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By JoLynne Lockley,
Director, Chefs' Professional Agency
The Basics | Absolute Resume Don'ts | Things to Consider | Presenting Your Resume | Additional Information
The page or two of your employment history which you commit to paper, your resume, will probably be the first impression you give the next person you want to work for. If it is poorly done, it may also be the last.
In order to make sure that you have an effective resume, you must understand what a resume is:
A good resume, although it does represent you on paper, is not a form of self expression. The most successful resumes are not written for their subjects but for the needs of their readers. Understanding who sees and uses the resume at the employer's end will help you decide how to present yourself.
If you are seeking employment in a small restaurant or private residence, your information will probably be seen by the owner or perhaps a manager and will be probably be discussed informally. Hiring by hotels or corporations usually involves prescreening by human resource professionals along set guidelines, then decision by one or more other departments. Resumes sent to private clubs not only pass through personnel offices, but also are discussed by club members of the board.
While the club president may enjoy reading a great deal of descriptive verbiage, most staffers do not. Owners or resource managers sorting through candidates for a well published position or handling a daily deluge of mail in a desirable property need to see quickly and clearly whose background meets their requirements and whose does not. The first sorting of candidates may take less than thirty seconds for each submission.
Anyone who reads your resume will be a busy person, and anything you do to make their job easier will help them decide to hire you. The first rule for good presentation is consideration of the recipient’s time and interests.
Consideration of a prospective employer’s needs means, therefore, understanding his time limitations, but it also entails deciding what he would like to know about you first. This usually means not what you think you are - creative, a good communicator, an asset to any organization - but what you have done, where and how long.
He needs to know if you have dealt with food cost, labor cost, projections, menus and wine lists. He may be interested in the size, volume, nature and rating of your previous places of employment, the product, your special skills, your banquet experience, marketing background, marketability, background in team oriented or structured management environments, product knowledge, language skills, and ethnic culinary experience.
The challenge to you is to select those points a prospective resume reader will want to know about you and to present the information concisely and clearly.
Time tested adages for any important written information are KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) and The Facts, Mam, Just the Facts. There is no set form for resumes, but the following tips will help you in deciding how to present yourself.
NAME AND NUMBER
Tip #1: Buy a rubber stamp with your name, address and the position you are seeking. Use this on all additional material you send, such as resumes, reference letters, articles.
Tip #2: Doublecheck your telephone number to be sure that it is correct. Do not trust the writer or printer of your resume to do it right. A frequent conversation in our interviews goes as follows,
"Gee, it's really hard to get a job in San Francisco"
"Well, we would have called you sooner, but the telephone number on the resume reports as disconnected."
"No, it's fine - Ohmygawsh, it's 465, not 564, I don't believe this - you mean they, I..."
Tip #3: If you are still in the highly mobile, developmental stages of your career, put a number for a more permanent contact in the upper right hand corner, so that firms which may not hire you now can trace you to inform you of interesting future employment.
SHORT COMPLETE JOB DESCRIPTION FOR EVERY POSITION:
Make it easy for the reader to see how long you have been at a location, what you did, to whom you answered in one short reading. Use telegraph style, no sentences. Set off dates, underline locations and positions. Use capitals or bold print.
State all pertinent facts about the nature of your product, size of the restaurant, and responsibilities of your position.
Tip #1: Before you write out your background, jot down what you would look for in the successor to each of your previous positions.
For chefs and sous chefs, for instance, future employers will probably be interested in some of the following information:
This is not a complete list, nor will each category apply to you. An informative description of a sous chef's last position might look like this
PIERRE'S PARISIAN HASH HOUSE: Paris, Oregon. 3/92-10/93
Sous Chef (hired as tournant) for 90-seat French/American bistro serving 80-120 lunches, 90 dinners. Basic American cuisine with a French accent. Answered directly to chef, supervised staff of 5 in chef's absence. Involved in purchasing and menu planning. (Contact: Owner Pierre Pate, 800 555 8181)
YOUR SPECIAL SKILLS
List all the relevant special skills you possess somewhere on the resume.
This might include the production of show pieces, ice carving, pastry skills, butchering, special knowledge of fish. A a particular ethnic cuisine may be important information to a potential employer. Computer literacy is becoming increasingly popular, especially in large restaurants. Languages, especially Spanish, are often required.
The skills catalogue for an applicant to a country club might look like this: Particular expertise: Ice and tallow carving, multi ethnic buffet and display, European breads, off site catering, kosher and vegetarian cuisines, computer literate. Fluent in French and Spanish.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING THAT APPLY TO THE POSITION
State the location of the school, apprenticeship or training program and the organizations under which it is accredited or certified. If you are fortunate enough to have attended a high school training program, state that as well. Give any current certification which requires knowledge and course attendance.
