Line Cook resume skills. The words recruiters search for.
The 18 skills, tools and credentials that come up in line cook job posts, sorted by type, and how to put them in bullets a recruiter believes.
By Nazir Elmurodov, Founder, LaunchCV · Updated
/ The list
Keywords by type. Use only the ones that are true for you.
Hard skills · 13
- Line cooking (used in Carlos's sample resume)
- Food preparation (used in Carlos's sample resume)
- Knife skills (used in Carlos's sample resume)
- Sauté (used in Carlos's sample resume)
- Mise en place (used in Carlos's sample resume)
- Prep lists (used in Carlos's sample resume)
- Portion control (used in Carlos's sample resume)
- Recipe execution (used in Carlos's sample resume)
- Ticket times (used in Carlos's sample resume)
- FIFO (used in Carlos's sample resume)
- Food safety (used in Carlos's sample resume)
- Sanitation (used in Carlos's sample resume)
- Inventory (used in Carlos's sample resume)
Tools & software · 2
- Grill (used in Carlos's sample resume)
- Fryer (used in Carlos's sample resume)
Licenses & certifications · 1
- ServSafe Food Handler (used in Carlos's sample resume)
Soft skills · 2
- Teamwork
- Working under pressure
16 of 18 appear in Carlos's sample resume. See where
/ How to use them
Put keywords in bullets, not just in a skills list.
A skills list tells the software you have a skill. A bullet shows a recruiter what you did with it.
Grill, Sauté, Ticket times
Weak: Skills: Grill, Sauté, Ticket times
Strong: Run the grill and sauté stations in a 180-cover scratch kitchen, holding ticket times under 12 minutes on busy nights
Mise en place, Prep lists, Portion control
Weak: Skills: Mise en place, Prep lists, Portion control
Strong: Set mise en place from daily prep lists and cut end-of-night food waste by about 20% through better portion control
FIFO
Weak: Skills: FIFO
Strong: Follow FIFO, labeling and temperature logs; our kitchen passed every health inspection during my time here
Grill, Recipe execution
Weak: Skills: Grill, Recipe execution
Strong: Trained 4 new cooks on recipe execution and plating standards for the grill station
Strong bullets come from Carlos's sample resume and our line cook bullet examples. Names and figures are illustrative.
/ Use them honestly
Keywords get you found. Proof gets you hired.
Mirror the job post's wording for skills you really have. If a line cook post asks for Line cooking and you've used it, say Line cooking, in the post's spelling, and show where.
Mirror the job post's wording
If a line cook post says "Food preparation", write "Food preparation", not a near-synonym — as long as it's accurate. Recruiters search for the post's exact term.
Only claim what you can back up
Expect to be asked about every term you list. If you couldn't spend two minutes on Line cooking — what you did and what changed — leave it out.
Show it in a bullet
A skills list says you know Ticket times. A bullet like the one under Line Cook in the example above shows what you did with it.
No stuffing, no hidden text
Repeating a word or hiding keywords in white text doesn't make you a better match. A person reads the resume in the end.
Which of these does your resume say?
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Applying to one post? Scan its keywords against your resume.
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/ Questions
Line Cook keywords, answered.
Something else? support@launch-cv.com
How many keywords should a line cook resume have?
There's no magic number. Carlos's sample resume uses 16 of the 18 terms on this page — the ones that fit that job. Cover what your post asks for that you can back up, each where it fits; repeating a keyword doesn't help.
Should I copy keywords exactly from the job post?
Use the post's wording for skills you really have. If a line cook post says "Line cooking", write "Line cooking" rather than a synonym, so a recruiter searching for that term finds you. Don't add skills you don't have just because the post lists them.
Where should keywords go on my resume?
In your summary, a short skills section and, above all, the bullets under each job, where you show what you did with the skill. In Carlos's sample, Grill, Sauté and Fryer are in the summary and Ticket times shows up in a bullet under Line Cook. Plain text in the body of the page is easiest for applicant tracking systems to read.
Which tools should I list on a line cook resume?
The ones you've used and the post mentions. Common ones in line cook posts include Grill and Fryer. Name the tool in the bullet where you used it, not only in the skills list.
How should I list ServSafe Food Handler on my resume?
Spell it the way the job post does, and include both the abbreviation and the full name if you have room. Put licenses and certifications in their own section or next to your education, and only list ones that are current.
Keywords for related roles
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