Miles Collins

Advice for the job seeker….

I’ve had both the pleasure and misfortune to interview hundreds of people for positions of work in various establishments over the years, applications, telephone calls, e mails, employment agencies, you name it and I’ve interviewed it. Now the type of position I look to fill isn’t the high flying Rhodes scholar city banker type, some positions are unskilled, others semi-skilled but whatever the position or pay scale on offer I always expect the applicant to have made some effort, regardless of how small in their approach to the interview.

When I receive an application for a position I work on the premise that the applicant is indeed interested in the post, therefore I assume that person will have given his or her application some thought. It is quite amazing how badly prepared some candidates are. I have interviewed candidates via telephone in Mumbai, India who know more about my place of work than others who have lived all of their life in the same village! So based upon my personal experience here’s what not to do when applying for a job as a chef:

1. Don’t write your letter and CV on a piece of notepaper.
2. Don’t cross out mistakes and leave them-write it out again
3. Do put your name and address on your application-it helps when I want to reply
4. Don’t fold your all in one letter and CV into four and place inside an oversized envelope.
5. Do try and get my name right, it states it on the advert.
6. Try and apply for the advertised position, not one you have made up which doesn’t exist.
7. If you are such a good Chef de Partie worth 20k per year then don’t tell me you are a Chef de PARTY’
8. Don’t forge a reference from a two michelin starred chef you never worked for.
9. If you must forge a reference then get your spelling right-I know the chef in question has a University degree. He can spell.
10. If you want a Head Chef position then don’t write to the Head Chef because that would infere the position is not avaliable let alone advertised.
11. If you offer a telephone number to be contacted on then be sure to switch it on.
12. When answering your telephone remember it might be your potential employer, do not answer ‘Yeah?’
13. When going to the trouble of setting up an answering service try replying to your messages.
14. When going to the trouble of applying for a job try turning up for the interview-it helps.
14. Do not wear a vest or t-shirt to an interview.
15. Leave your sunglasses and baseball cap at home.
16. Leave your girlfriend at home.
17. Leave your mum at home-You’re nineteen.
18. Remove your chewing gum before meeting potential employer.
19. Don’t wear ripped jeans or any other denim-I want a chef, not Tom Ford.
20. Remove ear, nose, tongue, cheek and eyebrow piercings-it’s really not attractive or hygienic
21. Don’t cycle five miles in the blazing sun-get the bus it’s less sweaty.
22. Don’t wipe the sweat from your head, neck and armpits during interview-it’s a bit awkward for the interviewer.
23. Don’t tell me you are only here to maintain your benefit payments.
24. Don’t tell me you’ve just had five beers on the train and ‘could do with the lav, mate’
25. Don’t turn up for interview intoxicated and ask me to drive you back to the train station-I won’t.
26. Try not to use the F-word during interview.
27. Don’t tell me your current Head Chef is a “F*****g W****r”-it’s a little disconcerting.
28. Don’t tell me you need every Saturday off to play football
29. Do look at me when talking
30. Tell me you are not taking the job after accepting it and making me wait four weeks to find out.

I could go on….