In - or Externships are best listed under training rather professional experience. Put down name of your Chef trainer, as well.
Apprenticeships are state or ACF certified training courses of generally two years duration. An informal training course, no matter how long, is an apprenticeship.
Stages are learning periods with accomplished chefs, usually for little or no money. Stages are great indications of your interest in your chosen profession.
Community College programs sometimes need to be defined as management or production centered.
ACF accreditation is often highly valued in positions with high management content. It is a good idea to give an idea of the sort of courses you attended.
Special courses such as nutrition, accounting, sugar pulling and labor relations should also be listed.
The training and education of a potential regional chef might appear as follows:
Training, Education, Courses:
Grover Cleveland High School, Puddingtown, MN: 2 year vocational training program with apprenticeship. Graduated 1981.
ACF certified apprenticeship/ AOS Puddingtown Community College: eighteen month cooperative program with hands on training at the Cleveland Continental Hotel under Chef Hans Himmelsuppe completed 1983.
Minnesota State College at Puddington: BA in restaurant management, completed in combination with apprenticeship 1983.
Continuing Education Courses: Hospitality computing, sanitary seafood storage and handling, employee psychology, employment screening and interviewing techniques.
REFERENCES
How many and which references to provide is a topic in itself. In your resume it is important to provide the references who can be called as well as to state who should not.
Remember, it is your goal to make it easy for those screening you by providing as much information in as clear a format as possible. We encourage candidates to name a contact at the end of the block of text describing a position, as in the first example here. You can also attach a list of safe references for your current and previous position.
Tip #1: Be careful! Before including a reference ask yourself it that person will mention to your current employer that you are seeking employment. If this is the case, state it clearly. "Please do not approach my current employer for a reference before speaking with me."
Tip #2: Instead of writing "References available on request", provide numbers for confirmation of your employment and write "Letters of reference, menus and reviews are available".
You can also include written letters of reference and confirmation with a package you provide to a potential employer, as long as he is able to review your background at a glance from the text.
OTHER USEFUL INFORMATION
Especially clubs and hotels are often interested in salons chefs have attended and awards they have achieved.
You can also list culinary or business organizations to which you belong, but not unrelated activities or organizations at the end of the resume. During the past years a few organizations have offered publication in registries for a fee. Listing such groups as an honor is of questionable value.
If you have been published or been written about, you can list the articles.
EARLY EMPLOYMENT AND EMPLOYMENT IN OTHER FIELDS
Unless you are very well known in your field, you will do well to show in your resume that you had ample time to learn your trade thoroughly. If you worked for some time prior to attending a culinary college or achieving a sous chef position in a notable restaurant, provide the information to the potential employer. Although a past in Sizzler or Charley Brown's would not seem pertinent for a person who is chef of an upscale restaurant, but a potential employer may surmise from your progression that you have a fairly positive attitude towards your position.
If you have a lot of information to provide, you can try either of the following methods:
1982 - 1984
or:
Previous experience: Three years in pantry, saute, and grill positions.
REASON FOR LEAVING A POSITION
State a reason if the position was very short term due to a limited term contract or an unexpected change of management. Rather than leaving this for the end of the listing, you can often work it into your title or job description: " Temporary Executive Chef" or "..compiled information for management transition".
INCLUSIONS
There is a wealth of information you can include with your resume. The art is to put in just enough to be interesting material without weighing down the reader. Especially a few copies of menus often provide valuable clues. Choose those which best show what that property will be seeking.
Tip #1: Never leave a position without a collection on ephemera -- hard copy documentation of your employment. This will document your employment even if the earth swallows the restaurant and everyone who worked there. This includes at least one employment confirmation, menus, copies of checks, pictures, articles. Keep them in a portfolio. You should keep them in a safe box or fire safe at home. Reference letters should always be on letterhead stationary.
Tip #2: Avoid overkill. Select representative material for your first contact. You want to catch the interest of the reader, not bury him in paper.
Tip #3: Do not put the material in a binder or folder - that is irritating to many hiring authorities, and will cover the important first page. Staple and number consecutive pages. Remember to stamp everything with your name, position and telephone number.
Tip #4: Photographs are very entertaining, but single photos get lost. If you are presenting pastry skills or showpieces, you can get laser prints of four photos on one page. Number the pictures and write a description of them on the back. Remember the stamp.
PROOFREAD THE RESUME
Probably as many as one in ten resumes we receive contains an unintended mistake. Incorrect information on a resume never reflects well on you. If it is misspelled, then it is a bad comment on your attention to details and follow through. If the information provided is wrong, the reader may assume that you are dishonest. If the telephone number is wrong, you just won't hear from them.
