Your Chef Experience: How To Showcase It On LinkedIn & Get Noticed
Yes, we know at the moment, as a Chef you are probably inundated with calls from places wanting to snap you up. As your Chef experience is like gold dust. However, standing out of the crowd (even if small) will put you in front of places you may have only dreamed of working at.
When it comes to showcasing your Chef experience there are a few pivotal things you need to do. Firstly, write a humble CV, followed by your LinkedIn profile.
LinkedIn is the biggest social business network. It is more crucial than ever to leverage the opportunities a LinkedIn profile provides as a positioning tool for your chef career.
In this post, I want to share why a LinkedIn profile is so important and the easy, quick wins to ensure your Chef experience stands out on your LinkedIn profile.
Your LinkedIn profile has many positive attributes. Unless you share a name with a well-known person, it is highly likely that your profile, if created properly, will appear on the first page of Google.
Even though your CV is a standard document that demonstrates your career journey, a LinkedIn profile can deliver even more insight about you as a potential employee in an interactive and engaging style that a CV alone cannot achieve.
Showcase Your Chef Experience in the Headline
Your headline is often the first text a recruiter or potential hiring manager will see, so make it count. Most importantly, paraphrase what you do. The good news is LinkedIn now allows 220 characters, including spaces. Here is an example of a Chef headline:
Head Chef with 15 years of experience in fine dining, gourmet catering and casual bistros
With D.E.I. (diversity, equity & inclusion) being on most workplace agendas, LinkedIn now allows you to add your preferred pronouns on your profile.
A Professional Photo
LinkedIn produces numerous reports that demonstrate the power of imagery and media on your profile. For example, profiles with a professional photograph can get 14 times more profile views.
Phone technology today means there is no excuse not to have a professional LinkedIn profile picture. Furthermore, taking a photo with your smartphone in good lighting provides a quality image. Ask a colleague to take a photo of you in your chef whites.
Head and shoulders are the best shots. Your face (preferably smiling) makes the best impact. Remember, recruitment consultants viewing your profile are imagining how you will fit into their client’s organisation, so this is an easy way to make an impact.
Your Contact Details
Firstly, do you have all your contact details visible?
Make sure you have a mobile number and an email address that you use regularly.
A professional URL demonstrates your attention to detail, for instance, LinkedIn.com/in/Andy Gold as opposed to LinkedIn.com/in/Andy-Gold-2671c567. You can find out how to do that here.
Featured Section
Do you have a place where you showcase your portfolio of work? Such as an Instagram profile or a food blog you’ve created? Or have you presented any industry talks? Include any links to these in this section. This will certainly make you stand out from the crowd.
Your About Section
Please do not add only your essential skills or paste sections from your CV into your summary section. Use it to catch people’s attention as you share relevant information about who you are and your skills and abilities; you have 2000 characters, so make them count.
In this section, talk about the value you will add to an organisation alongside your skillset. Be different and stand out by explaining how you might help a potential new employer solve their problems. For example
I’m a Head Chef with expertise in international cuisine. I love to help restaurants make a name for themselves through the dishes they serve by running a very well-oiled kitchen brigade. My professional aspiration is to be part of a business with global networks and fantastic work culture.
In addition, our experience as recruiters is this attracts our attention, plus it makes it easier for us to ‘sell’ the fact you are a ‘must see’ candidate for our client.
Complete All The Profile Sections
On the right-hand side of your profile, you will see a button that says ‘add to profile’. When you click this, it reveals all the additional sections you can add to your profile.
From featured to licenses and certifications, and courses and recommendations. In the featured section, if you have written papers or presented at an industry conference or recorded any work-related videos, you can showcase them here.
If you are open to work and currently not employed, you can add this to your profile picture by clicking the relevant button.
In the ‘add your profile’ section under background, share details of all your work experience that will communicate your capability. Then list all your education and volunteer activities. Today, organisations have an active CSR programme; therefore, this area is essential to share too.
Under accomplishments, you can list publications, certifications, patents, courses, projects, honours and awards, test scores, languages and how you are involved with communities that are important to you.
This makes it easy for a recruitment organisation to identify your skills and expertise as a potential match for their client.
The big question is, does your profile
- Help your standout?
- Communicate your value, including providing supporting evidence?
- List your work achievements?
Share Content
Depending on your current employer and their social presence, you can share and like content. This unconsciously communicates to everyone how connected you are and what is important to you. When someone arrives on your profile, it is one of the first sections they can see.
You can now share an article or even upload a compelling image or create a video on your LinkedIn profile. All of which enables you to communicate your personal brand.
Sharing Your Chef Experience
When it comes to chef skills, you can add up to 50, which could help you stand out to a recruitment consultant and your future employer. You don’t have to add all of them as your top ten will be profiled, so make these the most important.
The UK is in the grip of a hospitality skills shortage. Therefore, if you know you have in-demand skills, communicate them on your profile. You would be surprised that this is an area often forgotten by even the best of candidates.
Endorsements and Recommendations
We all now live and work in the review society. Social proof is a significant influencer in our current community. Who has not viewed Trip Advisor before booking a holiday?
Therefore, collecting recommendations and endorsements is crucial for your career. If you have not got any, ask for them from your contacts. All too often, people are shy about asking for validations of their work. The good news, which might surprise you, is that many people are more than willing to give you a recommendation.
Finally, Complete Your Profile in Full
A question for you? Are you using all the features we have mentioned?
Do you have a presentation or video on your summary? Have you got a link to a paper you have written?
It is interesting the impression people get from reading a full LinkedIn profile. Above all, it sends a message to recruitment companies that you are a person with attention to detail and take their career and work-life seriously.
If you want to begin the search for your next chef role and need some help, get in contact with KSB Catering and Hospitality Recruitment Agency today. Send us your CV, use our online contact form or call us on 0121 702 1428 to discuss your chef job opportunities
