Dietary Aide Job Description Template
A dietary aide plates and serves food to people whose diet is part of their care plan. It is a food job with a clinical edge, hired mostly by nursing homes, assisted living communities and hospitals, and it competes for staff with every restaurant and grocery store in town. The role sits inside the BLS food preparation workers occupation, where the median is $16.45 an hour and about 148,000 openings a year are projected even though the occupation is shrinking.
What a dietary aide does
A dietary aide works the line between the kitchen and the resident. The tasks are food preparation in the BLS sense — portioning, assembling trays, plating, serving, clearing, washing, stocking and following sanitation rules — but the thing that makes it a different job is the tray card. Someone in the building is on a pureed diet, someone else is fluid-restricted, someone else cannot have a food they are allergic to, and the aide is the last person who touches the plate before it reaches them. That is a checking job, and it is why the posting should read as a care role rather than a kitchen role.
A note on the numbers on this page, because it matters. The Bureau of Labor Statistics moved most occupations to May 2025 wage data in the edition published on 27 August 2026. Food preparation workers is not one of them. That page still carries May 2024 wages and 2024 employment and was last modified 28 August 2025, so every BLS figure here is May 2024 vintage and labeled as such. Quoting it as current would be wrong, and quoting a 2025 figure from a neighboring occupation would be worse.
On that basis: 902,700 jobs in 2024, a projected 3% decline through 2034 — about 30,900 fewer positions — and still roughly 148,000 openings a year, essentially all replacement. Median pay was $16.45 an hour, or $34,220 a year. By industry the May 2024 medians run $18.09 in general merchandise retailers, $17.40 in educational services, $16.89 in grocery and specialty food retailers, $16.25 in healthcare and social assistance and $16.00 in food services and drinking places. Healthcare sits fourth of five, $2.09 an hour below the top setting, and that gap is the recruiting problem in one line.
Dietary aide job description template
Copy this, replace everything in brackets, and delete any line you cannot honestly stand behind. The bracketed items are the ones candidates actually read — leaving them as brackets is worse than leaving them out.
Job title
Dietary aide
Summary
[Community] is hiring dietary aides for our [skilled nursing / assisted living / hospital] kitchen in [city]. You will portion, plate and serve meals to [X] residents, follow tray cards and diet orders exactly, and keep the kitchen clean and stocked. Shifts are [named shift and days]. Pay is [$XX.XX–$XX.XX an hour] with [meal provided] and [no late nights].
Responsibilities
- Portion, plate and assemble meals to the [tray card or diet order] for every resident
- Check each tray against [name, diet, texture, fluid and allergy] before it leaves
- Serve in [dining room / at the bedside] and assist with set-up and clearing
- Prepare simple items: salads, sandwiches, desserts, beverages and [texture-modified items]
- Wash dishes and equipment and run [dish machine] to temperature
- Stock, rotate and date food; record [temperatures and cooler logs]
- Follow sanitation and food safety rules and keep the kitchen [survey ready]
- Report resident intake, refusals and complaints to [nurse or dietary manager]
Requirements
- 16 or older [18 or older for our equipment] and legally authorized to work
- No formal education required — we train you
- [Food handler card or state food safety certificate, if your state or facility requires it]
- Pass a background check and [health screening or immunization requirements]
- Able to stand for a [X]-hour shift, lift [X] lb and work in a hot kitchen
- Able to read and follow a tray card exactly, every time
Preferred
- Prior work in [long-term care, hospital or school] food service
- Familiarity with [therapeutic or texture-modified diets]
- [ServSafe or equivalent food safety certification]
- Experience with [dish machine, steam table or tray line]
- Second language spoken by our residents or staff: [language]
Schedule and pay
- [Named shift and days — for example 6am–2pm or 11am–7pm]
- [Every other weekend] and [how holidays are rotated]
- [No late nights — the kitchen closes at X]
- [Shift differential of $X.XX an hour]; [overtime available and voluntary]
- [Part-time and full-time available with a minimum of X hours]
Benefits
- Health, dental and vision from day [1 / 30 / 60] at [X] hours a week
- Paid time off that accrues from your first shift
- [401(k) with X% match]
- [Free meal on every shift] and [uniform provided]
- [Paid food safety certification]; [path to cook, lead or dietary manager]
The six things to settle before the posting goes live
The requirements here are short, which is the point — most of these are things to state clearly rather than things to demand.
| Requirement | What to know |
|---|---|
| Education and training | BLS lists no formal educational credential and short-term on-the-job training. That is your biggest advantage over the restaurant down the road, and most dietary postings bury it under a requirements list. Say we train you, in those words, high on the page. |
| Food safety certification | Whether a food handler card or state certificate is required, and whether you pay for it, is set by your state and your facility rather than by the job title. Settle it before posting and name who pays. |
| Diet orders and tray cards | The clinical part of the job is checking, not cooking. Naming it in the ad screens for the right person and gives the role a purpose that a kitchen posting does not have. |
| Health screening | Immunization records and pre-employment health screening are common in long-term care and hospital kitchens and vary by state and employer. Name them in the ad so nobody withdraws in week two. |
| The shift, exactly | Your real advantage over restaurant work is that the kitchen closes. A named shift with no late nights beats flexible hours in every version of this ad we have run. |
| Pay against the right benchmark | Healthcare and social assistance was the fourth of five settings in the May 2024 industry medians at $16.25, $2.09 below general merchandise retail. If you are above your local grocery, say the number. If you are not, lead with the shift and the meal. |
How to customize it for your setting
Skilled nursing and long-term care
This is where the tray card matters most and where the survey pressure sits. Write the role as part of resident care rather than kitchen support: it changes who applies. Consistent assignment to a unit, so the aide knows the residents and their diets, is a genuine retention lever and costs nothing.
