Create a Good Impression with Your Chef Curriculum Vitae

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Our profession will take us to places far from our comfort zones, and if we really are passionate about food and cooking, then we sometimes have no choice but to follow our dreams.  We submit our resumes to hotels and restaurants even far from home in the hopes of landing a job and advancing our culinary careers.

You might be inclined to think that creating a resume or curriculum vitae is easy, but it actually is not.  This piece of paper will tell who you are professionally, so you would naturally want that piece of paper to convey who you are as a professional and who you are as a chef.  For this reason, here are some tips on how you can create a good impression with your CV.

Look at Your CV as an Advertising Tool

You are marketing yourself anyway, so you have to look at your CV as an advertising tool.  You future employers are going to take a look at your CV, so you have to let it really speak for you.  So before you make your CV, list down all your important skills as well as highlight some of the experiences that you have had in your profession that will make you shine out more than your competition does.  Aside from this, you also have to make your CV interesting so as to engage the interest of the interviewers and make them want to “get to know you more” by inviting you for an interview.  However, be careful not to share too much unnecessary information in your CV.

One tip in creating a list of skills though is to only include skills that are relevant to your trade.  You can also include a short description of your skills or provide useful examples and demonstrations during the interview.

The Professional CV

Because you would naturally want your CV to look as professional as you are, then here are the qualities of a professional CV.

1. It should be well presented.  Not only should it contain personal details of yourself such as hobbies and interests as well as education, certificates, and professional qualifications, but it should also contain your skills, achievements, and employment history.
2. It should be interesting.  Never write your CV by hand or use an old-fashioned typewriter to type it out.  You would want to look professional, and these will not do you any good.  Instead, make use of a word processor, a professional-looking font like Arial, and bright and clean white bond paper.  Do not use colored papers, and do not use too much “italics” and “underlines” as it can be distracting to look at.
3. It should be simple and very easy to read.  Make use of the right headings to separate your CV content and use “bold.”  Never use too long paragraphs, lest they become boring.  Keep the paragraphs short, simple, and easy to read.
4. It should be straightforward and honest.  Do not lie in your CV.  Your future employers can easily call up your character references, and you would not want to be caught in a lie.
5. If there is one thing that is a big no-no when it comes to creating CVs is to leave gaps or missing periods of time in your CV, may it be months or years.  Some interviewers and employers find the missing periods of time suspicious, so it would be better if you clarify what those missing periods were.  If you were on vacation, then say so in your CV.

Applying Online

Because there is a worldwide need for skilled chefs, especially in big hotels and famous restaurant branches, there will be instances wherein you will submit your CV online.  For this reason, here are some tips on how to submit CV via your email accounts:

1. Create a more professional-looking email address, preferably a username that makes use of your name.  Your future employer would want to see the name of the applicant, not some fancy username like “redchef” or “masterchef.”
2. Clearly state the purpose of your email in the subject line.  This way, your future employer will know in a glance that you are applying for a certain position.
3. One mistake that many chefs make is that they think an email correspondence is informal.  It actually is not.  Just like in any other job applications and interviews, you have to have a respectful and professional tone to your email.
4. If you are going to attach your CV, make sure that the format is easily accessible, retrievable, and readable.  You would not want to send a good CV only to find out that your employer couldn’t open the attached document so they sent it to the “trash.”

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