Sous Chef Resume Examples: free ATS score and gap list
Sous Chef Resume That Proves You Can Run the Kitchen
By Mustafa Tarabya, founder of CVBooster · Published · Updated
Sous chef resume example with food cost, labor and team numbers, the leadership skills chefs hire for, and a section by section guide.
Sample resumes for a sous chef
The same sous chef content laid out in three CVBooster templates, so you can see what the finished document looks like before you write a word.
Example Sous Chef summary
Sous chef with six years in scratch kitchens and three as second in command of a twelve cook brigade at 280 covers a night. Writes recipe specs and prep sheets, runs weekly inventory and ordering across six purveyors, and holds food cost near target through yield control. Expos weekend service, builds the schedule to a labor target, and has trained nine cooks through menu changes.
Skills to list on a Sous Chef resume
- Kitchen management
- Food cost control
- Inventory and purchasing
- Labor scheduling
- Recipe development
- Spec and plate guide writing
- Expediting
- Butchery and fabrication
- Sauce and stock production
- HACCP compliance
- Health inspection readiness
- Staff training and coaching
- Menu costing
- Vendor management
- Station design and workflow
What actually gets this resume read
- Open with brigade size, cover count and how many stations you oversee, because a sous chef is judged on scope first.
- Put food cost and labor control on the page, since those are the two numbers a chef and an owner discuss weekly.
- Show ordering and purveyor relationships, including how many vendors you manage and how you receive against spec.
- Describe your training system: plate guides, station checklists and how many cooks you brought through a menu change.
- Name the service you expo and the ticket times you hold, because that is the sous chef role during a rush.
- List food safety credentials with the issuing body, and add any ACF certification you actually hold.
How to write a sous chef resume
A sous chef is the person who makes the kitchen work when the chef is not standing in it. That is why the resume is read for scope before it is read for cooking. How many cooks, how many stations, how many covers, and what happens on the nights you are the most senior person in the building. A candidate who can cook beautifully but cannot answer those questions on paper reads as a strong line cook, and gets interviewed for that instead.
The second thing a chef and an owner look for is the numbers. Food cost and labor cost are the two lines they discuss every week, and a sous chef is directly responsible for both through specs, yields, ordering, inventory and the schedule. A page that never mentions them is a page written by someone who has not yet been trusted with them, whether or not that is true.
This guide covers how to structure the page, what to quantify, how to describe your training system, and how to write the credentials section without inventing anything, along with example summaries at three levels and rewrites of the bullets sous chefs most often send.
Format: one page under eight years, two after that
Reverse chronological, single column, no columns inside the experience section. A sous chef application is read by a chef, sometimes by an owner and occasionally by a corporate recruiter running it through software, so keep the structure boring and put the effort into the content.
The header should carry your name, city, phone, email and food safety certification. If you hold a genuine culinary certification, list it after your name the way a chef would recognize it, and then repeat it in full in the certifications section with the issuing body.
- Header: name, city and state, phone, email, food safety credential.
- Order: summary, experience, skills, education, certifications.
- Two pages is acceptable once you have multiple kitchens, a menu record and a team to describe.
Summary: brigade size, covers, and what you are accountable for
Lead with scope. Second in command of a fourteen cook kitchen serving three hundred covers across four stations and a private dining room tells a reader in one sentence what you are used to running. Then name the accountability: food cost against target, ordering, the schedule against a labor number, expo on weekends.
If you are moving up from a senior line or junior sous position, say so and lead with the sous work you already do: writing prep sheets, ordering, covering the pass, training. A chef would rather hire someone who has been doing the job without the title than someone who has held the title without the responsibilities.
Experience: cost, ordering, schedule, and the pass
Each job opens with brigade size, station count, covers and service periods. Then the bullets should cover four territories, because those are the four a chef will ask about in the interview anyway.
Cost: how you hold food cost through recipe specs, weekly inventory and yield tracking. Say that you write the specs, not that you follow them. Purchasing: how many purveyors you manage, how you receive against invoice, temperature and quality, and what you do when a delivery is short. Labor: building the back of house schedule to a weekly target and covering a station yourself when someone calls out. Service: which nights you expo, and the ticket times you hold at peak.
The fifth territory is people, and it separates the candidates. Describe your training system by its parts: photo plate guides, station checklists, prep sheets, and how many cooks you brought through a menu change. That is what tells a chef the kitchen will still run to standard when you are off.
Skills: management and craft in two blocks
Split the skills section. The management block holds kitchen management, food cost control, inventory and purchasing, labor scheduling, menu costing, vendor management, HACCP compliance, health inspection readiness and staff training. The craft block holds butchery and fabrication, sauce and stock production, expediting, recipe development, and any specialty such as whole fish, charcuterie or pasta.
Both blocks matter because the reader changes. An owner scans the first block for the numbers he is protecting, while the chef scans the second to find out whether you can hold a station on a bad night. A page with only one of them answers half the hiring question.
- Management skills: cost, labor, purchasing, inventory, compliance, training.
- Craft skills: fabrication, sauces and stocks, expediting, specialty programs.
