Careers
Thank you for expressing interest in my career. This is the first time someone has asked me about what I do, and how I got to this position in the first place. I am flattered that you have enough interest and am more than happy to share my story with you. As you know, I am the head chef at a local restaurant. You want to know about the obstacles I had to overcome to achieve this position, and whether or not I have advice to give you if you want to pursue a career in the culinary world.
I believe that culinary arts are, as the title suggests, an artistic endeavor. Like music, dance, writing, and other creative pursuits, the culinary arts requires passion and a sense of purpose. People enter this profession because they are passionate about food, cooking, or the restaurant industry in some way. This is not the kind of career one enters in order to make money. So as long as you know that, you can be realistic in your pursuit of a career in the culinary world.
Let me also say that there are a multitude of jobs in the culinary world. Not all positions are like mine as head chef. There are pastry chefs, restaurant managers, caterers, and persons who work behind the scenes at all levels of the food industry. You will have to decide for yourself what the optimal working environment is for your personality traits or your leadership style. Head chefs like me work with people on a regular basis and we must be natural leaders and communicators. I imagine you have watched some of the cooking shows on reality television. While some of those shows are outrageously exaggerated,...
Some people are hard to work with, but if they are the best at what they do, you will need to learn how to curb your temper and get the job done in spite of your personal differences. It helps to take some anger management or other psychological counseling sessions if you need to. I took leadership courses, which helped me tremendously and I attribute my leadership style to working closely with skilled professionals in their field of life coaching. If you are interested in a career in a leadership position of any type, I strongly recommend you seek out this type of training. When it comes to applying what you learned from those leadership training sessions to the kitchen, you will feel more confident. Confidence is everything in your career, and I believe that advice extends to careers outside the culinary world.
Back to cooking, if you are interested in this career let me know and I will help you to network with some key professionals in our area. As you already know, networking is critical for finding a good job. You cannot simply rely on advertisements or hoping someone finds you on LinkedIn. You really have to work hard to reach out to people, and to attend as many seminars and workshops as possible. Join organizations, reach out to strangers, and generally do everything you can to expand your social network. This way, you will get wind of job openings.
As far as actual skills training, there are several ways you can go about becoming a chef. One is to go the traditional culinary…
