Chef

Restaurants/Hotel restaurants 

• Work Life: Hard work, work nights and weekends, extremely cutthroat, “glamorous”, have opportunity to move up and one day have the opportunity to create dishes on the menu and your own menu.

Corporate/Franchises

• Work at the headquarters at companies such as Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Dominoes, etc.
• Product Development: Here you are able to help develop recipes, help record what ingredients were used.
• Work Life: regular hours, no weekends, stable income from the get go, not as glamorous and safe.
• Requirements: (Depending on which company you apply) Some companies require ~10 years of experience of being a chef because you need to have experience on how much food cost, how to reduce ingredients to pull more profits, etc.

Airlines

• Work in food development for their customers. You would need to help cook larger orders of food and meet the required time for it to get on the plane.

Catering company

• Work for a company that prepares food for events (such as wedding).

Private households

• Work for one client, such as a corporate executive, university president, or diplomat, who regularly entertains as part of his or her official duties. 

Personal chefs

• Plan and prepare meals in private homes. They also may order groceries and supplies, serve meals, and wash dishes and utensils. Personal chefs are often self-employed or employed by a private cooking company, preparing food for a variety of customers.  

• Executive chefs are primarily responsible for overseeing the operation of the whole kitchen. They coordinate the work of sous chefs and other cooks, who prepare most of the meals. Executive chefs also have many duties beyond the kitchen. They design the menu, review food and beverage purchases, and often train employees. Some executive chefs are primarily occupied by administrative tasks and spend little time in the kitchen.
• Chefs de cuisines are a kitchen’s second-in-command. They supervise the restaurant’s cooks, do some meal preparation tasks, and report results to the head chefs. In the absence of the head chef, the chefs de cuisines run the kitchen.
• Sous chefs (pronounced "soo-shef" -- French for "under chef") are the direct assistant of the chefs de cuisine.  Larger kitchens often have more than one sous chef, with each covering a certain shift or having his or her own area of responsibility, such as the banquet sous chef, in charge of all banquets, or the executive sous chef, in charge of all other sous chefs.
• Chef de parties (also known as a "station chef" or "line cook") are in charge of a particular area of production. In large kitchens, each station chef might have several cooks and/or assistants. In most kitchens however, the station chef is the only worker in that department. Line cooks are often divided into a hierarchy of their own, starting with "First Cook", then "Second Cook", and so on as needed. 

Chef de parties stations include:

• Sauce chef or saucier - prepares sauces, stews, and hot hors d'oeuvres, and sautes foods to order. This is usually the highest position of all the stations.
• Fish cook or poissonier - Prepares fish dishes (this station may be handled by the saucier in some kitchens).
• Vegetable cook or entremetier - Prepares vegetables, soups, starches, and eggs. Large kitchens may divide these duties among the vegetable cook, the fry cook, and the soup cook.
• Roast cook or rotisseur - Prepares roasted and braised meats and their gravies, and broils meats and other items to order. A large kitchen may have a separate broiler cook or grillardin (gree-ar-dan) to handle the broiled items. The broiler cook may also prepare deep-fried meats and fish.
• Pantry chef or garde manger - is responsible for cold foods, including salads and dressings, pâtés, cold hors d'oeuvres, and buffet items.
• Pastry chef or pâtissier - Prepares pastries and desserts.
• The relief cook, swing cook, or tournant - Replaces other station heads.

• Ability to work under pressure.
• Culinary skills (knife skills, boiling, sautéing, poaching, braising, and grilling)
• Effective communication
• Time management
• Safety and sanitation
• Ability to lift heavy objects.
• Leadership and management (in order to move up the ladder)
• Artistry (presentation of the food)

• Highly competitive industry
• For restaurants: Not a 9-5 job. This is a lifestyle! Work long hours, nights and weekends.
• Tiring and stressful environment: you will be always on your feet and be ON while you are working.

• Loved to cook!
• Loved going to restaurants and interested in food and drinks.