Catering Assistant CV Example

A stronger, more engaging catering assistant CV gives you the best chance of success. It can help you pass the ATS CV screening stage and impress the recruiter or hiring manager, increasing your prospects of reaching the interview stage. By tailoring each and every catering assistant CV to the job description, you'll be responding directly to the requirements of the employer, placing yourself in the top tier of candidates for any given role. Let’s take a closer look at the key parts of a CV and how to develop them for maximum impact.

Standard catering assistant CV sections

Your catering assistant CV writing strategy may vary significantly according to numerous factors, such as your previous experience, your seniority and the requirements in the job description.

Regardless of your years of experience, a catering assistant CV needs to connect the dots of your career into a cohesive story. In the following sections, we’ll dive into the specific chapters of your CV step-by-step, showing you how to refine everything from your initial introduction to your long-term achievements.

CV Header

At the top of your catering assistant CV, add a header that establishes the design language of the document. Include the necessary contact information: your full name, email address, phone number and location. It's not typically necessary to include your full address. Additionally, add your LinkedIn profile, if this is in use and up-to-date. A well-utilised LinkedIn profile can give further information to the reader about your skills, experience, industry knowledge and career achievements.

For UK applications, it's not usually a good idea to add a personal photo or any other personal details, such as your age, gender, nationality or ethnicity. These can risk introducing bias into the selection process and, as such, are often discouraged in job adverts under the terms of the Equality Act 2010.

CV Summary

Under your header, write a brief CV summary or CV objective, outlining a few of your key skills, qualities and achievements. This short paragraph can help employers to quickly assess your suitability for the role, setting the tone for your catering assistant CV. While a CV summary showcases your key skills and achievements in the context of your career to date, a CV objective provides an alternative approach. It focuses instead on your ambitions for the future, making it ideal for junior candidates without much work experience.

In your summary or objective, write up to three sentences outlining your key skills, unique personal qualities and career achievements or ambitions, taking care to always reflect the requirements listed in the job description.

An effective CV summary will focus on a few of the key skills required for the role and show how you've put them to good use in your career to date. You'll want to give the reader a good impression of your unique qualities and briefly provide evidence of their impact in previous roles. Here's an example of an effective catering assistant CV summary, with evidence of your impact and neat, well-structured sentences:

Above is an example of a less effective catering assistant CV summary, with some subtle, yet notable differences. Your summary could miss the mark if it's too generic and doesn't describe unique personal qualities and strengths. It might also be vague, use long, unstructured sentences, lack quantifiable evidence of your impact, or not be tailored to the job description.

Work Experience

A CV's work experience section is usually its most important element. This is generally the case for a catering assistant CV. Employers will want to see how you've developed relevant skills in previous roles, and how you've put them to good use in successful projects and career achievements. List only relevant previous jobs, and add your job title, the name of the employer, its location and your dates of employment. Under this, write several bullet points showing employers how your skills and key qualities contributed to positive outcomes.

It's crucial to tailor your work experience section to match the requirements listed in the job description, using keywords and phrases so employers can easily see how well you fit the role and organisation.

An effective work experience section for a catering assistant CV typically includes only your most recent and relevant roles, and focuses on showing how you used your key skills in each role to make a positive impact for the employer. Use strong action verbs to highlight your impact, and tailor your bullet points to directly target the job description and show employers how and why you'll be a good fit for the role, with evidence of your performance to date in similar roles. Here's an example of best practice in a catering assistant CV work experience section:

Above you can see an example of what not to do with your catering assistant CV work experience section. An unengaging work experience section could be too generic, focusing too much on day-to-day duties rather than skills and achievements. It could also fail to address the job description or lack evidence to show the impact you've made in your career to date.

Education

In your education section, list any formal qualifications you've gained, particularly those that are most recent or required for the role.

Your career as a catering assistant typically won't require a specific degree or degree-level equivalent qualification. However, you should still include your highest certifications, training and formal qualifications in your CV's education section, even if not specified in the job description. These might include Level 2 HACCP Training Programme, or any other relevant training that demonstrates your skills in stock and inventory control or temperature monitoring and recording.