Not only should you check your resume carefully, buthave it proofread by another person who knows the terms of the industry. This is especially important if you use a resume service, as these tend to rename positions according to a computerized spell checker, making garden managers out of garde mangers and creating the ethnic position of Sioux Chef. We have also seen the specialty Beef Brigham Young listed in a resume. Give special attention to the dates, where a great deal of mistakes are made. Do this before you leave the service's office.
Tip: Read each line backwards, then forwards from the bottom. If you have written your resume yourself, you know what the words should be, and your brain will project the correct form over the mistake. It can't do that if it doesn't know what is coming next.
DO NOT LIST EXPERIENCE AND EMPLOYMENT HISTORY IN SEPARATE SECTIONS
If the first eight inches of print list what you have done, while the firms for which you have worked take up an inch at the bottom, you assume that the reader will be interested enough to try to figure out where you did what and to guess how long. Mixing in bullet style praise or statements of your positive attributes and talents will probably send the paper into the trash can.
The person who reads your resume needs to be able to see that you did payroll at Mom's Deli for six months and Garde Manger for NorSwiss Cruise Lines' five star liner for 2 years. You cannot expect him to wonder whether you did the payroll on the cruise liner or the Deli.
DO NOT BLOW YOUR OWN HORN
Your own experience should speak for you. You will not be hired due only to the resume. You will be interviewed, and the employer will have ample time to ask around about your good (and bad) qualities.
An employer will definitely ask you to tell him what you think you do well in the course of the first interview. His first impression of your creative or interpersonal skills should come from the fact that you have been involved in the creative process in a restaurant similar to his or successfully practiced a supervisory function in a production facility over a period of time.
DO NOT DROP NAMES, bloat positions or resort to puffery, write 'I' or 'my'.
DO NOT WRITE FUSSY PROSE
The following is not made up:
"At this elegant little boite, I assisted the chef in various aspects of modern preparation of colorful plates, well received by such notables as President Reagan and Paul Simon. In the mornings it was necessary to review the organic produce for spots and irregularities. I consulted with chef on menu planning and proper methods of preparation of a variety of West Coast seafood."
DO NOT LIST INCOMPLETE COURSES OR DEGREES AS COMPLETED
If you are still attending or planning to return to a school or program, you may then list the program as in progress. You may also not want to list college and graduate work not pertinent to the position for which you are applying. I doubt that a bakery would want to hire anyone with a law degree, for instance.
DO NOT LIST UNRELATED AFFILIATIONS, INTERESTS OR ACTIVITIES
This includes sports and high school/college clubs.
DO NOT ALTER THE FACTS
Whatever excuse you may have for changing the facts on your resume, your resume is a document. A good employer will try to confirm a few facts either before or immediately after your first interview. This is not an infringement of privacy. You give him permission to confirm your statements, written as well as spoken, by submitting your resume.
Nor is it illegal for a manager or firm owner to relate documented information about a candidate. If you were terminated, a good reference researcher will find out. If you do not list a position, they will probably hear about it. When you are working through a search firm, both the employer and the firm concern themselves with the confirmation of the claims you make.
People working in hospitality management frequently know each other, and may speak informally about their hiring process. One person who catches an applicant in a lie may well in casual conversation tell a colleague from another property.
If you are hired despite an omitted job, a later discovery of false statement at the time of hiring could result in your termination.
The most frequently discovered inaccuracies on resumes are false dates to cover over unsuccessful employment or unemployment, inflated statement of duties, phony statement of training and incorrect representation of title or position.
DO NOT INNOCENTLY OVERSTATE YOUR POSITION
The most frequent inaccuracy we have encountered is overstating a position. Know that Working Chef or Head Chef or even First Cook in charge of all kitchen production may be the more appropriate title. If you work mainly in the dining room of an owner-managed restaurant, you would be unwise to call yourself a general manager.
If an employer is seeking a qualified dining room manager, he will be unlikely to hire someone who is already a general manager, while an employer seeking a general manager and encountering a candidate who obviously does not know the difference between the two positions will look further.
DO NOT MENTION RACE, CREED, ETC.
You should not mention your race, creed, nationality, age, sex, place of birth, marital status, financial status or health on the resume if it is destined for the United States. Do not attach a picture of yourself. This does not apply to training in a foreign country or ethnic experience which may have a practical application in your employment.
LIST PROPERTY RATINGS: (stars and diamonds, preferred properties, club of the year, etc.) This is especially important if you have worked for a hotel with varying properties, such as Hyatt or Hilton.
SHOW STABILITY by listing all positions worked for the same corporations as sub paragraphs under the same heading:
3/85-10/88 The Prellpot Corporation:
Hotel Bee's Knees, Knotts Landing: Opening Chef, 3/88- 10/88 ..short description of property and duties.. Clamddigger's Hostel, Muddflatts ID. 2/87-10/88. Executive Chef. etc... Cowtongue Bunkhouse, Saltlick MO. 3/85-2/87 Executive sous chef, promoted through ranks from first saucier.
