Jobs for Chef School Graduates

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Starting Your Chef Career

Chef school will help you learn the techniques and tricks that you'll use throughout your culinary career; however, getting work experience is critical to understanding the ins and outs of a working kitchen. Entry-level chef positions may not be glamorous, but they're definitely worth the learning experience.

Your ultimate goal may be restaurant ownership or an executive chef job where you'll manage the kitchen staff, plan menus, order supplies and ingredients, and oversee all food preparation and cooking. In the meantime, however, the following jobs can help you better understand the business and build a solid foundation for your culinary career.

Restaurant Jobs

Garde manger: Garde mangers produce cold food items like salads and dressings, cold appetizers, sandwiches and garnishes.

Line cook: Line cooks are assistant cooks with a specialty. Grill cooks, fry cooks, sauce cooks and sauté cooks, among others, are also known as line cooks.

Patisserier: Pastry chefs coordinate events, create dishes and prepare specialty desserts, pastries and baked foods. The position requires formal training and accreditation from an accredited culinary institute in addition to 2 to 4 years of experience. Generally, pastry chefs supervise kitchen and cook assistants.

Prep cook: Prep cooks generally assemble, decorate and garnish all prepared foods. They are responsible for quality and quantity of production of cold foods.

Sous-chef: As the head chef's assistant, a sous-chef plans and supervises the daily operations of a kitchen.

Non-Restaurant Jobs

Food scientist: Food scientists apply scientific and engineering principles in research, development, production technology, quality control, packaging, processing and utilization of food.

Food stylist: Food stylists arrange food for commercial videos and photo shoots for magazines, newspapers and books.

Institution and cafeteria cook: Institution and cafeteria cooks work in the kitchens of schools, cafeterias, businesses, hospitals and other institutions. For each meal, they prepare a large quantity of a limited number of entrees, vegetables and desserts.

Private household cook: Private household cooks plan and prepare meals, clean the kitchen, order groceries and supplies. They may also serve meals.

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