewer: What other advice would you give to a job seeker looking to gain employment?
Penn Station Crew Member: What to expect is to be flexible, to pay attention, because it’s a very quick learning curve. They throw a lot at you at once, especially during training, because there’s a lot of different tasks and responsibilities, and you have to do them fast. So if you can’t keep up, it’s going to kind of hurt you. So, pay attention, make sure you have good customer service, and pretty much pay attention to detail too, because everything, as far as making sandwiches, there’s a specific way to make sandwiches, there’s a specific way to wrap them, specific way to present them. So, everything has to be uniform. That would be my advice.
Tristan says:
I’m currently a college student studying business administration, option in accounting. Is there job offers available in this company that I could apply for with a BBA and 3+ years of restaurant (penn station) manager experience? I’m interested in using my skills at a higher level.