A kitchen cook is someone who works in a kitchen and prepares delicious food to feed hungry customers. While most kitchen cooks work in restaurants, they can also work in school cafeterias, hospitals, or other places where people need to be fed. They usually follow the direction of a chef, who is the head of a kitchen and creates the menu.
It goes without saying that kitchen cooks need to be good at cooking food. However, cooking in a busy kitchen requires some additional skills than when you're just whipping up a tasty sauce at home. Kitchen cooks need to be able to work quickly in a confined, crowded space to serve many customers. They also need to follow strict safety regulations so that their kitchen doesn't get shut down by government inspectors.
There are many paths to becoming a kitchen cook. Some cooks choose to get a bachelor's degree or go to culinary school. However, most work their way up to this position with practical restaurant experience alone. Cooks only earn an average salary of $26,674 and spend many long hours working on their feet, but for many, the satisfaction of preparing good food for customers is worth the work.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a Kitchen Cook. For example, did you know that they make an average of $14.27 an hour? That's $29,680 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 11% and produce 282,000 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many Kitchen Cooks 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 Sense of taste and smell, Dexterity and Physical stamina.
If you're interested in becoming a Kitchen Cook, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 20.5% of Kitchen Cooks have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 1.8% of Kitchen Cooks have master's degrees. Even though some Kitchen Cooks have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a Kitchen Cook. When we researched the most common majors for a Kitchen Cook, we found that they most commonly earn High School Diploma degrees or Bachelor's Degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on Kitchen Cook resumes include Associate Degree degrees or Diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a Kitchen Cook. In fact, many Kitchen Cook jobs require experience in a role such as Cashier. Meanwhile, many Kitchen Cooks also have previous career experience in roles such as Cook or Sales Associate.