This question is a bit tricky and sticky.  Chefs would have varying opinions when it comes to this.  If you ask this question to a hundred chefs, half of them would advise you to put in your career objective while the rest would advise against it.  Perhaps, the latter would tell you that a career objective is unnecessary and it will not have an impact on you landing the job you want.

There are employers who prefer that you put in an objective on your resume.  This helps them determine your worth as a potential employee.  This helps determine what you can do for the organization.  This also helps employers determine your skills and capabilities.  There are employers who frown at resumes without objectives.

Admittedly, a career objective is a bit limiting.  It is also hard to construct the right words for this.  It is hard to put together the right words that would correctly and completely describe your career objectives.  It is unfortunate but many culinary jobseekers often provide woefully constructed objectives.

Many jobseekers fail to consider that their potential employer needs to know what they can contribute to the organization or the company.  Instead of expounding on this, they list down their expectations, desires and needs from the organization and the position they are seeking.  This inadvertently creates a poorly written and self-serving objective.

Taking all these things into consideration, should you put in a career objective on your resume?

If you are considering providing a career objective on your resume, you need to understand that this can be quite limiting.  If your objective does not please the manager or your prospective employer, he or she will not likely take your application seriously or overlook you altogether.  He or she will not even consider other niches in the organization that you could fit into.

Still, this is not a very good reason for leaving out your objective.  After all, it is considerably easy to prepare several resumes these days.  You can create three or more versions of your resume with the objective as their only difference.  You can have tailor-made objectives to match the job you are applying for. It is always safer to include an objective in your resume.  You will hardly annoy a potential employer who does not care much for these things.  However, an employer who prefers to see a career objective may take its absence negatively.

You can use your cover letter to expound on your objective or to supplement or support it.  Applicants do this when they feel that their objective is insufficient.  Some people include supplementary sections in their resume.  For instance, they include a “Qualifications” or “Skills Summary” section.

Ultimately, it is up to you to decide whether or not you should include an objective section in your resume.  This is your personal choice.  However, if you want to use one, there are some things that you should take note of:

1.    Your objective should be specific.  Unsure of what to put in, applicants tend to create vague objectives.  This is a huge mistake.  You need to choose the right words, so you can avoid limiting descriptions.

2.   Take the opportunity to demonstrate how you can be an asset to the organization.  You need to remember that your career objective should reflect how the organization can benefit from your service.  You need to demonstrate how you can be of value to your employer.  This should not be self-serving.

3.   Keep it short and sweet.  Make sure that your statement is concise as possible.

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The job of a chef seems glamorous, financially rewarding and fulfilling.  This is how a chef’s job is viewed by many.  This is not surprising considering the fact that chefs are often found working in luxurious hotels, resorts, clubs and restaurants.  A chef career holds a lot of promise, but what does it include?  What does it mean?  Is it worth it?  A chef job description will help you understand the job and what it entails.

Job Description of a Chef

A chef’s job is not that easy.  This is especially true if you are an executive chef.  This chef’s job description involves administering, monitoring and supervising the preparation of food.  It also involves managing kitchen personnel, purchasing ingredients and kitchen supplies, pricing and costing food items.

An executive chef’s job involves keeping tab with kitchen personnel and guiding them through the food preparation process.  It is a chef’s job to ensure that the food items are exquisitely and expertly made.  Food quality is very important.  It is a chef’s job to check that food is of excellent quality before it is served to guests, customers or visitors.  It is his responsibility to make sure that customers are satisfied with the food and the service that the restaurant provides.

It is also a chef’s responsibility to prepare the menu, purchase the ingredients and establish contacts with vendors and suppliers.  It is his task to order supplies and maintain record and inventory.  He is also responsible for ensuring that the kitchen is equipped with all the right cooking equipment.  He also needs to make sure that these equipments are maintained properly.

Cleanliness and safety are issues that concern a chef.  He needs to make sure that these are maintained in the kitchen.  Cleanliness is a major concern especially during food preparation.  Food needs to be stored and handled properly in order to maintain cleanliness.  Often, it is the executive chef who receives customer complaints about the food and he is also tasked to resolve problems or concerns.

Due to a senior chef vast experience, he often plays a role in hiring of kitchen personnel, staff and cooks.  He may also be expected to conduct training programs, assess kitchen employees and monitor their progress.

Now that you know the chef job description, you now have a good idea what is in store for you if you are considering a career in culinary arts.