"CONSULTANT". The term has fallen into disrepute, and is read as "I couldn't keep a job so I worked for short periods of time until I got found out." If you were hired for short-term work, you can state the position as "Interim Chef" or "Catering Manager hired on short term contract". Try "seasonal position", "temporary position", "short term assignment".
REPLACE CLICHES WITH MORE DESCRIPTIVE TERMS: "California Cuisine" has always been a vague term, description of what you did . "Creative" and "People person" are so over used that they sound silly, as are "nouvelle" and "innovative". You could try, for instance, "serving an Escofier based cuisine with Italian and Hispanic influences."
THINK TWICE BEFORE LISTING TWO POSITIONS AT THE SAME TIME: Running a catering business after work may not be viewed in a positive light, for instance. Many employers do not fancy their staff burning out due to double jobs, and it is not unusual for the chef of a property to occasionally borrow produce or to make questionable arrangements with purveyors to advance another business.
COVER LETTERS: Cover letters may not be read, so important information in them needs to be in the body of your resume. Hiring authorities reading resumes look for the 'nitty-gritty', and browse the (usually form) letter attached. Letters written directly about specific positions get read more often than the to whom it may concern forms.
Hand-written notes, if your writing is satisfactory, are fairly successful for many positions. If you feel that a hand written note in not appropriate, try to find the name of the person who will read the information or direct it at least to the firm or hiring authority for the advertisement number, if you are applying to a blind ad. Be sure to date the letter.
"OBJECTIVE" PARAGRAPHS: Not every resume needs a stated objective, especially if it is being sent for a specific position. A summary of qualifications is frequently a better idea, since it gives a short rundown of what makes you good.
The standard objective statement reads something like this: "Objective: A challenging position as sous chef or chef permitting me to use my skills in a professional environment." This wastes valuable space and tells the employer nothing at all about you.
Try instead:
Summary of qualifications: Six years of management positions in high volume production facilities. Japanese and Asian cuisines, seafood specialist. Two years in French fine dining restaurants. Experience in Banquets, airline catering and ala carte dining. Computer literate, nutritionally trained and ACF certified as CEC. Now seeking a position in multi unit production management.
This is a little longer, but it provides serious information. The purpose of forcing this much into a short space is to be sure that your resume will be preselected by those firms using computers to prescan resumes.
KEEP YOUR RESUME UPDATED: The best time to rewrite your resume is the week you begin a new job or get a promotion. Opportunities for wonderful jobs often come unexpectedly. If you have a current resume on hand, you will be able to respond to them at once.
CONSIDER HAVING MORE THAN ONE RESUME:You probably have a number of different skills which could be used differently in different situations. Instead of trying to hit a middle road, you may wish to write resumes highlighting those talents. If you know of a very special position, consider tailor a resume for that position.
KEEP SOME INFORMATION BACK FOR THE INTERVIEW: Too much information at once is overwhelming to anyone hiring. If you have a large portfolio of articles and pictures, save some for your meeting with the potential employer. This can provide a point of conversation, and is usually appreciated.
People take cues for hiring decisions on a number of levels. Some are fairly subtle. Your resume not presents your qualifications, but presents a little of your personality. Whether the margins are straight may influence the reader. When your resume is written and printed you need to hold it arms length and see if it looks pleasant. Is it clean? Is the important information identifiable at a glance? Is it cluttered?
Some job applicants show elaborately artistic paper with great success. This would make sense when a position with a great deal of visual artistic content is being sought, such as a pastry or banquet garde manger position. For other situations, such a presentation might be completely out of place.
Resumes requiring elaborate unfolding or printed in portrait (sideways) format will irritate more often than they impress. How unique do you want to appear? Consider the suitability of your presentation to the job you want.
HOW MANY PAGES: Especially with the advent of computer scanning for resumes, the one page resume is rarely adequate for a professional with ten or more years of experience in various locations.
It is more important to present all pertinent information in clear and quickly readable form. If your experience requires three pages then you will have to have a three page resume. An interesting answer to the quandary of whether to eliminate information or to send a long form is to put an introductory page with a listing of the places, years and positions, followed by the full resume. The following crib sheet fills the need to show everything at a glance.
Other ways to get the resume down to an easily scanable work is through more condensed fonts and through block presentation.
Stand back and look at your first draft. If it shows a lot of empty paper and is too long, then you can work with the fields of type to get more information on the first page.
FOLDOVER RESUMES: Resume services favor the four page foldover resume, often with an outer cover page showing only the candidate's name and address. This had the advantage of providing a page or half page for general information, which would be out of place in a three page plain resume, and you can include odd papers such as menu copies in the folder.
