As a chef, you will have picked up a vast quantity of skills over time. When it comes to writing a CV, many people may just write down the dates of employment and the job title of the experiences they’ve had working in a professional kitchen, rather than expanding upon on how each one provided them with different skill sets. This blog post will aim to break down the different types of skills and then give examples for each skill type.
Personal Skills
Working in a kitchen is a team-effort and requires various personal skills to keep everything running smoothly. Being able to list your personal skills will reflect well in any job but applies particularly to roles that involve working as part of a team. Some example of personal skills for a chef would be:
- Polite
- Friendly
- Confident
- Responsible
- Reliable & Honest
- Motivational
- Cleanly
Transferable Skills
Say you’ve not had too much experience working in a kitchen but you’ve worked other jobs and would now like a change. Try thinking, are there any skills that you’ve used elsewhere that could benefit you in a chef role? Some examples are below:
- Time management
- Punctuality
- Willing to accept responsibility
- Able to thrive under pressure
- Willing to be flexible in their working patterns
- First Aid qualifications
- Multitasking
- Organisation
- Fast paced decision making
- Creativity
- Attention to detail
- Business knowledge
In an interview, you could give an example situation of how you have used or how you would use these transferable skills to demonstrate how you could apply your knowledge to solve a problem or benefit the business.
Specific Skills
Want to apply to a specialist role? If you have any experience at all in the area you’re applying for, make sure you add it in here. Your prospective employer will see that you’re ahead of the game if you’ve already had experience learning these specialist skills or working hard to get them.
- Employee of the month
- Food safety training
- Culinary expertise
- Food preparation
- Knife skills
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