Your education section should contain only the qualifications that you consider most relevant to the role. List them in reverse-chronological order, starting with the most recent and working back from there. For each entry, include the name and level of the degree or certification, the institution, its location and your graduation date or dates of study. To emphasise your qualifications and achievements, you might wish to include one or two bullet points, which highlight things like specialist areas of study, projects, dissertations or society memberships.

If you have any specialist certifications or licences that are necessary for the role, or help you stand out above other candidates, you may wish to mention them here. When adding any special licences, it's a good idea to also reference their expiry or renewal dates, if applicable.

Skills

The skills section of a catering assistant CV provides space for showcasing the key skills and qualities that set you apart as a candidate. You'll want to only include the most relevant skills, so review the job description and list hard and soft skills that match the requirements, while reserving some space to mention your own unique characteristics. In a catering assistant CV, focus on the most relevant and essential skills in your skills portfolio, such as temperature monitoring and recording and communication, to show you're qualified for the catering assistant position and to put you in a strong position to progress.

Hard Skills

Hard skills are the specialist technical skills that are essential for carrying out the duties of the role. Theymight be developed through study, on-the-job training or experience in the industry, and some hard skills may require a licence or certification. For catering assistant jobs, essential hard skills from your career-to-date might include temperature monitoring and recording, and HACCP compliance and implementation. After reviewing the job description, compile a list of four or five key hard skills for your catering assistant CV to show you're capable of carrying out the duties required for the role.

The best hard skills section would be based around skills listed as 'essential' or 'required' in the job description. To give yourself the best chance of success, you'll want your strongest skills to match closely with those most desired by the employer, and your hard skills list should reflect this.

The example below illustrates how your hard skills section can be structured:

Soft Skills

In your soft skills list, add any personal qualities and transferable skills that show you'll be a good fit for the role, you'll settle in well with the organisation and you'll complement other team members. Soft skills are typically more transferable and applicable to different roles than hard and technical skills. As a result of rapid technological changes to modern ways of working, soft skills are becoming more and more valuable to employers. Soft skills can also be particularly useful for junior or entry-level roles where candidates haven't had the time or career experience to develop hard skills and notable achievements.

Just like the hard skills section, begin by reviewing the job description to learn the most desirable soft skills to include in your catering assistant CV. Only add soft skills that you can provide evidence for throughout your CV. Your soft skills list should reflect the job description as closely as possible, while also reflecting your strongest, unique talents and personal qualities. Aim for a list of around five key skills.

Below is a brief example showing how to format your soft skills section:

Language Skills

Adding foreign language skills to your catering assistant CV can be a valuable addition that reflects well on you as a candidate. Even if language skills aren't listed as a requirement in the job description, if you speak a foreign language, it can be beneficial to add it to your CV. Within this section, list the foreign languages you speak to a reasonable degree of competence, together with an indicator of your skill levels.

The ways to indicate your foreign language skills depend on the level of detail you want to provide. They include assigning a basic descriptive word, such as:

• English: Fluent
• Spanish: Intermediate

Alternatively, use an internationally recognised framework for languages, such as the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). This gives your language skills a standardised competence indicator, as follows:

• A1: Beginner
• A2: Elementary
• B1: Intermediate
• B2: Upper intermediate
• C1: Advanced
• C2: Proficiency

Certifications

Depending on the role and your qualifications, it might be necessary to include a certifications section. Having a separate section can draw more attention to your training, and show employers your proactive, motivated mindset towards professional development, which could be a key asset. In addition, the certifications section can be a valuable addition to your catering assistant CV if you're applying for a role that cites certain certifications or licences as a necessity in the job description. These might include roles where the use of specialist software or equipment forms part of your everyday duties.

These example certifications and licences are ideal for candidates applying for catering assistant roles:

Additional Information

Including optional sections in addition to the core elements of your catering assistant CV can help you provide further evidence of your suitability for the role. If you're unable to show you have all the necessary skills for the job through your work experience, optional sections can be a valid way of providing further evidence of your suitability, to give you the chance of gaining an interview. If you're an entry-level candidate or a career changer, optional sections can be particularly valuable.

Explore our career resources for practical strategies to make your CV stand out and move you closer to landing an interview.