The disadvantages are difficulty in faxing and in reading. They are very impressive, but impractical for the reviewer. If a firm copies the papers, furthermore, in order to be able to look at all pages at once, there is usually neither a name of telephone number on the page with the most important information.
If choose this form of resume, then insist on having your name and telephone number printed at the top of each page.
MAKE THE RESUME EASY TO LOCATE: Tinted paper helps an interested employer pull your resume from a pile. There is also paper with decently colored borders available for resumes. The current chef of Bridges, the restaurant in Mrs Doubtfire, had a resume with a thin, bright teal stripe on the bottom. It was successful.
A line of color along the bottom is allows the reader of a pile of resumes to pull yours from a pile facing away from him immediately. Paper which is too dark, however, does not copy well, and will be less of an advantage if several people need to have copies of your resume at the same time.
PRINT STYLES CAN MAKE YOUR RESUME STAND OUT: You can put the things you want the reader to see first in bold print or capital letters. If you are using a computer, you can put several fonts or letter styles in the resume and change the size of the type.
One common presentation puts the dates of employment in the left hand margin and puts the name of the restaurant in bold type. This allows the reader to see at a glance where, how long and as what you have worked. Another form underlines dates, title and location in bold print.
COVERS AND FOLDERS: You want a reader to see your qualifications as soon as he lifts your resume from a stack. Fancy folders are impressive, but they keep the first page covered up. Clear covers are an improvement, but they make it harder to rifle through information and they do not fit in a stack of people being considered, so they may be moved aside for convenience and overlooked.
If the presentation is truly glorious, the reader may put it in a special place, where it will slip from his mind and never be found again.
FAXING OR MAILING: If a firm has an immediate opening or requests to see your resume immediately, faxing is a wonderful idea. For appearances, however, your hard copy is always better. Fax paper, for one thing, is unpleasant to handle. Faxes are often flawed and copy poorly. If a corporate office or a placement firm needs to fax your resume, the print quality will be reduced twice.
Rather than asking for the fax number of the hiring firm ask if they prefer faxed or mailed resumes. Companies who receive faxes in computers will always ask for the fax. If they do, it may still be a good idea to get a good copy in the hands of the company, so mail a hard copy, as well. A mailed copy has the added advantage of keeping you fresh in their minds.
Whether you write your own resume of have it done depends on the time you have available, on what your writing skills are and on what equipment you have available.
There are numerous options. Remembering that resumes are information, you can even write it clearly on paper in a good hand and be given the position you seek.
You can type it, you can word process it, you can write it down and have it printed or typed by a professional service, or you can have a resume service compose and print it.
Keep in mind that nobody knows as much about your business as you do. Whatever you do, you need to keep control over the process, since you will experience the effects of the product.
You probably have access to a computer or own one now. There are many good resume programs written for PC and Mac computers. PFS Resume Plus from Spinnaker sells for around $40. If you can use a word processing program you can write your own.
You can also write out your information by hand and take it to a secretarial service, if you cannot type it yourself. Most of these services use word processors which give you a choice of styles and fonts. They can help you choose the paper and suggest alternative wording. They usually charge from $14 to $25 per page, which makes them more expensive than a good software program. If you do this, you need to get a guarantee that any changes will be corrected in for at least a month.
A service using a computer is preferable to one using a word processor, since you can request a copy of your resume on a disk. Actually, you should probably keep two copies, since one can be damaged in storage. Have them label the disk with the language in which the resume was written. Most word processing programs are interchangeable as long as you know what the original program is.
If you already have a copy of your resume, there are laser salons in most cities which permit you to put your disk in their programs and change information. They will then print out as many copies as you like. You may have to wait a day or two for the final copies, but most salons print them on the spot.
By far the most expensive method of resume production is the use of a resume writing service. These begin at about seventy dollars and go up to as much as $300. You do get consulting from these services, but unless you are dealing with a manager or an owner, the person handling your folder may not be very qualified.
If you use a resume writing service, know what you want before you go in. Resume writers sometimes see their mission in the glorification of background. This is less effective in the hospitality fields than for a sales or advertising position. The service will probably neither get you the job or the edge. It is your experience and work history which does that. If they tell you that their resumes have helped people get jobs they could not have landed on their own, you should ask yourself if they could keep jobs they could not have landed on their own.
Even the best resume writer may not know specialized industry terminology, so you will have to arrange to take a draft home to correct. Most services encourage this practice. It also helps to write out terms which might cause problems with a spell checking program, such as Sommelier, Patissier and Maitre de Service.
Whether you write your own resume or have someone else compose it, your first step will be listing your positions and dates from the most recent job back. Use the writer's trick of using a separate sheet of paper of index card for each one. Use more cards for your summary, education, and, if you have a place for them, awards paragraphs.
