How to Recruit Top Chefs

There are various avenues open to prospective employers when wondering how to recruit top chefs. Obviously, everyone wants someone who is outstanding at what they do, but the process of finding that someone special to fill the vacancy can be a long one, time consuming and perhaps accompanied by a little risk.

What if they’re not as good as they claim, or don’t have the qualifications and experience that appears on their CV. This means more of your precious time will be spent on the phone performing reference checks. This is virtually always part of how one might try to recruit top chefs by advertising in the classifieds.

Unless the person advertising a vacancy is very specific in stating required pre-conditions, they are likely to be swamped by the sheer number and volume of respondents. It’s interesting to note that our chef training academy often sees classified vacancy advertisements which specify that only applications from our graduates will be considered.

Few organisations which don’t have a dedicated HR department to handle recruitment will have the manpower, time or inclination to work their way diligently and thoroughly through a massive number of applications. That’s only to pre-screen applicants; next those that seem to be of interest need to be contacted.

General employment agencies will accept job specifications to recruit chefs on behalf of the employer, screen and interview them and perform reference checks, but not everyone knows everything about all professions, so this process is likely to be a little less accurate unless the interviewer has an in depth knowledge of culinary arts.

Agencies which specialise in kitchen staffing now offer their recruitment services, which indicates that they probably have more than a passing knowledge of the hospitality industry’s staffing requirements. As in the case of general agencies, a percentage of the successful candidate’s salary is charged as a placement fee.

As a service to the hospitality industry and a way to give back to it, we have a chef recruitment web page on our school’s official website. Here, employers can submit, list and re-list, view, edit and remove their vacancies.

Job seekers are invited to submit their profile and post their resume on our web page, readily available for employers to view. It must be noted that this service is exclusively for the use of our graduates only, who will be able to post their resume free of charge.

All persons using the website recruitment function will have to login or create an account with us. Our general web pages contain a section where prospective employers can check online on our past graduates and confirm their qualifications obtained through our chef training academy.

It’s that easy, quick and simple – another advantage of studying with us and employing our graduates, who are highly regarded and sought after in the hospitality industry. In addition to the high standards we set at our academy and expect from our students, our chef’s qualifications consist of a local certificate and the City & Guilds diploma, accredited internationally.

Whichever route employers decide to follow when deciding how to recruit top chefs, they can view our graduates’ qualifications with confidence – our standards remain high and those that graduate deserve to do so, because they have trained at these levels.