WORK EXPERIENCE POSITIONS
Cookery Work Experience - Positions Year Round
At Courses For Cooks we offer opportunities to undertake work experience with us all year round. This seems to suit students of around 16-18 years old who want to learn more about cooking and who are willing help out in return. We can offer you the chance to have some free training, join us for the occasional course and sometimes you can split your day between taking part in the course and helping us. This is a unique opportunity to learn about different styles of cookery and add some experience to your CV. All our work experience volunteers have moved onto paid work with us very quickly too - so although they started with us on work experience - they quickly started getting paid to work here as well.
We don't take advantage of people - if anything you could get the better deal! We exchange free training, experience and opportunity to learn about cooking for some easy labour [washing up, clearing tables etc].
On occasions where we actually need paid help for things like washing up, setting tables etc [most of our usual Saturday courses] - we pay £5 per hour. Working here is also [hopefully] sociable and fun.
How does it work?
Verena started in 2011 and volunteered to work for a few hours on an Indian course to learn the ropes. She then took part in a Tapas course and worked for a few hours at the end of that course. Since then she has perfected some new skills so that she can be employed to assist in a minor assistant teaching role - helping people with their knife skills and some simple cooking. She is also going to teach us to speak French!
Katy started by volunteering to help out on a Teenager cookery course in July 2010. She joined in with half the day, learned some knife skills and get shown the ropes by our experienced assistant, Rebecca. Katy started paid work with us on the Chilli course in August 2010 and has worked on some Indian courses too. She has also now had free lessons in how to make French bread and some Spanish Tapas dishes.
Rebecca joined us in July 2009 and trained for a few hours [unpaid]. Since then she has worked [paid] on Teenager courses, Indian courses, Street Food, Fish and Cooking with Chillies. She has undertaken some of these courses for free too and helped clear up at the end of the day in return. She is now a valuable member of our small team. She has also learned to make French bread and Spanish Tapas recipes with me.
Helena had attended 2 courses here before she helped out on the Learn To Cook Teenagers Course in August 2008. She was given a free place on Cooking with Chillies soon after. Since then she has worked for us regularly and been paid for her efforts whenever we have asked her to work. Helena joined me for lots of my recipe testing and left for Medical School in Autumn 2010. I am expecting her back to help me to make Mozarella and sausages sometime.
Rachel worked with us until she left to go travelling on a gap year in April 2010. She volunteered to learn the ropes on Cooking with Chillies and then got paid to work on a Fabulous Fish course. She has had paid work on Indian courses as well as Teenager days and occasional evening courses and corporate/group cookery days. She also took over the Admin when I went to India and got paid a higher rate for looking after my customers.
Jodie joined us for work experience while she was looking for a full time job. She helped with the Fabulous Fish course for a day and got to actually do half the course at the same time [she learnt to fillet a fish among other skills]. She also helped us with Learn To Cook Teenagers for 2 days [and did some resarch for the nutritional content of this course] and Cooking with Chillies for a day. Jodie needed some work experience for her CV and also to pick up some new cooking skills and get a good job reference. We were able to help her with this and she washed up for us in return.
We have paid work available occasionally and priority is given to those who undertake work experience with us. If you can be flexible and find your way around our kitchen [on the job] then this might be for you. Just contact Sarah by email or phone to let us know that you are interested and if we need someone we will give you a chance.
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