Hi all,
I’m a 27 year old guy who’s been working in the culinary world since my very first job. While I’ve gained valuable experience in the kitchen, I’ve come to realize that I’m ready for a career change that’s both more enjoyable and financially secure. Especially now, working in the restaurant business is unreliable and highly competitive. I’ve been meaning to rewrite my resume for a while now and I realized that nearly all my experience has been cooking. I want to write a resume that shows my skills but not seem like all I’m good for is slaving away at the stove. I want to know if anyone here has any experience with changing careers. I want to know if anyone here has any experience getting a new career after working in another industry for so long. What skills were transferable? My background in cooking has honed my skills in teamwork, time management, and problem-solving. Given my current situation, I need to find something relatively quickly. Are there industries that value the skills of someone with a culinary background, and where I can leverage my experience for a fair wage? Thanks for reading. I look forward to hearing from your responses.
11 comments
Where do you want to go?
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I’m in a very similar boat so I went back to school.
You *might* be able to spin your resume to suit the explosives manufacturing industry. Industrial mixers and ovens are the name of the game there so you’re already familiar with some of the equipment. If you can talk along the lines of, “I can follow a recipe to the letter; don’t matter if it’s a cake or a bomb!” you might have an edge.
The bad news is that there are very few places with demand for such.
Job market is rough right now. There are lots of jobs in hospitality that don’t involve cooking. Might start there.
After 25 years in kitchens, I switched careers at the start of the pandemic. I had talked about getting out of the hospitality industry for a while before 2020, but getting laid off really forced me to shit or get off the pot. I started by thinking about the non-culinary parts of being a chef that I excelled at. I always had a knack for writing clear procedures and explaining things in plain language so I took a Technical Writing course at a community college. It took a while to find work in the field, but I rely on the skills that I honed in kitchens a lot more than I thought I would.
You’re right that the time management, teamwork, communication, and problem solving skills you learned in hospitality will be useful in any career path. If you have experience working with budgets, suppliers, or managing people, don’t forget to highlight those.
Making a huge career shift quickly might not be realistic. Depending on where you want to go in your career, you may need some education at some point. If you’re willing to move into the skilled trades and take some project management courses part-time, you could probably set yourself up for a good career within a few years.
Honestly, your cooking skills do nothing for your resume. Having a consistent job may be useful if there’s consistency.
Join a trade or go to school for nursing or something.
I’ve met several people who successfully entered the tech industry after doing one of those boot camp things. They sound like scams but I guess that’s not really the case.
If you need something quickly, look into doing a similar gig in a different industry.
Hospitals are always looking for kitchen staff. Once you prove you’re reliable, they also like to train people for higher skills jobs. Many phlebotomists, medical assistants, and nursing assistants in my hospital system started out in food service.
Once you’re in the system, hospitals tend to have great education benefits. Makes getting a degree very affordable.
You’re going to need to keep cooking, or switch to front of house to make more money; while simultaneously going back to school to learn something like business/engineering whatever.
The quick short way to make bank is to go into sales. It’s awful for many people though.
Entry level office gigs are going to pay around the same $20 you make as a cook. Long timeline to level up like you want.
Conversely you could go into blue collar trades with unions and long term earning potential.
But this is more of the same back breaking you’re doing now on the line.
This pivot idea of yours is smart and i suggest you understand it will take 3-5 yrs minimum for you to get to the other side you want to be at
Here are the steps:
1. Identify the job you want
2. Look at job postings for that job
3. Write down every skill they’re looking for that you don’t have
4. Learn those skills (using something like [Course Careers](https://coursecareers.com/) where you get a certification)
5. Get the job
How about working in a hotel kitchen (maybe there are some Union jobs with benefits and a pension) but make it known to the hiring manager you want to explore growing into other areas of hospitality.
Then take a course on hotel management. You’ll always have the fallback of the food prep job while you’re working to grow within the wider business.
I moved into restaurant supplies and equipment sales after 19 years in back of house. It was a bit if a culture shock initially moving from a kitchen to an office but knowing the BOH of house inside and out really helped me nurture relationships with my customers.
The hours and benefits were more conducive to the type of life I’m trying to build now in middle age. You can totally switch fields. No problem.