List the particulars of each job on its card, fist the restaurant particulars then your job description. Complete the information on the cards for education, summary, special skills, and awards, honors and special events, if you use one.
If you use a typing or resume writing service, you simply need to take the cards down, explain them to the writer and leave them as crib sheets.
If you are doing your own, which will only take a few more minutes, you just need to put the cards in order and fill in the spaces.
If you worked at Cafe Bonjour, a mid-sized French restaurant in 1979 as night sous chef, for instance, your card might look like this:
__________________________________________________________________ CAFE BONJOUR - Seattle - 206 555 5555/Claude Bonjour ExCH, Owner 1/79-12/79 Day sous chef
..200 seat - French and Continental - seasonal menu - ..lunch production/help chef with menu/supervise mise en place, grill, saute line/weekly inventory/receive, store produce.
__________________________________________________________________ The final entry could like this:
1/79 CAFE BONJOUR, Seattle, WA:
Day Sous Chef in 200 seat upscale restaurant serving 12/79 French and continental cuisine. Seasonal menu change. Responsible for lunch production, supervised set up, grill and saute cooks, product receiving and storage and weekly inventory. Contact: Pierre Bonjour 206 555 5555
or like this:
DAY SOUS CHEF, CAFE BONJOUR, SEATTLE WA. 1/79 to 12/79 Responsible for lunch production, supervision of grill and saute cooks, receiving, storage and inventory for 200 seat French Continental restaurant. Pierre Bonjour, owner: 206 555 5555
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If you keep in mind that you are presenting the person who will read your resume with as much information as possible in an attractive and easily readable form, there is no wrong way to write a resume.
This is a simple template for a culinary resume. Choose the appropriate terms or add your own, following the general pattern for a very acceptable resume.
Name Title or qualifications (pastry chef, CEC, Kitchen Manager, Pot Scrubber) {you can center this part or leave it in the Address upper left hand corner}
Telephone Nr
Summary of qualifications: X years of experience in (type of properties), X years as (current position or position nearest one being targeted). Skilled / Experienced in (laundry list of what you do. Graduate x yr culinary program/ completed apprenticeship.
3/89 RESTAURANT/HOTEL, Location.
present Title for [rating - Ie, 5 star 4 diamond/] x seat (formal dining room/dinner house/ family restaurant/diner/restaurant/inn) serving (Italian/ Escoffier based/ French - Californian/ contemporary/ Asian American eclectic) cuisine. (In charge of, Responsible for, Charged with, Duties included) (production, morning production, menu development, purchasing, supervision of staff of x, cost control, evening prep, soups, salad, garde manger, show pieces, scheduling, relief of all stations, inventory) [Annual volume/food cost x%/labor cost x% only if responsible for this.] [Under Chef x.y.z/owner a.b.c.].[second chance for rating: Received 17 Gault Milleau toques, Foodbody's award of excellence, etc] Name and title of contact / telephone of contact.
Mo/Yr List previous jobs
Mo/Yr
Education and Training:
1986 AOS Name of School
Certified Apprenticeship
Courses
Additional training
Honors and Awards List
Letters of reference (reviews, menus) available
ALTERNATIVE PRESENTATIONS
Skill focused resumes: These are useful for people reentering field or changing fields. They emphasize the candidate's skills which would transfer to the field at which they are directed. Although a number of resume books promote them, they are not much use for anyone in an experience based job in the hospitality industry.
Electronic directed resumes: These very long resumes are more a prediction than a trend. The idea stems from the still uncommon practice of scanning resumes onto a hard disk and using a search program to look for key terms the potential employer is seeking.
The idea is to stuff as many terms as possible into the resume to increase the probability that the it will be chosen and get the attention of the hiring authority.
To seek a good research and development professional, for instance, the search list would include a list of terms such as: Research and Development, nutrition, supervise, computer, food science, develop, semolina, Italian, nutrition, preservative. A computer might separate and print out 15 resumes from a bank of several hundred or thousand.
Once sorted, however, a resumes would still be read and evaluated by individuals, so it would still have to remain manageable.
The advertising letter: Every hiring authority in the country has received dozens of similar letters advertising the qualities of unemployed upper management candidates. Working of a data base, the letters all ask if the firm is currently in the market for a dynamic individual with a stated set of qualities. It then goes on to list that individuals achievements in lowering bottom lines, creating new products, and ends with an offer to send a full resume if the firm is interested.
Some of these letters must be successful, or they would not be so popular. They are sent out by data base, possibly to several hundred or even thousand potential employers.
TERMINOLOGY: The terms for various positions change from country to country and from time to time. The ACF has recently added the term Chef de Cuisine, literally a cook, to its certification program in place of the more common sous chef.