- Systems you have written: specs, plate guides, prep sheets, station checklists.
Certifications and education without invention
List food safety credentials by their real program name and issuing body, and add an American Culinary Federation certification only if you actually hold it and can name the level. A chef reading a certification he can look up and finding nothing behind it will stop reading the rest of the page.
Culinary school belongs on the page with the institution, the credential and the field. Below that, keep any continuing education that a kitchen respects: butchery courses, wine or beverage study, allergen training, a management level food safety course. The pattern a chef is looking for is somebody who kept learning after the diploma, not a longer list of paper.
Sous Chef resume summary examples
Stepping up from the line
Senior line cook of five years moving into a sous chef role, already writing the prep sheets for two stations, ordering produce twice a week and covering the pass on the chef days off. Trained four new cooks through a menu change and holds a manager level food safety certification.
Junior sous
Junior sous chef with three years in a seafood kitchen, managing daily ordering across six purveyors and receiving every delivery against invoice, temperature and quality specs. Leads the whole fish program, breaking down 200 pounds a week and using frames and trim for stock and staff meal.
Sous chef, full brigade
Sous chef with six years in scratch kitchens and three as second in command of a twelve cook brigade at 280 covers a night. Writes recipe specs and prep sheets, runs weekly inventory and ordering across six purveyors, expos weekend service, and builds the schedule to a labor target set with ownership.
Work experience bullets: before and after
Before: Assisted the head chef with daily kitchen operations.
After: Ran a 14 cook kitchen as second in command across four stations and a private dining room at 300 covers a night, including every shift the chef was off.
Brigade size, station count and covers describe the scope that the word assisted deliberately hides.
Before: Helped keep food costs under control.
After: Held food cost within a point of target by writing recipe specs, running weekly inventory and tracking yields on every fabrication.
Naming the three mechanisms and the result shows ownership of a number rather than participation in it.
Before: Ordered supplies for the kitchen.
After: Managed daily ordering across six purveyors and received every delivery against invoice, temperature and quality specs, rejecting product that failed and sourcing a same day replacement.
Vendor count and the receiving standard turn ordering into purchasing control.
Before: Trained new kitchen staff.
After: Trained nine cooks through two menu changes using photo plate guides and station checklists, then audited plates during service until each cook held the standard alone.
A named training system with a follow up step proves the standard survives after the training day.
Before: Worked the pass on busy nights.
After: Expedited the pass on Friday and Saturday service, keeping entree ticket times under fourteen minutes at peak while sequencing courses for the private dining room.
A ticket time under load is the measurable version of running a service.
Hard skills
- Kitchen management
- Food cost control
- Inventory and purchasing
- Labor scheduling
- Recipe and spec writing
- Menu costing
- Expediting
- Butchery and fabrication
- Sauce and stock production
- HACCP compliance
- Health inspection readiness
- Vendor management
- Station design and workflow
- Staff training programs
Soft skills
- Leading a brigade under pressure
- Coaching cooks
- Decision making without the chef present
- Conflict handling in a kitchen
- Communication with front of house
- Holding a standard consistently
Certifications worth listing
- ServSafe Manager (National Restaurant Association)
- ServSafe Allergens (National Restaurant Association)
- Certified Sous Chef (CSC) (American Culinary Federation)
- Certified Chef de Cuisine (CCC) (American Culinary Federation)
Mistakes that cost sous chef candidates the interview
- Using the word assisted, which describes a helper and erases the scope a sous chef is hired for.
- Leaving food cost and labor off the page, when those are the two numbers a chef and an owner discuss weekly.
- Giving no brigade size or cover count, so the reader cannot tell a small bistro from a full brigade kitchen.
- Describing training as helped train staff rather than naming the plate guides, checklists and cooks brought through it.
- Claiming a culinary certification without the level or the issuing body, which is easy to check and fatal when it fails.
- Writing only about cooking, which reads as a strong line cook application rather than a sous chef one.
- Omitting purveyor management and receiving, the part of the job that quietly decides the food cost result.
Sous Chef resume questions
What should a sous chef resume lead with?
Scope. Brigade size, number of stations, covers per service and what you are accountable for when the chef is off. A chef reads those facts first because they decide whether you are being considered for the sous job at all.
How do I write about food cost without giving away numbers?
Describe the mechanism and the outcome in relative terms: recipe specs written, weekly inventory run, yields tracked, cost held within a point of target. That tells the reader you owned the line without publishing a former employer figure.
Should a sous chef resume be one page or two?
One page for the first years in the role. Two once you have several kitchens, a menu record and a team to describe. Never three, and never a second page that only holds a list of restaurants without covers or brigade size.
How do I show leadership if I have never had the sous title?
Write the responsibilities rather than the title: prep sheets you wrote, ordering you handled, the pass you covered, the cooks you trained through a menu change. Chefs promote people who have already been doing the job under a different name.
Which certifications actually matter for a sous chef?
A manager level food safety certification is the practical one, since it lets you own inspections and logs. American Culinary Federation certifications carry weight in hotels and clubs. List only what you hold, with the issuing body spelled out.
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