# Does home cooking experience count in addition to internships?



## chef brah (Oct 10, 2016)

If one is a graduate from culinary school with less than 6 months of total work experience but has years of home cooking experience and photos of creation and lists down their skills..will they matter at all?

most of the cooking experience i have is by hosting dinners for friends and home cooking ...and actual commercial experience is less than 6 months...and wondering how much longer i will have to intern before i can get paid jobs?


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

Short answer, no.

Long answer is still no, but comes with an explanation.

Cooking at home means you have no supevisor to ensure you are following standards, and no supervisor means no one for a potential employer to call up on for references.

Cooking at home does not guarantee or otherwise imply that you can work well with others, and this is probably THE most important factor in an employers choice of new hires--working well with others.

Hope this helps


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## flipflopgirl (Jun 27, 2012)

What @foodpump said...

BOTOH there is no reason to not be applying for paying jobs.

There are some Chefs who prefer virgin cooks with some knowledge but not a lot of experience.

Teachable without a lot of bad habits to break.

mimi


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## chefwriter (Oct 31, 2012)

What Foodpump said.

Here's my offering of food for thought. 

The chef wants you to. 

1. Show up.

2. Shut up. 

3. Work hard. 

Does your experience, or lack of experience, matter? 

If a Master Chef walked in to my kitchen, he or she is going to do things my way.

 I am completely open to learning and will be fascinated with the Master Chef's opinions on things we could do better when we actually 

have time to sit and discuss it. But right now, we do things a certain way and I need them done that way. 

So I need someone to show up when I tell them to show up. 

I have a list of things that need to be done and I will explain how I want them done. 

The work can be hot, hard and stressful. I already know that. I don't want to hear you in your discovery of that.

I also don't care about your age, gender, education, skin tone, religious background or what day the aliens dropped you off. 

I want you to show up, shut up and work hard. 

Promise and follow through with that and you should have a job, no problem.


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## cheflayne (Aug 21, 2004)

Cooking at home bears little to no resemblance to cooking in a restaurant. The food and the equipment might be the same, but the scenarios are totally different. Nothing can prepare a person for cooking in a restaurant other than...cooking in a restaurant. I know people that have worked in professional catering kitchens for years and if they tried to transition to restaurant work; they would encounter a steep learning curve and many would have a difficult time.

It is time to stop interning...and get a paying job. I wouldn't mention years of experience cooking at home or for dinner parties. If I were interviewing a person who brought that up, I wouldn't consider it relevant and actually might consider it to be a red flag. It would definitely start my spidey senses tingling and I would be high alert as to discerning your attitude and teachability. If I were talking to an Army recruiter and told him that I had grown up around guns, have been hunting for years, and am an excellent marksman with an unscoped rifle...I don't think he would consider it to be relevant.

Don't worry about lack of experience. The number one thing I look for when interviewing people is attitude. The second is teachaibility. I can teach skills and provide an opportunity for gaining experience. Attitude and teachability (or lack of) are pretty much already in place way before the interview. Some of the best people that I ever hired, came to me with absolutely no experience. Some of them now own their own restaurants. Some of the worst people that I ever hired, had lots of experience. Their attitude and teachability fell short.


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## chef brah (Oct 10, 2016)

thank a lot guys.

also. does good reference from exec chef at my previous internship matter?

it was a one michelin star restaurant


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## cheflayne (Aug 21, 2004)

Good references never hurt, whether Michelin star or not. They can only be a plus. Some potential employers will pay attention to them, some will not; but either way, always get references from past employers if you can.


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## chefross (May 5, 2010)

Anne44 said:


> We humans have an extraordinary ability to learn things


True that, but humans have a very difficult time unlearning and relearning.
For the OP, your home cooking skills may or may not resemble professional kitchen standards, but that's up to the Chef to decide, not us. Good luck.


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