Cook Interview Questions and Answers
While it may take hours to prepare a dish, it takes only few minutes to partake; only if it tastes good. Be it your own kitchen or a large established hotel, as a cook, you are successful and pleased, only when your prepared dish is relished by your guests. Although, the taste of food largely depends on your cooking skills and knowledge of ingredients, your level of patience, intelligence and creativity play an important role too.
Thus, similar to all job roles, landing your desired job role as a cook in any reputed hotel or restaurant need prior preparation. Listed are some of the common interview questions with suggested answers you can probably come across in any of your interviews.
Q: What is your unique style of cooking?
Ans: This is perhaps the first question you will encounter in any interview. All candidates who take up cooking as a career are driven by their passion for the same. Rather, it is not wrong to say that candidates can only sustain this career only if they have a strong fondness for it that drives creativity and keeps them going.
Therefore, as a job seeker, you are expected to be very honest while answering this particular question. Your recruiters are interested to know your objective and therefore you need not copy it. Take this as an opportunity to prove your sense of creativity and innovativeness. If you really have those skills you will definitely make it.
Q: What will you do when the prepared food did not satisfy potential customers?
Ans: This is crucial from your recruiter's perspective, as many chefs tend to get annoyed when they come across some negative feedback. This not only hampers your efficiency but also hotel's reputation as a whole.
When your recruiters place this question before you, they expect an answer that assures them, that you will give equal and necessary attention to every complaint you receive. You need to convince them that you are not going to get too bogged down by any negative comment and rather will work on to prevent similar mistakes in future.
Q: What do you know about the eating habits prevalent among the local people?
Ans: Now this is a broad question and requires slight preparation. Here you need to do extensive research on popular food items and be thorough with their recipes. You are expected to know all ingredients used in preparing these food items and their substitutes if any.
Candidates who can bring about different styles of preparing the same food item, have a greater chance of selection, provided those recipes sound convincing enough. Therefore, it is advised that you can even try cooking these food items and have your friends and family present their reviews on these new styles of preparing popular dishes.
Q: What Is your area of specialization?
Ans: This is the most expected question and every candidate need to have a well tailored answer for this. Different candidates have varied range of specialization; ranging from sauces to pastries. However, you need to keep in mind that your area of specialization need to be in alignment with that of the hotel. Â
Q: How will you deal with a situation where you have lesser manpower to assist you?
Ans: Here you need to convince recruiters that you are capable of maintaining calm in adverse situations. You are not going to compromise with the quality and taste of food so as to serve more and more customers. You need to stress that, if you can satisfy and impress customers with quality food, a slight delay in serving(that arise due to lack of staff) will not make a huge negative impact. However, you will always put in your best possible efforts to serve quality food on time. Â
These were some of the common questions asked in a cook interview. The answers to these questions are written to give you an impression of expected answers. It is recommended that you prepare your own answers relating to your skills, experience and knowledge.Â
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