Chef CV Examples for You to Use This Year

Chefs need to have a variety of skills in and outside of the kitchen. How can you showcase those skills in your CV?

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Chef CV example

Chef CV sample

When you think of jobs that require a CV, chances are you think of office jobs and executive positions. However, the culinary arts also require a CV. Hiring managers want to know that you have all the talents necessary to make a restaurant a success. So if you’re applying for a chef position, you’ll need a CV. Here’s how you can get a new job by impressing recruiters and restaurant managers.

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What should I highlight in a chef CV?

The best CV for a chef position will show off your cooking talents, and highlight your experience and your ability to collaborate with others and satisfy customers. Remember, your skills are what keep the restaurant afloat, so it’s important that you have the right culinary abilities to attract customers. Additionally, a hiring manager typically wants to know that you’ll stay with the restaurant for quite some time, as hiring a new chef can be very expensive

Structure of a Chef CV

The structure of your CV will partially depend on the CV format that you choose. There are three major CV formats: the chronological CV, which emphasises work history, the functional CV, which emphasises skills, and the hybrid CV, which emphasises both. Regardless of which format you’ve selected, you will typically include the following sections:

Contact information

Your contact information is where you include your full name, phone number, email address, and LinkedIn profile. When you use CV templates, you typically just have to add your information.

Professional summary/objective

Next is your CV professional summary or career objective for CV. This is a paragraph at the top of your CV that includes two to three sentences about your best skills and key achievements. In a professional CV, a summary helps recruiters get an understanding of who you are at a glance.

Work history

If you have any work experience, you should include it in your experience section. Oftentimes, chefs will include any experience they have in their work history section. Here are a few job titles you might be able to include:

Kitchen staff
Sous chef
Executive chef
Head chef
Fine dining
Line cook
Pastry chef
Professional chef

Remember that you should only include the last 10 years of work experience. For experience beyond 10 years, you can refer hiring managers to your LinkedIn profile.

Skills

Your skills section is also extremely important. Here are a few chef-related key skills for CV that you might be able to use to fill out your skills section:

Food preparation
Food safety
Food cost and pricing
Food quality
Dietary restrictions and allergy preparation
Menu development
Maintaining quality standards
Time management

You’ll notice that this list is a mix of both hard skills and soft skills. Feature these skills throughout your CV to prove that you’re a well-balanced candidate.

Education

Not every person working as a chef has been to culinary school. However, the culinary arts are incredibly important to chefs, and if you have such credentials, you should include it in your CV. If you don’t have any expert experience, you can just list your GCSE.

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Do’s and don’ts for a chef CV

Do:

Include in your key achievements any staff members you’ve mentored in the past. Chef positions are often very managerial, and it’s a good idea to mention your involvement in mentoring.
Mention the type of cuisine you specialise in when applicable. If you’re applying to an Italian restaurant, you can mention that you worked previously at Italian restaurants.
Proofread your CV. A typo can immediately put recruiters off your CV without even reading it.

Don’t:

Discuss specific food items you’ve cooked at other restaurants. Generally this isn’t relevant and you don’t need to mention it.
Apply for jobs that you’re unqualified for. Read the job description and see whether you’re qualified for a job before you apply.
Only cite cooking-related skills in your skills section. Menu creation, or staff management, for example, is just as big of a part of the job as cooking.

FAQ: Chef CVs

Q: Do I need to include a cover letter for a chef application?

Yes. When writing a chef CV, you should also write a chef cover letter to boost your chances of getting the job. You can review the CVHelp chef cover letter example to get ideas for creating your own. The cover letter provides more information about you and puts you ahead of other job seekers also vying for the job. You can use the cover letter builder to create beautiful cover letters.

Q: How can I write a chef CV without a lot of experience?

If you don’t have much experience, you need to highlight whatever experience you do have. For example, you can discuss experiences you may have had as a sous chef or your academic experience. You might also be able to talk about volunteer work as a chef. These are all experiences that you can use even if you don’t think of them as work history.

Q: How do I change my chef resume to apply to different jobs?

CV keywords are important for customising your CV for different chef jobs. Look over the job description, pick out skills and requirements that apply to the job and also match your own skill set, and feature them in your CV. One of the best ways to easily customise your CV is to use the CVHelp CV builder. With the CVbuilder, you just have to build the base CVonce and then you can start building other CVs on top of it.

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