Escoffier On Line

Hi All,

I’m putting together an article for the Culinary and Food Careers area on handling interviews at different levels. If you could post your experiences as an interviewee or an interviewer it would be appreciated. Also any specific questions you were asked, or ask, with the appropriate and/or inappropriate answers would be very helpful.

Thanks,

George

As far as cooking questions I always found the simplest to be most telling. Such as-
How would you cook fresh Green Beans?
How would you cook a pot roast?
How do you tell if clams are fresh?
How do you cook pasta?

YMMV

CC

As far as interview issues an old trick at the end of an interview is for the manager or chef to say something along the lines of "Man what a day, I'm gona have a beer, want one?"

This is a kiss of death question. If you have the beer that's it, you will not be called back. (99% of the time, they could just be a drunk too )

Probably the hardest question I ever faced in an interview was. Could you put together a traditional Mandarin menu, and /or could you pick one out from a Szechuan menu.

Most unexpected question was, what was the last cook book you bought. Many chefs pride themselves on never using cookbooks or needing them. This is childish. If you are not staying abreast of what is going on out there, you will wake up one day to find yourself making Lobster Thermador and French onion soup and thinking it is something special. My most recent purchase was a book called On The Chile Trail by Coyote Joe. It is a great history of the use of hot chiles in deep south and southwest cuisine and has some excellent traditional recipes.

One of many reasons to become a chef.

Hopefully this picture makes it through