Food Service Resume Guide [w/ Objective, Summary, Skills Examples]

Food is a basic need for human survival, making the foodservice industry a crucial industry worldwide. Depending on the type of job, a candidate might be required to prepare food for consumption, serve food to customers, keep kitchens and dining areas clean, or wash dishes for future use. 

Because of how crucial this industry is, depending on the type of job, it can be very cut-throat. If you’d like to land a great job within the foodservice industry, you first have to make sure that you have a stellar food service resume that will impress recruiters.

Competitiveness in the industry means that recruiters will try to simplify the recruitment process by employing tools and technology. Software that they might use to help ease the recruitment process is the ATS (applicant tracking software), which filters and ranks the food service resume they receive.

It’s a good idea to find food service resume templates and food service resume examples from the internet to serve as a guide. These online templates and examples may contain great points that you can implement on your own food service resume.

Remember to tailor them according to your background and the job context though!

As previously mentioned in Tip 1, adopting keywords and implementing them into your food service resume can help you bypass the filter. Keywords can make your resume more relevant to job ads.

Another way to increase your food service resume relevancy is to tailor it for the specific job position you’re applying for instead of having an all-purpose resume.

Employers aim to hire candidates that can bring value and help their business improve. One way to show that you are that candidate is by quantifying your previous results and achievements on your food service resume. Numbers can make them look more convincing and apparent to recruiters.

Jobs in the foodservice industry tend to put a lot of focus on customer service. Most customers would want their food to be delivered or prepared quickly. Thus, this will affect the working environment as well.

Your knowledge of the business is one thing, but if you fail to show that you are a candidate capable of working in a high-pressure and fast-paced environment, recruiters may be more reluctant to proceed with the hiring process.

Whether it’s from your extracurricular activities or even personal hobbies, you need to highlight in your food service resume how you can fit and work effectively in such a demanding environment.

A food service resume objective is designed to convey your career objective and aspirations to recruiters, allowing them to get to know you through your food service resume better.

Keep your food service resume objective concise and remember to highlight your positive traits and the career goals you wish to achieve.

A food service resume objective is too short to fully convince recruiters of your ability and potential. Aside from a resume objective, you should also include a food service resume summary.

Your resume summary should be within one to two sentences long and should include a brief description of yourself, your qualifications, skills, and background. 

As with your food service resume, you should always tailor your food service resume summary for every job position you apply for.

Your food service resume skills will be closely examined by recruiters. The skills that you possess can serve as an indicator of your fit in the position and your performance level.

There are four ways you can structure your food service resume skills section, they are:

• Simple bullet list:
  Simple and easy to craft, desired skills are very visible. Its simplistic format, though, limits further explanation of your skills. 
• Expanded bullet list:
  The simple bullet list with extra explanation of your skills. This format consumes more space so you should limit it to listing 5 skills. 
• Integrated with work experience:
  This format can explain your food servicing competency well because it integrates your work experience section with your food service resume skills. However, it requires you to possess extensive employment history, so it’s unsuitable for an entry-level food service resume.
• Categorized skills section:
  This format helps with organizing your skills by categorizing them. Like the integrated work experience format, though, a food service resume with no experience or an entry-level food service resume might not benefit much from it.

As with other section formats, there’s no one best format. Specific formats will suit different people according to their skill level, their background, and job context. Before you settle on a format for your food service resume skills, make sure you go over the job ad thoroughly.

✅ Advice 1: Choose the right food service resume format.

Choosing the right food service resume format can help accentuate your strengths, making your food service resume look more appealing to recruiters.

There are three food service resume formats you can choose to adopt, they are: chronological, functional, and hybrid/combination. As with most things, there is no one-size-fits-all format, its suitability will differ from candidate to candidate, depending on their skill level, background, and previous experience.

✅ Advice 2: Adopt a career objective for your food service resume.

It’s understandable for someone with an entry-level food service resume to feel nervous about their lack of experience. Instead of fretting over it, you can choose to adopt a food service resume objective to redirect the recruiter’s attention to your career aspirations. Convey your passion and enthusiasm for the job and industry and highlight your most defining skills.

✅ Advice 3: Highlight your education.

Some jobs in the food service industry won’t require you to possess a postgraduate degree, although some do. If you happen to possess one though, be sure to highlight it in your food service resume. An education degree, especially if it’s related to the industry, can help in instilling confidence in your skills and knowledge.

Here, list your:

• educational institution
• degree(s)
• major(s)
• year of graduation
• honors & awards
• extracurricular activities (when applicable)

✅ Advice 4: Include your portfolio, side project, or personal website.

If you have a side project, personal website, and/or portfolio that is food-related, including them in your food service resume can be a testament to your knowledge and passion.

✅ Advice 5: Write a sincere food service cover letter.

Due to limited space, your food service resume should only contain necessary and relevant information. Of course, this won’t be enough to fully convey your potential to recruiters. This is where a food service cover letter will come in useful for you.

Your food service cover letter should be a page long and should contain a short introduction of who you are, your contact details, and a brief summary of your qualifications, background, skills, interest in the job or industry, and your motivation for applying. Close off your food service cover letter politely, thanking the recruiter for taking the time to read your cover letter.