Chef Careers

Chef Careers

You will need more management rather than cooking skills to be a chef. You will be on your feet for long periods of time, under intense stress and heat, persevering cuts and burns, fumes, smoke and a lot of noise. Chefs usually coordinate staff and oversee the running of activities in hotel kitchens. They also draw up the complete menus which are to be used in the hotels or restaurants, handle customers, order food supplies, interview and recruit kitchen staff and take care of health regulations.

How to become a chef

Get a high school diploma

You can then choose to be trained on the job by being mentored by a professional chef. This is a popular method used by many chef aspirants. However, if you want a professional career path it would be advisable to enroll in a culinary school for a degree program. To become an executive chef, it will take you up to 10-12 years and a lot of experience to climb up the career ladder.

Types, Description, Information

You can choose to work as a chef in an international hotel or a small scale hotel.

You can also work for private families, in casinos and cruise ships. The US Bureau of Labor and Statistics states that about 5000 chefs were working for private families by 2006.

You also have the choice of working as an executive chef, pastry chef or restaurant manager.

Qualifications: Course, Training and Programs

You will need to do a Bachelors degree in Culinary Arts. Some of the classes that are included in a culinary degree program include kitchen management skills, how to prepare different food types such as appetizers, entrees, breads, soup, dessert and pastry. There are also classes on Global Cuisine and Classical and modern culinary techniques.

The objective of culinary schools is to get you to gain skills in budgeting, food preparation and management of kitchen resources.

Schools, Colleges, Universities

Before enrolling for a culinary school training program, some of the prerequisites you should check for include that the college should have a modern kitchen with modern equipment. You should also get hands on training and cooking demonstrations.

You have the choice of having a high school diploma or GED as a prerequisite for admission into Culinary Arts programs. You also have the option of taking your entrance exams online or visiting the college you want to enroll in. You can get more information on this from the website of the university you want to enroll in.

Popular colleges/Universities include

• Kendall College in Chicago
• Sullivan University-Kentucky
• Stratford Career Institute
• Remington College-online or in Texas, Florida, Louisiana
• Colorado Culinary Arts School- Colorado

Chef Job Opportunities, Salaries, Recruitment

The job outlook for those in chef careers is good through to 2016, with an estimated growth of 11%. However, there is a lot of competition in the industry for top jobs. You will need to gain a lot of experience and skills in order to get to the top spots in the market. The average pay for chefs is $41,000; those in the bracket for the best paid chefs earn $60,000.

You can begin your job search for a chef career by starting out as an intern.