Assisted living and CCRCs
Your dining room looks more like a restaurant and your residents choose from a menu, which means service skill matters as much as speed. Candidates coming from hospitality will do well here, and they are used to evening and weekend work — so the daytime close is the thing to advertise.
Hospitals
Higher volume, tighter timing, more texture-modified and restricted trays, and usually the best benefits of the three. Lead with the benefits and the internal path, because hospital dietary is one of the few entry points into a large employer with real progression.
Schools and campus dining
Educational services paid a median of $17.40 an hour in May 2024, above the healthcare figure, and the schedule is the draw rather than the wage. If you are in this setting you are competing for the same pool with a better calendar; say so plainly.
What it costs to reach dietary aides on social
Our 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark does not publish a food service role family, and we would rather say so than borrow a number. Two published families bracket this pool by how they behave rather than by title: customer service and admin at a $2.71 median with a 25% apply rate, and caregiver and home care at $3.76 with a 31% apply rate. Dietary aide campaigns draw from the same hourly, no-credential pool as both, which is why this is one of the cheapest roles to reach that any senior living operator advertises.
The planning number to use is the sector line, because that is where dietary sits on your budget: across 553 healthcare and senior living campaigns the median was $15.42 per applicant, the middle half $7.89 to $39.61 and the blended figure $11.47. Dietary belongs at the bottom of that band, not the middle — reporting it alongside your nursing campaigns will make an efficient campaign look expensive and hide the roles that actually need the money. Split it out before anyone asks you to. Cost per applicant is not cost per hire.
The hiring side of this role — what senior living support staff cost to reach, how dining competes with restaurants and where the applicants come from — is covered on our senior living staffing, assisted living recruitment and line cook and kitchen staff recruiting pages.
Writing the ad version
The description above is a document. The ad is forty words, and for this role the schedule beats the wage: “Dietary aide, [community] in [town], [6am–2pm], no late nights, meal on every shift, $XX.XX an hour, we train you.” That ad is competing with a restaurant, and the kitchen closing at seven is a better argument than twenty cents.
This pool behaves like the cheapest families we publish — high apply rates, low friction — so applications are rarely the problem. What breaks is the days after: a callback on Thursday for someone who applied on Tuesday has already lost them to the grocery store. Our candidate conversion rate guide covers it, and fifteen worked ad examples are in our help wanted ad examples library.
Frequently asked questions
What does a dietary aide do?
A dietary aide portions, plates and serves meals in a nursing home, assisted living community, hospital or school, prepares simple items, washes dishes and equipment, stocks and rotates food, records temperatures and follows sanitation rules. The part that separates it from a kitchen job is the tray card: the aide checks every plate against the resident’s diet order for texture, fluid limits and allergies before it leaves the kitchen, which makes it a checking role inside a care setting rather than a cooking role.
How much does a dietary aide make?
The role sits inside the Bureau of Labor Statistics food preparation workers occupation, where the median is $16.45 an hour, or $34,220 a year. That figure is May 2024 data: unlike most occupations, this one had not been refreshed to May 2025 as of August 2026, and the page was last modified 28 August 2025. By industry the May 2024 medians were $18.09 in general merchandise retailers, $17.40 in educational services, $16.89 in grocery and specialty food retailers, $16.25 in healthcare and social assistance and $16.00 in food services and drinking places.
What qualifications does a dietary aide need?
Usually none to start. The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists no formal educational credential and short-term on-the-job training for food preparation workers, which means most employers hire and train. A food handler card or state food safety certificate is often required and is set by your state and facility rather than by the job title, and long-term care and hospital kitchens commonly require background checks, immunization records and health screening. Say in the ad which of these you provide and pay for.
Why is it hard to hire dietary aides?
Because the job competes for the same people as every restaurant and grocery store nearby, and in the May 2024 industry medians healthcare and social assistance paid $16.25 an hour against $18.09 in general merchandise retail. Wage alone is a losing argument. What healthcare dining has that restaurants do not is a kitchen that closes, a named shift, benefits and a resident you get to know — and those are the lines that belong at the top of the ad rather than in a benefits list at the bottom.
Other job description templates
See all job description templates — free, editable templates for frontline, trades, healthcare and warehouse roles.
Hiring dietary aides?
The job description is the document; the ad is the thing that gets read. We write it, run it where hourly candidates are actually scrolling, and report what each applicant cost — cost per applicant, not cost per hire.
Pay, employment, outlook, education and training: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, Food Preparation Workers (last modified August 28, 2025; 2024 employment and May 2024 wage data, including medians by industry — this occupation had not been updated to May 2025 data when this page was written), read August 29, 2026. Cost-per-applicant figures: Boostpoint 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark — customer service and admin and caregiver and home care role families, and the healthcare and senior living sector, 553 campaigns; advertising costs only. Cost per applicant is not cost per hire. Last updated August 2026.