What a chef really does
You run the kitchen: the food, the costs, the cleanliness and the crew, all against the clock of the next service.
FieldTransportation and hospitality
Preparation (O*NET Job Zone)Medium preparation needed
What the work involves
What fills a typical week for chefs, built from O*NET occupation data.
- Check deliveries for quantity, quality and temperature, and send back what does not meet standard.
- Count inventory and place orders with suppliers based on what the week will need.
- Build prep lists and schedules so every station is ready before service.
- Teach and correct cooks on how dishes are made, plated and seasoned.
- Taste and inspect food on the line during service and keep tickets moving.
- Watch sanitation every hour: temperatures, labels, hand washing and cleaning.
- Cost recipes, set menu prices, plan specials and meet with event clients.
What the days are like
What people in the job know
- The pressure of the clock never really goes away. Time pressure: 88% every day (O*NET Work Context)
- A surprising amount of the job is at a screen: ordering, scheduling and supplier email. E-mail: 88% every day; Telephone conversations: 71% every day (O*NET Work Context)
- Long weeks on your feet are standard. Duration of typical work week: 79% more than 40 hours; Spend time standing: 67% continually or almost continually (O*NET Work Context)
- Burns and cuts are part of a normal week, even for the person in charge. Exposed to minor burns, cuts, bites, or stings: 75% every day (O*NET Work Context)
- Sanitation is the chef's most important responsibility, ranked above cooking itself. Monitor sanitation practices (O*NET task 1, importance 97) versus Prepare and cook foods (O*NET task 13, importance 71)
How people get into it
O*NET Job Zone 3 (medium preparation). The most common requirement reported is an associate's degree, often from a culinary program (54% of workers surveyed), with others holding a post-secondary certificate (17%) or a high school diploma (13%). Most chefs work their way up over years from line cook to sous chef before leading a kitchen.
The Firstday trial, easy to hard
Three simulated tasks with AI coworkers who message you, react to your work and coach with questions. Nobody scores you.
What the trial can't show: This trial cannot show cooking itself: knife skills, heat control, tasting and seasoning, plating by hand, the speed of a real line, or the heat, noise and physical strain of a busy kitchen for ten or more hours. It covers the management side that O*NET ranks highest: receiving and ordering, food costing, sanitation decisions, prep and staff planning, instructing cooks and handling clients and front of house.
Reading about it is one thing.
Find out how the work feels to you before you spend on a degree, course or job change. Your first trial is free.
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Job details on this page are built from O*NET OnLine, 35-1011.00. This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.