When it comes to cooking, serving dishes to customers and making them feel satisfied it all depends on the chef. The person who has the most vital role in any food related company or industry. If you are running a restaurant the first to look out for is obviously a chef. Cleaners, receptionists, serving staff and waiters can come later but chef is the foremost requirement. There’s no point in opening restaurant if there’s no chef. But recruiting a chef is a tough to crack. None is a master chef and if there is its rare chance you will find one. But here are some tips to consider while hiring a chef.

• Someone who stays: it’s the staff that is the heart of the restaurant or an organisation. There can be thousands of candidates who are willing to work for a month or so but very few will stay for long. In an organization, the members will decide whether it will rise or drop down. There’s a huge importance of staff member and while recruiting one must take care of it. Hiring someone who will stay for most of the years because a trustworthy member is better than master chef for few months. Check the candidate’s skills on a whim and check his/her commitment. Hence it is important to look into past records to get bird view over their stability in the past. 

• Is the food tasty? : A candidate from a reputed culinary school will be a good choice. But exceptions exist. Recruiting a candidate with an eye for quality food is like a gold mine. Make sure the candidate can figure out small details in ingredients like their freshness, beauty and also its creative uses. Knowledge and instincts are two different things but quite powerful when mixed together. The ability to work under stress is a must. None of the work goes smoothly in any kind of organization. Also check for the candidate’s philosophies like why he/she likes cooking, what does he/she thinks about cooking and its future. Such questions can check how positive or negative he/she is with this career. Cooking is something someone can never figure out by books. The touch, smell and magic is needed while cooking.

• Knowledge of technologies available: the world is growing and today people don’t expect anyone to say “hey I don’t know how to use Instagram”. For example if the organization you run is a cloud kitchen there’s a high possibility for you to recruit someone who has alteast minimal knowledge about social media as online platforms are the base of cloud kitchens. Not only that there are many software that are used to calculate net loss, profit and many more complicated things which are hard to do manually. Also a beginner level knowledge about internet is also required. Internet is a best platform for digital marketing hence every member must have alteast some minimum knowledge about it.

• Attitude matters: attitude and personality of the chief reasons why interviews are conducted even after qualifying the first round with skills. There is an extremely wide range of candidate available. Some are fierce, some are fun-loving, some are shy and some are too talkative. What is important though is that the candidate must work harmonically with the other fellow chefs. Team work is not an option it’s a must. It has to be there in every single chef in your restaurant. “Rome was not built in a day” and it wasn’t built by a single person either hence the restaurant can’t be great all of a sudden just because of a single chef. Being extremely skilled is a plus point but being able to cooperate with everyone is necessary. Also in the workplace there’s not a single soul who wants to be humiliated while working and constantly being corrected. It is true that everyone makes mistakes; hence the team should always give the respect the new member deserves. None of the position is lower than others. Such personality can take the restaurants to great heights and can handle tough situations. 

• Some pro tips to consider: hire someone who never compromises with quality, someone who has an eagle eye for quality and perfection. Not only the food should taste good but also should look very neat. No matter how tasty food is no one will like to eat a messy noodle plate with red sauce all over the plate. The decoration, neatness and quality should be top notch. Also its important for the chef to inspect the costs and budget of the whole restaurant and cook while keeping that in mind. No wastage, no shortage, no heavy usage of ingredients etc. are few important things a chef has a responsibility to kook after. Also proper time-management during hike in customers is a skill of the pro. Such qualities are worth looking for if the chef has passed the skill test.