Begging for a job??????

[born2cook]

What is the best approach in finding cooking jobs? I am a 29 yr old culinary student (career changer) in philadelphia who's currently looking for employment before i graduate in march. My placement dept. is crap, because they tell us the students that because we dont have any experience that we wont be able to get many cook positions and then they send us to "straight out" rat traps to slave for crumps and with philly's wage tax it makes it worst. Now with a culinary/rest. management degree you would expect to make some decent money with a position worth having. I talk to friends and people from other well known schools in the area and they're showing me pages and pages of job and internship posting from their Placement Offices. It's starting to seem like i would have been in a better position if i had saved my money, got any kitchen postion somewhere-anywhere, watched the Food Network and read every cook book i could get my hands on. <--- (I 'm sorry i just had to vent).

What is the best approach in finding cooking jobs or internships?

Begging AKA Business Solicitation ??? Is it still begging??? Or is it begging to be your personal slave, chef!!?? what if you're not a good beggar??

Funny thing, a chef once told me that he wouldn't hire anyone from my school, what kind of BS is that. And when you mention your school to other culinary professionals they look dumbfounded when the school is like 2 blocks from their restaurant and they precede to confuse you with the other two well known schools and when you tell them that no! i go to such and such they are like oh..... i tell you it happens all the time to myself and classmates. what should i do???

would i be better off starting my own business???

[culinarian247]

PM me and tell me what school it is. I'll try to help you "off" the thread as much as possible. What area are you loking to go to? Or are you wanting to stay where you are?

[SlaveGirl]

be willing to work very very very cheap/free? For a small amount of time anyway. Set up a trial basis or something. They've got nothing to lose if you are willing to initially work for peanuts to get a food in the door.


On the other hand, since you went to school, it's not like you don't have any knowledge. Keep trying, I guess. Even if a place takes you that isn't ideal, it's resume fodder.

[Jim]

Feel free to email/pm me and I can send you some leads in the area. I know a lot of corporate accounts in the area that are hiring.

[kuan]

Maybe we should have a job board on here.

Kuan

[vzank]

How to land a job.

Thell them that you are a culinary student and that you have to turn in a one page report about a restaurant that you staged at. Tell them that the report requires three days of work at their restaurants with you working for FREE.
This is a win win situation cause there is no commitment from the chef and you. And if you work your tail off they just might hire you.
I actually done this myself. And come to find out that some of the restaurants that offered me a job , I ended up turning down due to the fact that it did not meet my sort of critera.