Your position may have an official title, and that is what you should use on your resume. If, however, it varies too far from general acceptance, you might want to offer the reader a clarification.
EXECUTIVE CHEF: Manages a larger staff, at least 10. This person is responsible and aware of food and labor cost and various kitchen accounting functions. Heavy decision making responsibility. Executive chefs may not do much actual cooking. Hotels, large restaurants, country clubs and cruise lines have executive chefs.
ASSISTANT EXECUTIVE CHEF: In huge hotels, an assistant executive chef shares the burden and responsibility of the Executive Chef. The position is above that of executive sous chef.
HEAD CHEF: Any chef in charge of any kitchen. Good term if you are not sure what to call your position.
WORKING CHEF/ HEAD WORKING CHEF/ HANDS ON CHEF: Is in charge of kitchen, makes culinary decisions, and answers only to owner or GM, but is actively involved, as the term says, in the preparation of cuisine.
CHEF MANAGER: Runs kitchen and generally front of the house and is responsible for coordinating the front and ktichen staff. Smaller resorts often have a chef manager.
KITCHEN MANAGER: This is usually the foreman of a kitchen with a set menu, requiring little or no culinary input. The term can also denote a steward who relieves a talented chef of management activities.
CHEF DE PARTIE: Head station cook. In large kitchen this person oversees a group of two to 12 other cooks. This may be a lead line cook.
GARDE MANGER: This is actually the technician making pates, galantines, show pieces with carvings, chaude-froid, etc, but the term may also be used for very specialized pantry chefs. The most misspelled word in kitchen language. Use of the term for regular pantry is somewhat inflated.
CHEF: means 'boss' in French and German. 'One who cooks' in English. Make it clear in your resume how the word is intended. A chef should be salaried, not paid by the hour.
TOURNANT: Literally, 'the touring one', ie the roundsman. Does all stations as needed. This is frequently a training position for the sous chef position.
SOUS CHEF:This person is either second in command or answers with other sous chefs to the Executive Sous Chef in larger properties. If there are several sous chefs, define the position as 'morning sous chef' or 'club restaurant sous chef'. In some hotels the sous chef may be the chef in charge of a restaurant. In gargantuan situations there are even pantry sous chefs.
THE TWO BODY KITCHEN:If you are the chef of a two person kitchen, call yourself chef or working chef. If you are the other one, try Assistant to Chef Waldman, or Cook with Chef Duckpaddle in two person kitchen serving 120 customers. Duties were...
CATERING CHEF: Open to misunderstanding, as much catering work is on call. If you sat out a season on call you can simply list your catering positions. Unless you are aiming at a high management position, this has the additional advantage of providing several references over a short period of time. If you ran a catering kitchen, then state your position as that of Executive Chef, Catering Executive Chef or Head Chef. Catering is a specialty under slightly different rules. It is important to list the size and nature of events (buffet, stand up, sit down, maximum number of guests), and possibly the volume. If you had your own business, a list of clients or events is a good idea.
DOMESTIC CHEF/ PRIVATE CHEF/ ESTATE CHEF/ FAMILY COOK:Different words for more or less the same position. If duties extended beyond family dinners, (business entertaining, frequent parties, corporate jets, for instance) this needs to be stated. "Private Chef for the McGludridge residence" sounds niftier than the "McGludgridge family cook".
(This was written at the request of a Swiss school of higher management. I leave it as it was written, although some will seem too obvious to Americans.)
In general, the same principles apply to management presentations as to culinary resumes: Precision, necessary detail and honesty to provide the reader with information which will lead him to choose you for a suitable position.
In the United States, all job listings begin with the most recent position and work back to the first position. Pertinent information includes the positions held, the size and nature of the task performed, the ratings of the operation, unless you feel that these should be obvious to your audience.
The same equal opportunity limitations apply to management applicants as to kitchen staff. American Law prevents employers from using age, nationality, religion, disability status, sex, place of birth, or race as a hiring criteria. It follows that such information as health status, weight, nationality are not included on most American directed resumes.
It is necessary, however, for American hiring authorities to document the employability of overseas candidates. To this end we have also suggested that applicants include information about their U.S. Residential Status, if they are in possession of a 'Green Card' or other working visa.
The cover letter is more important to European candidates than to American applicants, as it can be a vehicle for a great deal of information pertinent to the position desired. This would include such questions as the requirements for relocation costs (or the lack of such a requirement, highly recommended at this time), whether a work permit is pending, and information which would not be usual on the resume.
Normal business correspondence rules apply for these letters: Keep them short and clear. Try to avoid "I" whenever possible.
Fortunately, very few firms in America insist on handwriting samples. Cover letters should be typed. They need not be in the same print, paper or format as the resume.
