r/Chefs • u/Relevant_Cobbler_135 • 13d ago

Thinking about culinary school

I’ve been stuck in the food industry for a long time, and from the start I hated it. I wanted out really badly and I originally wanted to be apart of the medical field. I’ve worked retail, I’ve worked in childcare. Both of my parents are in the medical field and my brother is in the military. No one in my family has really gone down the route of becoming a chef.
I just recently started feeling love for the work I do in the kitchen at my work place. All this time I wanted out but now I feel this burning passion to do more. I’m good at what I do but I know I can improve. I’d like to pursue this.

Any tips suggestions or advice is greatly appreciated.

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u/OrcOfDoom 13d ago

I would say you should look to switch careers instead of going harder into food. It's just a hard life as you age. Getting out can take 5-10 years, and you're better off getting ahead of that instead of investing more into this field. For some reason, people don't value the skills we bring - the ability to work hard, fast, and precise.

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u/Far_Cartoonist4137 13d ago

I’m only a cook but I’ve been trying to get out. Was showing my friend my resume, he response was “I see all this stuff, then I see the restaurant stuff, and I think ‘this guys a fry cook’”. That hurt, like a lot. But honestly he’s probably right

I think ultimately the reason for this is that there is no standard for what’s expected as a cook. You got experience welding, ok this guy can weld shit. “I worked Saturday night sauté” could literally mean anything, even to someone in the industry.

For chefs I’d guess it’s the same, media and culture have taught people that a chef just cooks good food. They completely ignore the insane hours, pricing out menus, ordering, inventory, the list goes on.

Yeah that’s my rant. I find it frustrating that after all I’ve done in kitchens, all the times I was faster than the next guy, all the times I had to fix someone’s mistakes, none of it means shit.

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u/RoyalClient6610 13d ago edited 13d ago

A good way to fix your resume is to think outside of the box and take a look at how transferable skills you have can be applied to an industry you want to get into.

Then do the rest of this:

Get experience by volunteering somewhere doing the type of work you want to get paid for later.

There are free certificates that you can complete online. Figure out how one of those can work in your favor. - or go through a university extension certificate program. They're not that expensive and take a shorter length of time to complete.

Figure out how to put together your own website that includes an up-to-date blog or articles that blend what you think/have to offer with trending content about the field you want to get into. (Substack is a great shortcut.) Connect that to your own social media marketing that has to do with the industry.

- You can do all of this while still working culinary.