1. Drexel University
Philadelphia, PA • Private
In-State Tuition
$53,244
Enrollment
15,557
Also known as a restaurant cook, a cooking chef is a key employee in the kitchen. Their main duty is to prepare delicious meals for guests, and this comes with preparing ingredients, cooking dishes, plating, and keeping their work area tidy.
If you want to pursue the career of a cooking chef, you first need to be in love with food and cooking. Aside from that, you need to have adequate knowledge of how a restaurant kitchen operates, as well as basic to intermediate cooking techniques, depending on the menu of the restaurant you're applying for. Soft skills such as communication, time management, teamwork, and stress management are also crucial for a fast-paced environment such as a restaurant.
Culinary school education is preferred by many restaurants, but it is not a requirement. In many cases, work experience is much more important, so if you don't have culinary school education, garner more work experience to become a more attractive candidate.
Like many restaurant workers, the average salary of a cooking chef is around $11.68 per hour or $24,290 a year. If you pursue this job, you have the potential to increase your income by getting promoted to a higher level, such as a commis chef or sous chef.
There are certain skills that many cooking chefs have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed business skills, communication skills and creativity.
If you're interested in becoming a cooking chef, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 18.5% of cooking chefs have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 3.4% of cooking chefs have master's degrees. Even though some cooking chefs have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a cooking chef can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as chef, progress to a title such as executive chef and then eventually end up with the title director of food and beverage.
What Am I Worth?
The role of a cooking chef includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general cooking chef responsibilities:
There are several types of cooking chef, including:
Under the direction of a head chef, you'll know exactly what to prepare for as a prep cook. It is essentially your job to make sure the food and kitchen area is prepped for the creation of delicious meals.
Typically, this is a part-time job. But you might be able to find a full-time position somewhere. In your position, you'll be working in a restaurant, hotel, or another establishment that serves food.
As a prep cook, you won't need much education to get by. In fact, the position doesn't require any formal education, but you will need to go through some training, once you're hired. And when we say training, we mean several weeks of on-the-job training. By the end of it, you'll be a sharp prep cook, ready to slice and dice.
Food service workers are employed in restaurants, cafeterias, grocery stores, and any other institution that offers dining services, such as schools, hospitals, or prisons. If you want to learn everything about food preparation and what it takes to be a restaurant manager or a top-notch chef, taking on a job as a food service worker is a great place to start.
Your job will be to assist kitchen staff in preparing meals. Your responsibilities include helping to keep the kitchen spotless, prepping ingredients, slicing, dicing, rinsing, and peeling while making sure all safety regulations are respected.
No experience is needed to be hired as a food service worker; you just have to be attentive and organized and respect the authority of your superiors, which in this case is basically everyone in the kitchen.
MMM, do you smell that? Working as a chef comes with some good-smelling perks, especially if you're good at what you do. Chefs are in charge of preparing food for establishments where food is served, typically restaurants.
The schedule of a chef varies widely depending on where you're cooking. Sometimes they work early mornings, late evenings, weekends and even holidays. Yes, people still want to eat your delicious food on Christmas
Mouse over a state to see the number of active cooking chef jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where cooking chefs earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.
Rank | State | Number of Jobs | Average Salary |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Texas | 4,221 | $36,579 |
2 | California | 3,610 | $45,776 |
3 | Florida | 3,548 | $31,916 |
4 | Illinois | 1,936 | $39,055 |
5 | Ohio | 1,879 | $37,589 |
6 | Pennsylvania | 1,806 | $40,560 |
7 | Georgia | 1,744 | $33,732 |
8 | New York | 1,549 | $39,125 |
9 | North Carolina | 1,530 | $31,025 |
10 | Virginia | 1,312 | $31,017 |
11 | Michigan | 1,287 | $40,291 |
12 | Arizona | 1,139 | $32,548 |
13 | Tennessee | 1,123 | $26,977 |
14 | Indiana | 1,070 | $33,781 |
15 | Colorado | 1,003 | $36,553 |
16 | Massachusetts | 915 | $43,471 |
17 | New Jersey | 911 | $47,225 |
18 | Missouri | 848 | $33,005 |
19 | Minnesota | 835 | $38,982 |
20 | Maryland | 824 | $33,038 |
21 | Washington | 737 | $41,177 |
22 | Wisconsin | 700 | $34,919 |
23 | South Carolina | 683 | $29,821 |
24 | Kentucky | 604 | $31,370 |
25 | Oklahoma | 577 | $31,669 |
26 | Louisiana | 557 | $25,722 |
27 | Utah | 519 | $25,970 |
28 | Alabama | 485 | $32,915 |
29 | Iowa | 479 | $31,273 |
30 | Oregon | 434 | $43,269 |
31 | Mississippi | 405 | $35,185 |
32 | Connecticut | 378 | $38,861 |
33 | Arkansas | 375 | $28,250 |
34 | Kansas | 362 | $27,395 |
35 | Nevada | 355 | $42,396 |
36 | West Virginia | 259 | $30,246 |
37 | New Mexico | 243 | $32,123 |
38 | Idaho | 229 | $23,958 |
39 | Nebraska | 211 | $32,107 |
40 | New Hampshire | 183 | $44,875 |
41 | Montana | 147 | $31,920 |
42 | Alaska | 138 | $44,396 |
43 | Maine | 127 | $36,169 |
44 | Delaware | 118 | $33,589 |
45 | North Dakota | 113 | $35,810 |
46 | Rhode Island | 103 | $42,284 |
47 | South Dakota | 100 | $34,091 |
48 | Hawaii | 97 | $47,164 |
49 | Wyoming | 75 | $38,249 |
50 | Vermont | 61 | $29,446 |
Philadelphia, PA • Private
In-State Tuition
$53,244
Enrollment
15,557
Cincinnati, OH • Private
In-State Tuition
$11,000
Enrollment
25,973
Ithaca, NY • Private
In-State Tuition
$55,188
Enrollment
15,105
Austin, TX • Private
In-State Tuition
$10,610
Enrollment
40,329
Boston, MA • Private
In-State Tuition
$53,948
Enrollment
17,238
Marshall, MN • Private
In-State Tuition
$8,612
Enrollment
2,022
Mercedita, PR • Private
In-State Tuition
$5,914
Enrollment
4,155
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 22.7% of cooking chefs listed food service on their resume, but soft skills such as business skills and communication skills are important as well.
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Cooking Chef templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Cooking Chef resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
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Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a cooking chef. The best states for people in this position are New Jersey, Hawaii, California, and New Hampshire. Cooking chefs make the most in New Jersey with an average salary of $47,225. Whereas in Hawaii and California, they would average $47,164 and $45,776, respectively. While cooking chefs would only make an average of $44,875 in New Hampshire, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Nevada
$42,396
Avg. Salary
2. Alaska
$44,396
Avg. Salary
3. Michigan
$40,291
Avg. Salary
Rank | Company | Average Salary | Hourly Rate | Job Openings |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | The Cheesecake Factory | $39,097 | $18.80 | 8 |
2 | The Walt Disney Company | $38,847 | $18.68 | 8 |
3 | Darden Restaurants | $37,523 | $18.04 | 10 |
4 | H-E-B | $36,727 | $17.66 | 8 |
5 | Outback Steakhouse | $36,295 | $17.45 | 7 |
6 | Cracker Barrel | $36,233 | $17.42 | 7 |
7 | Compass Group USA | $35,128 | $16.89 | 7 |
8 | Hilton | $34,192 | $16.44 | 6 |
9 | Whole Foods Market | $33,913 | $16.30 | 9 |
10 | Levy | $33,399 | $16.06 | 8 |