Sous Chef & Line Cook Resume 2026: Land the Kitchen Job

In restaurants, hiring moves fast: an executive chef looking for a sous chef before the busy season skims your resume between services and decides in under a minute. In 2026 kitchens across the U.S. are still short-staffed — restaurants, hotels, and catering operations all struggle to hire — but that's no excuse for a sloppy resume. Here's how to build a restaurant resume that speaks to chefs, from line cook to sous chef.

Put your station and role at the top

A chef wants to know immediately where you sit in the brigade. State your target role (sous chef, line cook, commis), the type of operation you've worked in (fine dining, fast-casual, hotel, catering), and your covers per service. "Sous chef, 120 covers/service, scratch kitchen" tells a chef more than three lines of filler.

Keep the layout clean and readable — a kitchen hiring manager has no patience for a busy design. Our resume template gallery offers clear one-page structures, and the online resume builder spares you from fighting Word margins.

The skills that actually matter in a kitchen

Beyond "team player," a restaurant resume needs concrete skills: ServSafe / food-safety certification and cold-chain control, mise en place, plating, recipe and prep-list management, vendor and food-cost awareness. Spell out the stations you've run (sauté, grill, garde manger, pastry) and the cuisines you've cooked.

Show that you can hold the line, too: rushes, doubles, weekend covers, peak season. A chef wants someone reliable under pressure. If you hold a culinary degree, an apprenticeship, or current food-handler credentials, feature them. To check that your keywords match the posting, run your resume through our free ATS resume checker — more restaurant groups now screen applications automatically.

Quantify your experience, degree or not

Kitchens value floor experience as much as diplomas. Turn your history into results: "Ran the grill station solo on a 90-cover service," "Trained two commis on mise en place," "Cut waste by tightening prep lists." Those lines land with a chef far better than a task list. If the wording stalls you, our resume builder turns a few keywords into polished, professional bullets.

Set your pay expectations, too: base rates plus tips, overtime, and shift differentials vary widely by city and venue. Our salary calculator helps you set a realistic range for a full-time sous chef role.

Prep for the interview — and the working trial

In restaurants, the interview usually comes with a stage (working trial): you're judged on organization, cleanliness, and composure under pressure as much as on your answers. Come ready to tell one real rush-hour story and one mistake you recovered from. Our interview prep tool drills you on the standard questions, and the MyCVHub blog covers other restaurant and service roles. A clear resume gets you into the kitchen; your trial shift does the rest.