Do not airdrop your resumes or cover letters. Unless you are answering a blind ad, address the resume to the person in charge of hiring and date it. Even if you are answering a blind ad you can address it to "the advertiser of a position for ....", naming the publication. Sign your cover letter by hand.
Although there are are extremely successful candidates with one page resumes on straight white bond, there is an argument for a dressier resume (not inflated) indicating marketing and presentation orientation. Candidates with long backgrounds frequently choose between several multi page options. We have found bound resumes difficult to handle, since we are unable to present single pages to prospective employers.
Loose leaf portfolios in fold over two pocket binders are useful for European candidates, as they permit submission of odd sized materials describing the candidate's current and previous places of employment (hotel brochures, restaurant advertising, etc) and pertinent copies of certification, letters of reference or other good show and tell material, and usually have a space for the enclosure of a business card.
Professionals with less material frequently submit a one and half page fold-over cover sheet with their name and address. The inside of the half page foldover should not contain the most important information - the employment history, references, etc., but may contain a bullet list summary of abilities, achievements, and other important information.
Management applicants should always include a complete reference list with telephone number, an indication of professional relationship and past location of reference giver, and the reference giver's current position.
The details of management resumes remain the same as those of kitchen or dining room resumes. Keep any decoration -lines, stripes, bullets - simple.
Paper is your choice, and will vary with your goal and position sought. It should, however, conform to the standard America 8 in X 11 inch letter format. There is nothing wrong with good printing on fine white bond. It is easy to read and dignified.
Some positions may be aided by fairly fancy paper or colors, but be careful. A light marbled parchment is also acceptable and stands up to repeated handling very well. Do be sure that the paper you send is pale and light weight enough for faxing and copying.
Present the most important information in a easily readable manner. Take care to show where several positions have been under the same corporation, consulting or management group to highlight employment stability.
You may choose to list continuous employment under a mentor who changed positions or corporations and requested you follow, or you may save that for an interviews.
List pertinent education and training under a clear and separate heading. If you have received awards, they should definitely be listed. Although hobbies and private matters do not belong on a professional resume, some nonprofessional affiliations such as Rotary Club membership or civic engagement may prove beneficial.
State your objective only when it is necessary. Especially more advanced management resumes should be directed at specific positions - not mass mailed. A universal objective statement of "seeking an upper level management position in a quality establishment" on the resume of an assistant general manager applying for the resident position at a Kempinsky, for instance, would be foolish.
Anyone seeking an advanced position should at least have access to a computer or word processor, on which they can use a database to address their applications. This facilitates initial application and follow through mail merge options.
There is much less confusion of terms in the management sector than in the kitchen. Most European terminology is recognized in the United States. The exception is the British use of "catering" to indicate general food and beverage, while in American English it is reserved for on or off premise banquet or buffet style service.
It is perhaps important to note, that the incursion of women in America into management positions has made it absolutely necessary to recognize the possibility of a resume recipient being female.
It is no longer wise to address any application DEAR SIR. Dear Sir or Madam will do when you cannot find the name of the person to whom you are applying, but a direct letter will always make a better impression.
More liberal forces are attempting to change the terms waitress or waiter to the gender neutral 'Waitron', which is generally perceived to be a bit silly. 'Server' is preferable, if you need to indicate front of the house positions. The use of the words 'boy' and 'girl', however, should be avoided at all costs.
Unfortunately, the level of courtesy in American hiring has sunk with the incorporation of of restaurants and hotels. It is more unusual for an applicant for a position to receive a letter of rejection or confirmation of receipt than not. You may wish, when applying to important positions, therefor, to send the resume return receipt requested.
If you are applying directly (not through a search firm or agency) to a corporate hiring authority or director of human resources, there is no reason not to make a short call confirming receipt of the materials, should you not hear from them for several days. Do not bypass an agency, if they have submitted you for the position.
If your resume is addressed to an individual in the executive offices, you may wish to speak with that person's secretary.
Americans can be very cordial over the phone. This is sincere, but we play by a very different set of rules. American managers sometimes permit themselves to be interrupted out of courtesy, so be careful to keep any contacts short and not to call too often. A question such as "I hope I am not interrupting you?" or "Is this a convenient time for you?" will help.
If you do follow up per telephone, state your name and reason for calling clearly. It will help, if you are calling long distance, to add that you are calling from Switzerland. (This is Luther Lutz. I am calling Mr Smith in the Executive Offices from Zurich, Switzerland to confirm that he has received the materials I sent him. Is he available?)
People like to send faxes more than they like to receive them. Your package through the mail is preferable to a fax, unless time is essential or you are specifically asked to send one. Even when you are asked to fax the resume, we always suggest a hard copy follow up.
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