A Template for Life

Today was Resumé Day. First, we had a visit from James Wong from the Career Center. He dropped off a packet of information from the career services department, including forms that we must complete and return next week, or we'll fail this class. Seriously. We have to fill out the "Externship Ideas and Career Goals," the "Career Services Exit Interview," and a "Release of Information." We'll have two points of contact in Career Services: an externship counselor, and James, who will help us with permanent placement "if needed."

The classroom was full of energy this morning, as we each worked on our resumés with Chef Stephanie giving advice and assistance. Our resumés need to be formatted very specifically, with our contact information in a header: "Then the second page is immediately ready to become a cover letter. That shows to me that you are a very organized professional person." The four sections of the resumé body, Objective, Skills, Education, and Work History, are set up in a table, which she said is the easiest to update. She wants us to leave her class with a "lifetime resumé template," so she gives lots of leeway for personal style and preference, apart from her guidelines.

It's interesting to note how the resumé of a culinary professional differs from other types. Andrea spent most of an hour cutting down her three page curriculum vitae into a one-page document. She was on a PhD track in her previous life, where the more documentation you can provide, the better. My pre-culinary school resumé included lots of descriptive passages following each job, but those get omitted on the resumé of a chef. "You don't need to say that you opened and closed, and checked in the fish order, and folded napkins. Everybody knows what a prep cook does." Chef Stephanie said that she, as hiring manager for a boutique hotel, read twenty resumés every day, and she's a big fan of "clear and concise: the resumé is to get you the interview, not the job."

We also had to write a "pretend" cover letter: I asked Michael Bauer for a job as a recipe tester at the San Francisco Chronicle. Before leaving class today, we printed our resumé, our cover letter, and our current grade summary, and met with Chef Stephanie one-on-one. My resumé objective currently states "Staff writing position for a national culinary publication." (She recommends changing the objective to exactly mirror the job you are applying for.) "For that kind of job," she said, "you can write a longer cover letter. An editor probably has more time to read." She asked me about my experience at the CCA to date, if it was meeting my expectations, if there were any obstacles to my success. It's the first time I've really been asked formally for my opinion, aside from on-line surveys. I gave her the short version of my frustration with some of my classmates, how we've had valuable class time used up with long lectures about performance and attitude. "You should not be hearing that speech anymore," she said. "You cannot get much further in the program if you are not performing."

For tomorrow, we have to bring a menu: 3 appetizers, 3 salads, 3 entrées, 3 desserts. Chef gave us a "Market Basket" list of ingredients for reference. For now, we don't need recipes, just a listing of the dishes. I have the feeling that this is the beginning of our "big project"— I'm anticipating a report that will include a master menu, recipes, purchasing lists, and a cost analysis. I asked if I could make mine breakfast.