When it comes to Chefs CVs, or Resumes as they are sometimes called, we have plenty of advice to offer across the site. We offer general advice on Chef CV best practice as well as a more visual deconstruction of a Chef CV along with some, hopefully, useful Chef CV Downloads. While we encourage you to check those pages out, there’s useful stuff there, not everything we advise there applies exactly to what you’ll need produce for a successful combined job and visa application for Australia.
While we’ve targeted this resource to UK and Ireland passport holding chefs, intending to apply for Chef Jobs in Australia, the advice on this page about CV optimisation is worth incorporating into your Chef CV design whenever you’re applying for Chef Jobs in distant locations. The further away your target job is from where you’ve worked most of your career to date, then the less can be assumed about your potential employers knowledge as to the quality of businesses you’ve worked in and your roles and responsibilities you held while you were there. Don’t make them guess, to find out why please read on.
Chef CV Structure, Form and Content for Australia
CV structure and form will remain quite similar to most CVs you’ve seen, however you’ll need to make changes to the content and level of detail you include in yours. You’ll need to emphasize the things you did and were responsible for in each job. Bear in mind that your target audience, Australian caterers, restaurateurs, hoteliers and resort managers looking for chefs, may not have heard of most, or perhaps any, of the places you’ve worked. Of course some will be familiar with some of the places you’ve worked but when it comes to optimising your Chef CV for Australia we strongly advise you to prepare, in terms of employer knowledge of European hotels, restaurants etc, for the worst case scenario. So don’t assume they’re going to research your background thoroughly. If your Chef CV looks to vague to them then they may well prefer the CV of someone who’s spelled out their skills, roles, responsibilities and grade/quality of the places they’ve worked. Less work for them. That’s why on your CV for Australia you’ll need to make that as clear to them and the things you did while working there. Here’s a sample to get you thinking:
Should you experience any difficulties viewing that sample chef cv in the window above then simply hit the link just above the window to view it in Scribd.
You’ll notice there’s a lot of emphasis on roles and responsibilities in each job. For immigration purposes this is very important and if you maximise your chances of success you’ll incorporate a similar level of detail in yours. The more recent the job the greater the emphasis it’s advisable to place on such details. Naming the Hotels or Restaurants you’ve been working in is a must, of course, but you need to spell out what type of places these were, describe them, what grades were those hotels, three, four or five star? Make this clear on your CV. You’ve named that restaurant you worked in but what type of restaurant was it? Bistro, Brasserie, Fine Dining? Make this clear on your CV. Is there anything else which distinguishes the places you’ve worked in? Any AA Rosettes, Michelin Bibs or Stars? Don’t assume they’ll find out. Make this clear on your CV. The main area of focus should be on jobs you’ve held in the last five years. This also holds true for your references which we cover in more detail elsewhere.
As a rule of thumb we advise Chefs to keep their CVs, where possible to under two pages. It may be necessary to break that rule for this type of CV and if you need to then go ahead and take the space you need.
To learn more about TOPCHEFS and to obtain full and up-to-date information on the wide choice of jobs – whether in Galway or anywhere else – we have on offer call us on +353 (01) 531 0046. In the business of managing your career, it’s the only number you’ll ever need.
