Prep Cook Resume Example & Writing Guide
Use this Prep Cook resume example and guide to improve your career and write a powerful resume that will separate you from the competition.
If you love working in a fast-paced environment where things are always changing, a job as a prep cook might be perfect for you. Prep cooks are responsible for preparing ingredients before they’re sent to the kitchen. They’re also responsible for maintaining a clean and organized workspace.
Prep cooks usually report directly to the head chef or manager of the kitchen. They’re often tasked with preparing ingredients that will be used in a variety of dishes throughout the day. This can include chopping, slicing, dicing, blanching, boiling, roasting, braising, or frying foods. Prep cooks also might be asked to assemble ingredients into platters or containers for servers to take out to customers.
Here are some tips and an example to help you write a fantastic prep cook resume that will impress hiring managers everywhere.
How to Write a Prep Cook Resume
Here’s how to write a prep cook resume of your own.
Write Compelling Bullet Points
Bullet points are the most important part of your resume because they’re the first thing recruiters and hiring managers will read. And if they’re not interesting or compelling, they’ll quickly move on to the next resume.
So it’s crucial that you use bullet points to showcase your experience, skills, and accomplishments. And the best way to do that is by using specific details and numbers. For example, rather than saying you “cooked meals for customers,” you could say you “prepared 150 meals for lunch service in busy restaurant environment.”
The second bullet point is much more specific and provides a clear sense of the scale of the project and the level of responsibility involved.
Related: What Is a Prep Cook? How to Become One
Identify and Include Relevant Keywords
When you submit your resume for a job as a prep cook, it’s likely that it will be scanned by an applicant tracking system (ATS) for certain keywords. This software looks for certain terms related to the job, like “cooking” or “food safety,” in order to determine whether you have the necessary skills and experience to be a good fit. If your resume doesn’t have enough of the right keywords, the ATS might automatically reject your application.
To make sure your resume makes it past the ATS, include keywords throughout all sections of your resume. Here are some of the most commonly used keywords for prep cook positions:
- Cooking
- Food Preparation
- Culinary Skills
- Food & Beverage
- Catering
- Restaurant Management
- Food Safety
- Food Service
- Recipe Development
- Banquet Operations
- Sanitation
- Food Quality
- Food Quality Control
- Time Management
- Inventory Management
- Culinary Management
- Teamwork
- Microsoft Access
- Customer Service
- Baking
- Bartending
- ServSafe
- Hospitality
- Restaurant Operations
- Team Leadership
- Wine
- Team Building
- Cashiering
- Communication
- Social Media
Related: How Much Does a Prep Cook Make?
Remember The Basics
As you write your resume, it’s important to keep a few basic rules in mind.
Create Easy-to Scan Sections
When formatting your resume, try to use a standard font type and size, left-align your text, and use bullets instead of paragraphs to list your experiences. You should also limit the amount of formatting variation you use, and use all-caps and bold sparingly. Additionally, try to leave some white space on the page to make the document easier to scan.
Be Concise
A resume should typically be one page long, especially if you are a new graduate or have less than five to eight years of professional experience. If you have more experience than that, a two-page resume is more appropriate. When you are trimming down your resume, remove irrelevant information, filler words and unnecessary details.
Proofread
Proofreading your resume is an important step in ensuring that it looks its best. There are several things to watch for when proofreading, including spelling mistakes, punctuation mistakes, and grammatical mistakes. It is also important to be aware of easily confused words, such as their/there/they’re and to/too/two. Spell checking your resume is a good start, but you should also have someone else proofread it for you to catch any mistakes that you may have missed.
Consider a Summary
A well-crafted resume summary statement can help potential employers better understand your skills and experience, and how they might translate into the role you are seeking. By highlighting your most relevant skills and experiences, you can show off your value as a potential employee and make it easier for hiring managers to see why you would be a great fit for the job. When writing your summary, be sure to focus on your soft skills, your most highly transferable experiences, and your future goals, and keep it to just a couple of sentences for optimal impact.
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