Hobbies and Interests

Another way to show you have relevant skills for the job is by listing your hobbies and interests. In addition, hobbies and interests can be a useful way of showing your personality, helping to differentiate you from other candidates. However, a hobbies and interests section is only valuable if it helps you to show relevant skills you've been unable to evidence in other parts of your CV. If your hobbies and interests are unrelated to the job, it's best to leave them off your CV.

Achievements

Compiling your key career achievements into a single list is an effective way of making your CV more readable at a glance. If you've won any awards or achieved any key milestones in your career to date, you might want to mention them here.

Volunteering

Another valuable optional section for your CV is volunteering. This section can offer a great alternative showcase for your skills and experience, if you don't have much relevant work experience. Consider adding this section if you have any relevant unpaid experience, either as a junior candidate or a career changer. In your volunteering section, use a similar structure to your work experience section.

Add your job title or a description of the volunteer role, the organisation name, its location and the dates you volunteered (start and end date). Under this, add bullet points to show the skills you used, and evidence of how they contributed to positive achievements for the organisation.

References

For UK job applications, it's rare to include references on a CV and employers don't tend to request them until later in the recruitment process. However, it's worth checking the job advert just in case. If the employer requests references on your CV, choose two or three, and always approach them for permission before including them.

Add their name, their job title, the organisation and their contact details. As an alternative, you could add a brief line confirming you're able to supply references when necessary, such as 'references are available upon request'.

Best action verbs for an engaging catering assistant CV

Using strong action verbs in your work experience bullet points is a great way to focus this section and show the impact you've made in your career to date. Starting each bullet point with an action verb that reflects the skills required for the role will help the reader to easily cross-reference your skills to the job description. Remember, it's essential add evidence to back up any action verbs you add to your work experience. This will help show your achievements and the impact you made in previous roles. Use past tense for action verbs that describe previous roles, and present tense for your current position.

Catering assistant CV sample

Now that you're aware of the key steps to creating a winning catering assistant CV, you can review a complete example to see how a final CV looks:

To get an idea of how your completed, one-page CV will look once its been fully designed, see our selection of CV examples.

Tips for optimising your CV for ATS

Applicant tracking systems (ATS) are a valuable tool for many recruiters and employers, helping them manage the recruitment process by scanning and assessing CVs based on their likely fit to the job description. This saves recruiters and hiring managers the time and effort of reading every CV in detail. With many vacancies often receiving hundreds of applications, ATS software can really relieve the burden on hiring teams and free them up to focus only on the most suitable candidates.

The growing prevalence of ATS apps requires a shift in approach by jobseekers, to prepare a CV with the best chance of passing the ATS screening stage. That's why we've put together a list of key ATS CV tips, to maximise your chances of success:

• Include keywords and phrases that match the job description, making it easy for ATS apps to identify a strong fit for the role.
• Use clear headings that reflect standard CV conventions, such as 'work experience', 'education' and 'skills'.
• Choose a simple, straightforward CV layout with clear, consistent formatting, that avoids text boxes, graphics or other special design elements, as these can make your CV harder to scan.
• Select a font that's widely used and maximises readability, including popular serif and sans serif fonts between size 10 and 12 for body text, and 14 and 16 for headings.
• Use bullet points throughout your CV in place of full sentences. This serves a few purposes, reducing the overall length, helping keywords stand out and making it overall more scannable by ATS apps.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by the steps to creating an ATS-compatible catering assistant CV, but a few small changes can make a big difference. To smooth the process, use one of our expert-designed, ATS-optimised CV templates to increase your chances of success at this stage of the screening process.

Key takeaways for your catering assistant CV

To make a strong first impression on hiring managers, tailor your CV for every application, adding keywords and phrases that match the job description. Pick a CV format that matches your experience level, and focus on showing the reader how you've developed relevant skills and put them to good use to add value for previous employers.

Finally, creating your CV using one of Jobseeker's expert-designed CV templates can give your application the edge, placing you among the leading candidates and positioning you for success with your job applications.

Sources:

1. Barnet Council (UK local government), Recruitment tips: How to write a supporting statement
2. Jobseeker, HR Trends