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If you are thinking of pursuing a career in the culinary arts, graduating from culinary school is the easiest part.  What is even more challenging is finding a job.  You need to know how to prepare your resume in order to find a good position in a good establishment.  You need to be able to create a really good resume.  This may be easy when you are merely starting.  Executive chef resumes, however, are another matter.  You need to be able to present your work experience, training and education properly.  Here is a guide on how to prepare an executive chef resume.

• Create an outline. In order to be able to present your work experience, training and education well, it is a good idea to create an outline.  Writing these things down as an outline will help you organize your thoughts.  You will be able to describe all your qualifications.

Remember, executive chef resumes should be able to demonstrate clearly the qualifications perfectly.  This means that the person’s skills for culinary design, recipe creation, food presentation, budget management, food storage and ordering are clearly presented.  There are some things that you have to think about when preparing your resume and you need to write them down:

1. Write down your goals or objectives.
2. Describe your work experience.
3. Write down your educational background.

• Create the rough draft. The outline you prepared in Step 1 will serve as your guideline for your rough draft.  You can create a resume of one to two pages, but not more.  Remember to provide your contact information in the first paragraph.  You need to include your full name, address, email address and phone numbers.  Basically, you need to fit all your information – personal information, work experience, educational background – under these headings:

1. Objective
2. Summary of Qualifications
3. Professional Experience
4. Awards
5. Education

• Devote some time to writing down good job objectives. Your objective will depend upon your expertise.  You can develop this in different ways.  You can choose to offer a description of your qualification as an executive chef.  This will offer your potential employee an idea about your goals and experience.  You need to sell yourself using the objective section of an executive chef resume.

• List down appropriate information under the proper headings. List down your skills under the “Summary of Qualifications” heading.  This is appropriate for executive chef resumes.  A newly graduate can, however, put an “Achievement and Skills” section instead since he or she may not have much to put yet.  You need to be able to convince your potential employer that you possess the skills of a really good executive chef.

You can place your work experience under the “Professional Experience” section of your resume.  Make sure that you include the name of the business, your position and a description of your responsibilities.  If you are a recipient of awards, make sure that you include an “Awards” section where you can place a summary of your awards.  It is very important that you place an “Education” section where you can place a summary of your educational background.

Before you prepare your resume, you might want to check out samples of Executive Resumes online.  You will find numerous samples online.  Get a good idea of how you can best present your resume before you start creating your outline and draft.

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Annual budgeting involves a lot of things.  Management needs to consider every aspect of their business in creating an annual budget.  Of course, the budget will include personnel expense.  Accordingly, a strategic staffing plan should be implemented so that the real company need should be filled.

Designing a Strategic Staffing Plan

In order to do this, personnel requirements should be carefully considered.  This offers little influence over the company’s corporate funds especially because a company’s staffing plan is narrowly focused on the company’s status quo.  Unfortunately, company needs are continually evolving.  There are many things that redefine work requirements.  This is why a strategic staffing plan should be designed and implemented.

Strategic staffing – this phrase is commonly heard.  It is prevalently used by many companies.  However, the plan adapted by many companies is tactical in measure.  Often, this is purely reactive.  When an employee quits, the company’s human resource would immediately try to fill up the position.  Of course, many companies consider this the most cost-effective staffing method.  This is also unavoidable.  However, the question remains – is this the most effective method of staffing a company?  Perhaps, it is not.

Still, even the most ambitious human resource department can only do so much when it comes to creating a strategic staffing plan.  The team often requires the full support of the management in order to create and implement an effective, responsive and forward-looking workforce plan.  Full support is required because such plan may require huge and sweeping changes in the company’s work procedures and processes.  This requires commitment and support from all management levels.

Do You Really Need a Staffing Initiative in Place?

This is actually a systematic response to the company’s staffing needs.  This takes in potential future needs and it creates a system of action that can be undertaken in order to meet those needs.  Creating a strategic staffing plan can be tricky because this needs to be responsive and anticipatory at the same time.  There are things that one has to consider in order to create a really good and effective plan.  Here are some things that one must do in order to create a good program:

1. Gain a deep and comprehensive understanding of the workforce setup of the company
2. Envision a work environment that can potentially exist in the future
3. Identify and define existing and future competencies hat can help the company overcome actual and potential challenges.
4. Determine strategies and set up measures in order to assist the creation of this staffing plan and workforce

A strategic staffing plan helps you stay one-step ahead.  This is a measure that will help the company achieve both short and long term response to workforce needs.  This will create a framework which can help the human resource team establish better policies.  This will determine the best method of utilizing company employees.  Finally, this will help create a workforce that is both responsive and flexible.

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