Find and Mentor Exceptional Box Office Staff in the Thrilling World of Cinema

Working in a box office is generally not a career – at least not initially. So let’s start by looking for people that are in the process of life transitions. Older high school students and those attending college are generally tech savvy enough to pick up on things pretty quickly and are often times flexible enough to fit into the hectic box office atmosphere.

Hiring and training box office staff

Where to Find Them

Job Fairs – Take some time and find out if any local high schools or colleges are having a job fair. Being able to visit with a lot of potential employees face to face at one time without have to spend time “interviewing” each one will give you a great head start.

College Interns – Another great opportunity to find some solid help is in college internship programs – especially within specific departments (business, marketing, recreation & tourism, etc.).

Mentorship – If you have the work load and the ability to mentor someone professionally, you may find a quality long term employee or even an assistant box office manager.

Even South Park’s Bijou has cinema career opportunities

Job Boards – You can also often find job boards on college campuses that can provide you interested individuals that are actively seeking employment.

How to Train Them

Some ticketing systems have a user interface that is simply not user friendly. This can be a problem when training new staff. The last thing  you need is your staff coming to you with questions. Here are a few ideas to keep that from happening.

Quick start guide – If you haven’t already got a quick start guide with basic FAQ’s on it, make one now. Better yet, laminate it and tape it up somewhere in the box office. You know which questions are most often asked by new staff members. Answer them in advance.

Elegant movie ticket booth and elegant youngsters back in the day

Practice makes perfect – Provide time to new employees where they can “play around” in the system until they feel comfortable. Often times ticketing systems will have a training mode that will let them go through test transactions without actually selling any tickets.

Group training – When you schedule your staff meetings make sure that you set aside some time for group training and give them time to ask questions about things that have come up recently. This is a great way to answer questions that may be perplexing the entire group. It’s even better when you can have other staff members answer the questions.

Shift expert – Have at least one member of each shift receive additional in-depth training. This will be a huge benefit to you because they can be the resident expert that new employees can go to. This will also give you the opportunity to see which employees are ready to take a more active management role within the box office.

Finding and training new staff is a perpetual thorn in the side, but with the right system and the right tools it will be a smoother and less painful process.

Diamond Ticketing Systems’ product, ImagiTix, is a comprehensive box office system that is both simple and easy to use – especially in a fast-paced box office setting. Training new users on the ImagiTix system is extremely easy. Having a new employee trained and ready to sell tickets with 10 minutes is the rule and not the exception.[/fusion_text]