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Career Advice for Job Seekers

Careers for Graduates with a Degree in Culinary Arts

Candice A AvatarCandice A
December 10, 2007


Yes, This is a Recipe for Success

Provided By: Associated Content, Inc.

Careers for graduates with a degree in culinary arts can be found across the nation and around the world, wherever hungry people come together. For graduates with a degree in culinary arts, this means that relocation or even a very long commute to work are likely to be unnecessary. Graduates with a degree in culinary arts can shop for jobs in part according to the specialty areas in which they worked while still in school. Additional training or work experience can help graduates with a degree in culinary arts to expand their list of job possibilities beyond entry level positions. As they begin their search for a career, graduates with a degree in culinary arts can take great comfort in believing that as much as it is true that if you can read you can cook, so is it true that if you can cook you can have a very satisfying career.

Restaurant Cooking Every whistle stop town in America is likely to have at least one diner, lunch counter or roadside restaurant. The larger the town or city, the more eating establishments one will find and the more careers for graduates with a degree in culinary arts. In our larger metropolitan centers there are career opportunities for graduates with a degree in culinary arts in restaurants that serve every imaginable ethnic group at every conceivable price range. Looked at this way there are literally hundreds of thousands of restaurant career opportunities that might be filled by graduates with a degree in culinary arts.

In every restaurant situation there is of course a hierarchy of cooking positions. With a degree in culinary arts, graduates are well armed to pursue and interview for positions at the upper end of the scale where he or she will have the most authority and the fattest pay check. Out of the list of possibilities, graduates with a degree in culinary arats can apply for top positions that connect with the kind of coking they most enjoy.

Graduates with a degree in culinary arts will find that their personal financial security is based on the overall business success of the restaurant for which they cook. Graduates with a degree in culinary arts just beginning their careers must be selective and try to associate themselves with a restaurant with a solid managerial and business reputation. Even the best cook working in an establishment that has questionable business practices will have trouble surviving.

Institutional Careers Large scale institutions across the country are constantly searching for well qualified , talented and credentialed personnel to take responsibility for feeding large numbers of people at set hours each and every day from menus attuned to special needs or situations. Graduates with a degree in culinary arts make ideal candidates for such positions. Because of their study and work experience graduates with a degree in culinary arts are prepared to deal with large volume preparation needed for schools or colleges. But graduates with a degree in culinary arts are equally ready to adjust their cooking style to create menus that will satisfy the nutritional needs and acknowledge dietary limitations required in hospital cooking.

There has been a relatively recent increase in the number of career opportunities in food preparation for retirement or assisted living institutions. In these positions graduates with a degree in culinary arts are asked to combine a variety of learned skills. They must be able to prepare large quantities of food on a pre-set schedule. They must also build menus that reflect the dietary needs of senior citizens. Additionally, because many retirement or assisted living settings have high end clientèle, food must be prepared and served with elegance. While many of the concerns involved in cooking for an assisted living community are remarkably the same as cooks observe when working for a hospital, somehow the menu must appear to be both appetizing and elegant.

High End Cooking Many of our cities maintain large convention centers used by business , government and community groups throughout the year for annual meetings and group events. Graduates with a degree in culinary arts can find career opportunities providing daily meals and concluding banquets for these gatherings. Such work is demanding not only because of the large numbers involved and the need to adhere to strict time constraints, but also because each group is a client that must come away totally satisfied with the attention paid to their every need. Meals served at conventions can literally make or break the chances of signing clients back again for their next event.Heavy responsibility falls on the cooking arm of the convention center to perform at a high level of efficiency.

On a smaller scale, high end cooking jobs can also be found at country clubs. Here clientèle pay top dollar to use club facilities and club cooking staff to host events like wedding receptions, anniversary or birthday parties, showers, retirement or end of year parties and other small group events. For their money, club members expect elegant dining and excellently prepared and presented food options. For graduates with a degree in culinary arts, country club cooking while demanding can also have its own comfort level. Patrons are often repeat customers with known tastes making meal preparation less anxiety producing and more like working for family and friends.

Probably at the highest end of high end cooking are career opportunities for graduates with a degree in culinary arts who work on cruise ships. Here customers have spent considerable amounts of money and they definitely expect elaborate menus, multiple choices, substitutions and accommodation for every personal taste and dietary need. Cooking on a cruise ship doesn’t just mean the customer is always right it means the customer must be pampered at all times – especially in his or her dining experiences. Cooking for a cruise line can be a high anxiety experience but it can also be a dream career that provides wonderful options for world travel and real development of your skills.

Private Business Some graduates with a degree in culinary arts decide to take the plunge by going into business for themselves. To prepare for such a venture, some graduates with a degree in culinary arts load up their undergraduate schedule with business and management courses. Those with financial backing or independent means may be able to get a small restaurant up and running. Individual enterprises are challenging and require major commitment of time and money but they also allow graduates with a degree in culinary arts to have control over what goes into the entire dining experience and also over who reaps the profits.

Those who like working for themselves but don’t have the funding for their own restaurant may choose to develop a catering business. Obviously demanding less money up front than the purchase of a restaurant, catering does require some investment for cooking space, equipment and food. Catering is a demanding career choice with challenging requests and irregular hours. But catering also provides graduates with a degree in culinary arts the opportunity to work on their own to develop both a reliable menu and regular client√®le.

Graduates with a degree in culinary arts have the luxury of developing a specialty not only in the things they cook but where and for whom they cook it. As graduates with a degree in culinary arts will be quick to recognize, the recipe for the perfect cooking career may take a few tries before you get it just right . But when its right, it’ s just plain delicious.



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