Culinary Resume Examples
Learn how our resume examples for jobs in the culinary field can assist you in writing a standout document that will help you get the job you want.
Our Recommended Example
Popular Examples in the Culinary Space
Featured in:*
Table of Contents
Culinary Resume
Culinary Cover Letter
Get Expert Writing Recommendations for Your Culinary Resume
LiveCareer’s Resume Builder offers pre-written text suggestions throughout the resume writing process to make the writing process easier for you.
Our builder offers suggestions, written by certified resume writers, for ways to describe your job duties. Use our pre-written text as-is, or customize it to your needs. Here are three examples of content our builder might recommend for your culinary resume:
- Washed, peeled, and cut various fruits and vegetables to prepare for serving.
- Prevented cross-contamination from utensils, surfaces, and pans when cooking and plating meals for food allergy sufferers.
- Monitored and controlled overhead and production costs with responsibility for profit and loss.
6 Dos and Don’ts for Writing a Culinary Resume
Do
- Do choose the best culinary resume template. Which template you use will depend on your professional level and work environment. For conservative environments, like country clubs, choose a more buttoned up template. For a culinary role at a hot new nightclub, a more creative design will likely be welcome.
- Do choose the resume format that best suits your needs. If you are highly experienced and want to show off your career progression, a chronological resume is best. If you are new to the industry, consider a functional or combination format which emphasizes skills and training over experience.
- Do mention special training you have completed, such as sommelier training.
Don’t
- Don’t forget to add soft skills, like customer service, to your resume. Employers seek soft skills for all workers, even those who are in roles that aren’t customer-facing.
- Don’t forget to study the job ad. While the culinary industry has skills and keywords that are common across roles, the job ad will offer clues to the specific criteria recruiters seek for that job title. For corporate culinary roles, this could be critical to getting your resume past an applicant tracking system and in front of a recruiter.
- Don’t forget to add licensing information. If you have a current food handler’s license, for example, employers will take notice.
Beat the ATS with These Culinary Resume Skills
Writing a culinary resume that will get past an applicant tracking system (ATS) is critical to landing an interview for the job you want. ATS is the software that scans resumes for specific keywords related to the role. While smaller restaurants and bars likely aren’t using an ATS, corporate hotel and restaurant chains that hire in volume almost certainly will use them to weed out unqualified candidates.
To get your resume past the ATS and on to the desk of a human recruiter, it’s critical that you include relevant industry-specific keywords and study the job ad for the specific requirements of the job at hand.
When you use LiveCareer’s culinary resume examples, our builder will suggest skills that will help your resume get past this critical first step in the hiring process. Here are some skills to consider adding to your culinary resume:
- Customer service experience
- Conflict resolution
- Kitchen management
- Production control
- Strong written and verbal communication
- Creative plating
- Experience using commercial kitchen equipment
- Food safety training
- Menu creation
- Sourcing and ordering kitchen supplies and ingredients
Culinary Resumes for Every Professional Level
Culinary job seekers with limited work experience might consider using a combination resume format, like the example below. The benefit is that this format allows those with less experience to use their valuable resume real estate – the top third of the document– to flaunt the skills and qualifications employers seek.
By moving the Work History section down, this resume example show employers sought-after qualifications right away, like strong cooking skills, food safety training, and an array of valuable soft skills.
Build My Resume
Experienced culinary job seekers want to show off both their work experience and their skill set. Here, the job seeker has chosen a chronological resume example, which accomplished both.
When reviewing her work history section, a recruiter can easily see that the applicant has worked her way up the ranks in restaurants, climbing from chef’s assistant to chef over the course of her career. Finally, in the last two sections, this resume deftly highlights the applicant’s skills and culinary training.
Build My Resume
At the executive level, job seekers should have impressive culinary experience to show of their resumes. For this reason, a culinary resume example that uses a chronological format is a great idea.
This format emphasizes the length of this applicant’s career and his breadth of experience above all else. It shows off an impressive career trajectory and makes it clear that he is highly trained and possesses the skill required to perform the duties required of an Executive Chef.
Build My ResumeMore culinary resume samples
Find resume examples for your desired culinary career. Get access to expert writing recommendations, do’s and don’ts and everything you need to write a perfect resume.
Statistics and Facts About Culinary Jobs
Median Annual Pay by Job Title
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
| 0 | 25k | 50k |
|---|---|---|
| Bakers | $26,520 | |
| Cooks | $25,200 | |
| Chefs and head cooks | $48,460 |
Job outlook by job title
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
| 0 | 10% | 20% |
|---|---|---|
| Food service managers | 9% (as fast as average) | |
| Bakers | 8% (as fast as average) | |
| Cooks | 6% (as fast as average) | |
| Dieticians and Nutritionists | 15% (much faster than average) | |
| Chefs and head cooks | 10% (faster than average) |
Education Statistics
Culinary Arts & Chef Training
Source: DataUSA
Average Wage
$48,186
Growing 5.3%
People In Workforce
48,516
Declining 8.96%
Average Employee Age
37.2
Declining 2.01%
Median In-State Public Tuition
$3,516
Declining 7.29%
Median Out-Of-State Private Tuition
$21,800
Declining 10.5%
Total Degrees Awarded in 2016
18,693
Declining 7.11%
Industry Diversity Statistics
Race & Ethnicity by Degrees Awarded
Source: DataUSA
