The Problem of Experience

In every career path, there are two vitally important aspects to advancement: connections and experience. Now, many people would say that it's not what you know, it's who you know that matters. Which is true, to a certain extent. I believe, and I feel my own experience bears this out, that you can't have the necessary connections without the prerequisite experience, which can be hard to get in the first place.

I'll use myself as an example. When I first got out of culinary school in 2011, my only professional experience had been working for my school restaurant and an internship. I then started sending out resumes and applying to dozens of restaurants, hotels, resorts, and cruise ships, but always received the same reply back; We have chosen to go with a more qualified applicant. And when I questioned those places that actually bothered to give me the time of day to speak to me, the response was always that I needed more experience. To which I naturally asked how to gain that experience, and they replied that I needed to work in a similar environment.

And so my big problem was that I needed to get a job in a restaurant to get experience, which I needed to get the jobs in restaurants. And this was all with several connections in the restaurant industry around the country. It's a vicious circle that is nearly impossible to break out of as oftentimes higher quality restaurants won't consider equivalent experience in lower quality restaurants, which tend to be the only places that hire without an established resume. And this problem continued even after my first two jobs in the field, a seasonal position at a high volume ski resort and a full time position at a family owned pizzeria.

It wasn't until I got a job working on a cruise ship that I started getting some notice on the feelers I put out, the resumes sent, and the applications filled. But, if you are just getting started and are massively in debt from having gone to culinary school because you thought that would provide at least a stepping stone into the industry, the early process is disheartening and can make you even question your desire to get into this difficult and often unreasonable field.

I'll give one more example before going. One of my early connections called me one morning (at a time when I worked third shift) and asked if I was willing to move to New Orleans for a job. I said sure and so she had me email her my resume so she could forward it on to the head chef at one of Emeril Lagasse's old restaurants. Now, having dozed off only about a half hour before she called me and not expecting a call back for at least a day or two, I didn't even bother looking up the restaurant before my phone rang not 20 minutes later. It was the chef. He asked me all the usual questions; why I wanted to come work for him, what did I think I was good at, and what experience I had. I explained to him that the town I lived in didn't have much of a restaurant culture and even in the restaurants nearby, positions didn't tend to open that often. At which point he got extremely rude, then told me he wouldn't pay me minimum wage to wash the dishes without at least a little experience in the industry, despite my having told him of my culinary school and internship. Now, I knew that he was trying to bait me into asking what I could do in his restaurant to get my foot in the door, but as he had been an asshole, I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. So I told him to have a nice day and hung up.

And while I understand that experience is a necessary component of any job, the culinary industry, in my experience, is far too stringent on the requirements. Especially at a time when fewer and fewer people are getting into cooking as a profession. Nowadays, I advise anybody I talk to who shows interest in the culinary field to just go get a job somewhere and skip putting themselves in debt for a degree that won't help them. Because even though I don't feel that I am above a minimum wage job if it helps me get in the door, my level of debt precludes that from being a possibility, which also prevents me from taking jobs in my area as they only want to pay minimum wage to cooks. Thus, continuing the cycle of perceived lack of experience, despite being involved in the culinary industry, off and on, for nearly a decade.

Thank you all for following me and stay tuned for more inside looks into the crazy world of professional kitchens.