The Chefs CV (Curriculum Vitae) Resume page has just gone live on the TOPCHEFS website. See Chef’s CV Tips for catering jobs which, I’d like to emphasize, is not yet as fully polished as we’d like it to be. However as we’re aware of a lot of interest among chefs, on how to best optimize their CVs for success in the very competitive catering jobs market of today, we decided to publish and be damned. Eventually, as part of our program to
make the TOPCHEFS website the #1 destination, especially in Ireland, for chefs making big career decisions, we’ll give this Chef’s CV and Resume tips page a place in the main navigation bar of the website. For the moment though the only way of finding it is via the links on this blog page.
Why Resume, CV design matters for Chefs in the jobs market
At those times I find myself struggling to make sense of a Chef’s CV I know that particular applicant is in trouble right from the start. As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time scrutinizing chef’s CVs I ask one thing of job applicants and that is” please don’t make me think, too hard.”
So what’s the most jarring thing any recruitment agent, or potential employer, can encounter on a Chef’s CV? That’s easy: career chronology which doesn’t make sense and/or unexplained gaps in their working history. This is a lot more common that you might imagine and in extreme examples would require the superhuman skill of bilocation. Imagine simultaneously holding down a Chef’s job in South East Asia and in Dublin, Ireland? Impossible? Yes certainly but yet that is exactly how one recent CV which landed on my desk read. I subsequently made sense of this CV only by working through it, over the phone, with the candidate. This doesn’t happen at every Irish catering agency and it certainly doesn’t happen with every potential employer in Ireland either. In those cases the aspirant chef will never know why they’re not getting called back. They’re not getting called back because they’re making other people do too much work and where the alternatives require less work the net result, for our chef, is bafflement as to why their skills are, apparently, unappreciated.
The Keys to a Chef’s CV which won’t work against you
Clarity in CV design & layout
- Avoid the temptation to pimp your CV
- Use left text justification
- Avoid text boxes, tables or other unnecessary embellishments or graphical objects (explanation on main CV page)
Relevant Chef’s CV Content
- Start with your most recent job and work backwards down the page
- Include relevant courses and vocational qualifications
- Avoid irrelevancy, Leaving Cert results from 25 years ago are completely irrelevant
- Include membership of craft or trade guilds (WACS, Eurotoques etc)
Complete Contact Details
- Full Name
- Address
- Phone
We’ve a lot more detail on the subject of Chef’s CVs on this dedicated CV page It’s not yet the finished article but, in the absence of anything better serving the Irish catering employment market, it’s probably well worth checking out anyway. If you do check it out and have any questions, or suggestions, then please to get in touch. You can use the contact page on the main site or even use the commenting box attached to this page.
Photo by believekevin 
