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.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a prep cook. For example, did you know that they make an average of $12.23 an hour? That's $25,441 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 prep 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 dexterity, physical stamina and sense of taste and smell.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a prep cook, we found that a lot of resumes listed 15.1% of prep cooks included sanitation standards, while 12.4% of resumes included kitchen equipment, and 8.2% of resumes included high volume. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the prep cook job title. But what industry to start with? Most prep cooks actually find jobs in the hospitality and retail industries.
If you're interested in becoming a prep cook, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 12.4% of prep cooks have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 0.7% of prep cooks have master's degrees. Even though some prep 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 prep cook. When we researched the most common majors for a prep cook, we found that they most commonly earn high school diploma degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on prep cook resumes include bachelor's degree degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a prep cook. In fact, many prep cook jobs require experience in a role such as cashier. Meanwhile, many prep cooks also have previous career experience in roles such as cook or line cook.