Free Downloadable Culinary Resume Templates and Expert Writing Tips

9 Culinary Resume Examples

If you are a culinary expert who seeks perfection in everything, your resume must reflect your close attention to detail. You will choose between the three popular resume formats –– chronological, combination and functional. Each format can frame specific areas of your strengths and expertise.

While each format serves its purpose, they have their few pros and cons that are worth mentioning. Resume formats play an essential role in determining the outcome of your job application. We have created these culinary resume examples to help you assess each format better to help you choose and tailor your resume.

Chronological Resume

A chronological resume is ideal if you are a culinary professional with several years of experience. With a special focus on employment history and responsibilities, your detailed timeline helps hiring managers to gauge your talent and accomplishments effectively.

However, a notable disadvantage of a chronological resume is that employment gaps are easy to spot, so we strongly recommend this layout if you held steady jobs without more than a month’s break between positions.

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  1. Kitchen manager: Study this chronological resume carefully ー Viola Guerrero executes this resume perfectly well by showcasing her steady work experience of about 10 years and focusing on individual tasks and responsibilities in each position. She has seamlessly distributed additional skills like setting up workstations, kitchen and food inspection and delegating food preparation duties in the work history section.
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  2. Restaurant general manager: This organized resume is perfect to showcase your decadelong career in culinary. Derrick Henry uses the distinct sections to highlight his impressive career in restaurant operations and management. He also lists essential skills like “marketing and advertising” and “employee training” to elevate his chances of getting an interview.
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  3. Sous chef: This resume is ideal if you want to demonstrate creativity on your resume. Loren Adkins uses this resume to highlight extensive accomplishments, from head line cook, junior sous chef, to sous chef. Complete your resume with an impressive professional summary and a set of relevant skills.

Combination Resume

A combination resume provides a balance between work experience and professional skills. We recommend this format to midlevel professionals and trained candidates with little work experience. It focuses on a candidate’s potential for professional growth and acquiring relevant skills for a job.

A combination resume contains the same resume sections as a chronological format. Still, it places the skills section over the work experience to help you put your academic and technical knowledge forward.

If you are looking for a station chef or junior chef position in the culinary industry, we highly recommend this resume format.

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  1. Fast food manager: If you are a midlevel culinary professional looking for personal and professional growth in your career, your resume should reflect the same. Betsy Woods uses this resume to highlight the relevant skills that she has acquired over seven years as fast-food employee, assistant manager and manager. Provide a good amount of detail regarding tasks and responsibilities to prove yourself as a promising candidate.
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  2. Restaurant assistant manager:If your forte is management and organization, this simple, elegant combination resume demonstrates how you can communicate your expertise. Here, Colin Castro has managed to showcase his skills, such as “food and beverage knowledge,” “excellent customer service” and “employee training” efficiently through the qualifications summary and skills section to downplay his employment gap.
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  3. Sushi chef:An accomplished sushi chef possesses precision skills and swiftness, and it would help add these traits to your sushi chef resume. Mack Marshall uses this detailed, straightforward resume to focus on his “fish filleting” and “specialty rolls” skills and quantifiable achievements in the work history section to further elevate his chances of being hired.

Functional Resume

If you are an entry-level chef, a freelance culinary writer and recipe tester or a new graduate, we recommend using a functional resume. Functional resumes prioritize skills and strengths over work experience and provide ample space to highlight relevant skills, qualifications and formal training required for a particular job. The work history section only offers a brief introduction to work experience.

Applicants with noticeable employment gaps or short-lived work experiences can use the functional format to focus on educational qualifications and skills to compensate for the drawbacks. A well-curated functional resume consists of a career objective, top skills, details of relevant training and internships, and experiences.

Functional resumes might get rejected by an applicant tracking system (ATS) that looks for relevant keywords. Due to the lack of comprehensive work history, an ATS might not be able to scan your resume accurately.

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  1. Baker: This is a clean, easy-to-read functional resume with separate sections for professional summary, professional skills, work history and education. You can also include an additional section to list relevant certifications like “Introduction to Pastry Arts (Online).”
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  2. Executive chef: If you are passionate about becoming an executive chef, notice how Johana Hampton has used relevant culinary skills, such as kitchen organization and food preparation, to communicate that she is a promising candidate. Summarizing qualifications and including internship experience takes away the focus from her limited experience.
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  3. Pastry Chef:Profound knowledge of desserts and pastry preparation is crucial if you are an entry-level pastry chef. Tiffany Crawford has focused on those skills that reflect the confidence and talent needed to make a mark in the culinary industry.