Cook CV Examples & Writing Guide

This CV is for a cook who started as a kitchen porter and on prep, moved onto the line at a casual-dining chain, and now runs grill and sauté at a busy independent brasserie. The name and restaurants are made up. The numbers are the ones a head chef knows by heart: covers a night, ticket times, prep items, the food hygiene rating, waste, missed shifts.

Cook CVs are read by the head chef, the sous chef or the kitchen manager, usually between lunch and dinner service, often on a phone. Chains, hotel groups and contract caterers run them through an applicant tracking system first. The reader is trying to answer four questions fast.

• Which sections, at what volume? Grill and sauté at 300 covers is a different cook from the fryer at a 60-seat café. Name your sections and your covers a night (or meals a day in a school, hospital, care home or staff restaurant).
• Can you keep up and stay consistent? Ticket times, dishes sent back, prep items a day, and whether you have worked a Friday night rush. "Fast-paced environment" is a phrase; "400 covers on Saturday with 8-minute tickets" is proof.
• Will you turn up? Kitchens run short. Evenings, weekends and bank holidays availability, your attendance record and how long you stayed at each job (a year or more looks steady) matter more than any college line.
• Are you safe to have in the kitchen? Level 2 Food Hygiene (Level 3 if you run a shift), allergen training covering the 14 allergens, and the food hygiene ratings of the kitchens you worked in.

“I look for stations and covers. If a cook writes 'sauté and grill, 300 covers, 8-minute tickets, no missed shifts,' that person gets a call today. If the CV says 'passionate about food' and lists knife skills, I cannot tell whether they can survive a Saturday.”

Most cook CVs copy the job advert: "prepared food according to recipes, maintained a clean section, followed food safety standards". Every cook did that. Add the section, the volume, the standard and one number a chef can check, and the same duty proves what you can do. Six rewrites from real kitchen work:

Group your skills the way a chef thinks: sections, cooking methods, prep, food safety, equipment and systems. Ten to fifteen items. "Knife skills" alone is what everyone writes; "brunoise, julienne, breaking down whole chickens and fish" tells them your level. Leave off "Microsoft Office".

• Sections: sauté, grill and chargrill, fryer, larder (salads, cold starters, desserts), pastry basics, the pass, wok, pizza, breakfast service, banqueting and carvery.
• Cooking: à la carte and batch cooking, cooking meat and fish to temperature, sauces and stocks, braising and roasting, sous vide, plating to a photo spec, recipe scaling.
• Prep and product: knife cuts, butchery and fish preparation, prep lists and par levels, labelling and dating, FIFO, checking in deliveries, stock counts.
• Speed and organisation: mise en place, timing several orders at once, ticket times, working two sections, communication on the line (calling back orders, all-day counts).
• Food safety: Level 2 or Level 3 Food Hygiene, the 14 allergens and allergen orders, Natasha's Law labelling for food you pre-pack, temperature records, cooling and reheating, HACCP or Safer Food, Better Business, cleaning schedules.
• Equipment: flat-top griddle, chargrill, six-burner range, fryers, salamander, convection and combi ovens, bratt pan and boiling kettle (schools, hospitals, contract catering), slicer, mixer, water bath.
• Real extras: evenings, weekends and bank holidays availability, own knives, own transport for late finishes, Spanish or another kitchen language.

Two or three lines at the top: your level (prep, cook, senior cook), years and kitchen type; your sections and covers or meals a day; one number (ticket time, waste, food hygiene rating, attendance); your food safety level and availability. Write a personal statement if you have cooked for pay. Write a one-line career objective only if you have not.

Kitchens hire people with no experience every week; kitchen porter and prep cook are the ways in, and a good chef would rather train someone reliable than hire a cook with bad habits. What they cannot teach is turning up on time for every shift, taking direction under pressure and cleaning as you go. Your CV has to prove those with whatever you have done.

1. 1Do a Level 2 Food Hygiene course before you apply. UK law does not name one certificate, but food handlers must be supervised and instructed or trained in food hygiene to suit their work, and most adverts ask for Level 2. It costs little online and takes a few hours. Put it in your contact line and under Qualifications.
2. 2Write a one-line career objective that names the job (prep cook, kitchen assistant, kitchen porter to cook) and the kitchen, plus your availability and what you already know.
3. 3Turn any food or fast-paced job into kitchen proof: fast food (orders an hour, fryer and grill, closing), supermarket deli or bakery counter (slicer, portioning, dating), catering, community or church kitchens, cooking at home for a large family or a sports club. One number per bullet.
4. 4Say your availability plainly: evenings, weekends, bank holidays, split shifts. Then call in between 2 and 4 pm, ask for the head chef, and bring a one-page CV. Many independent kitchens and pubs hire this way.

You do not need a licence to work as a cook in the UK, and college is not required for most cook jobs. Food safety training is a different story: the law requires everyone who handles food to be supervised and instructed or trained in food hygiene to suit their work, and most kitchens want Level 2 before your first shift. List what you hold with the year; never list a course you have not done, because the environmental health officer can ask to see training records.

• Level 2 Food Hygiene and Safety for Catering: the standard course for anyone who cooks or handles food, offered online and in person by many providers. Many employers ask for a refresher every three years.
• Level 3 Supervising Food Safety in Catering: for cooks who run a shift, a section or a small kitchen; head chefs and catering managers often add Level 4 or a HACCP award. Worth listing if you hold it, as it signals you can be in charge on a shift.
• Allergen awareness covering the 14 allergens: expected everywhere, and essential if you prepare prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) food, which must carry a full ingredients list with allergens emphasised under Natasha's Law.
• Cookery training: an NVQ or Level 2–3 Diploma in Professional Cookery from a further education college, or a commis chef (Level 2) apprenticeship, goes under Education. It helps for hotel and fine-dining kitchens and is optional almost everywhere else. Schools, hospitals and care homes value nutrition and special diets training (for example IDDSI texture-modified diets).

Independent restaurants and pubs read CVs on a phone or a printout during the afternoon lull. Chains, hotels, hospitals, schools and contract caterers run them through an applicant tracking system that matches the exact words in the advert. One plain page works for both, and it is what you hand the chef when you call in at 3 pm.

• One page, always. Twelve years of kitchens fits on one page when older jobs get one line each.
• Order: contact line with your food hygiene level and availability; two- or three-line personal statement; skills grouped by sections, cooking, prep, safety, equipment; work history newest first with sections and covers; qualifications; education.
• Use the title on the advert: "cook", "breakfast cook", "school cook", "care home cook", "commis chef", "chef de partie". Do not call yourself a head chef unless you ran the kitchen; chefs hire cooks, and an inflated title costs you the interview.
• Mirror the advert's words once each: "cook", "grill", "sauté", "prep", "Level 2 Food Hygiene", "allergens", "ticket times", "high volume", "opening and closing", "FIFO", the EPOS or KDS they name.
• Standard headings, one column, plain font, PDF for online applications and a printed copy for walk-ins. No photo, no date of birth, no full street address (town or city is enough).
• In UK restaurant kitchens the station cook is usually called a chef de partie and the junior a commis chef, while "cook" is the normal title in schools, care homes, hospitals, pubs, cafés and contract catering. In the US the same job is a line cook or prep cook and the document is a resume; the rules are the same.

Paste the advert into the cvplex ATS checker with your CV before applying to a chain, hotel or contract caterer. It shows which section, equipment and food safety words from the advert are missing and whether your skills list parsed as one.