Ever wondered what the life of a sous chef in a five star hotel is like? Here at Three Q we have 19 years of experience in helping sous chef’s and culinary staff to find their dream job. Here at Three Q we’re a hands on recruitment team who work to match our clients with the perfect Sous Chef for the job.  How hands on are we? We go out on site on help to train our temps and perms so that they have a great start to their new job. Our consultants are ex hospitality professionals, we undertake training in healthcare and hospitality training and we have served at events. We know what it’s like to be a Sous Chef in a busy Dublin 5 star hotel. so if you’d like to know more, so if you want to know what the life of a sous chef in a five star hotel is like, read on to find out more.

Job Description

A sous chef is an important job within the kitchen’s system. The Sous Chef is ranked just below head chef in order of command, so successful candidates will be directing themselves towards the position of head chef.  Sous Chefs have a huge list of tasks which they must undertake as part of their role, you will report directly to the head chef and delegate tasks to other members of the kitchen staff.

What does a Sous Chef do?

The successful candidate to a Sous Chef positions will be responsible for both planning and directing the preparation of food in the kitchen. Supervising staff and is also part of the role and supervisory tasks can make up the bulk of a Sous Chefs work. Any problems spotted within the kitchen must be reported to the head chef immediately or be solved by the Sous Chef themselves. It is also part of the Sous Chef’s role to improve performance of their team and make sure that their work is up to a five star kitchen’s standards.

As a Sous Chef, you will be responsible for Being in charge of the kitchen when the head chef is not around, keeping the kitchen environment safe and hygienic, assisting the head chef when it comes to writing menus and creating new recipes and sometimes being in charge of the purchasing and storage of food.

In some hotels and restaurants, the head chef may not be around that often which means that the Sous Chef will be the head of the kitchen in their absence. This places a lot of responsibility on your shoulders of the candidate, so you must be able to handle stress and pressure well.

Although creating meals for customers is part of the job description, a lot of your time will be spent on administrative duties. A sous chef should have an eye for detail and be a meticulous planner.

Working as a Sous Chef means that ‘normal’ hours such as a nine to five office job is mostly out of the question. A Sous Chef should be expecting to work shifts which means weekends, evenings and holidays. You will also be asked to work overtime during particularly busy spells. If you would prefer to work office hours, it would be best to look for a job in contract catering.

Sous Chef Career Path

The rise to sous chef does not happen in a straight line and there are a number of steps you must take to progress up the career ladder. Some people actually begin as a kitchen porter and discover a love for food before beginning at the bottom rung of the chef ladder. A large proportion of sous chefs get to where they are by training on the job and availing of opportunities for placements in high quality kitchens. However, a candidate  can get to there faster if they have some formal qualifications. A degree in Culinary Arts is a good qualification, a prospective candidate may also look for a FETAC certificate in Professional Cookery to help them get ahead of the competition.

If you want to become a senior sous chef, you will need at least 3 years professional experience in a good quality hotel or restaurant. Another requirement for most employers is HAACP training and experience.

This is just a brief outline of the life of a sous chef in a five star hotel. There are a lot of administrative duties that a Sous Chef must undertake, so if you don’t like delegating tasks or paperwork, this is not the right role for you. If you wish to become a head chef, you must first become a sous chef as it is an excellent way to determine if you are ready to run your own kitchen.  

If becoming a Sous Chef interests you, or if you are currently a Sous Chef looking for a new position, keep an eye on our listings that we update every day with new job opportunities in the industry. We currently have job vacancies for Sous Chefs in Five Star Hotels in Dublin. If you are an employer and are wishing to advertise your job in our listings, please email sales@3reqruitment.ie or phone +1 +353 1878 3335.

One thing that we are often asked here at Three Q is how to advance your career as a staff nurse. This month we are celebrating Three Q’s 19th birthday, so you know that we have years of experience in helping Staff Nurses to advance their careers. You may love your job as a staff nurse, but sometimes you may feel like you have more potential than your current position.So without any further ado, here are our top tips on how to advance your career as a staff nurse.

Do you know where your nursing career will take you in the next five years? What about the next 10 or 20?  If you’d like to have a little more control over your career path, it pays to do a little research and see what experienced recruitment companies such as Three Q have to say about our PERM’s and TEMPS’s experiences.

Here are our top tips for advancing your own nursing career:

  1. Invest in your education.

As is true for all career paths, education is extremely important in advancing your career. With each degree in nursing or certificate in a specialised nursing program you gain, you will have more and more options for new opportunities. With more opportunities, it is more likely that one will find a position that is a perfect fit for you and your career goals. Some nurses may need to simultaneously work and go to school to take advantage of the stepladder approach to nursing education, but it will pay off in the long term career wise. There is an increasing importance of advanced degrees when it comes to progressing your nursing career, and most positions in advanced practice, leadership, teaching and research require master’s and doctoral degrees.

A more educated nurse is a safer nurse. Education requires a commitment. It is a personal journey that takes time and energy, but it also provides rewards, both professionally and personally.

  1. Build and utilise your networks.

It is important to Learn to network within your health care organization and outside it. When you meet new people, you exchange ideas and gain information about new approaches to solve common problems. Professional social networking is also becoming increasingly crucial in our society and networking and community is becoming more central to how we do business.

While networking is clearly important for career advancement, it should also be seen as a source of learning and new ideas.

  1. Establish a mentoring relationship.

This is a great tip, however it does take time to develop a mentor-mentee relationship and it cannot be forced. As a nurse, you can take some steps to become a mentee by first identifying someone whom they feel comfortable with and whom they consider a role model within the nursing industry. Asking the mentor for career advice, suggestions and guidance is a good way to initiate the relationship

  1. Always pursue professionalism.

The most important and professional things that you can do as a nurse are: be honest, maintain confidentiality about patients, offering respect for the individual, cultivating strong interpersonal skills in dealing with people, keeping a positive attitude, maintaining competency and keeping up to date in your work. It is important for nurses to present themselves as professionals both on the job and off- if you want to progress in your career, it’s important that your employers see you as a professional nurse who is suitable for more responsibility within your role. It may sound like standard advice, but also make sure to keep your social media profiles professional, as employers really do check them out.

  1. Continue personal and professional development

Developing yourself as a person will also have a positive impact on your career. You should focus on communication skills such as conflict management, active listening and clear, effective writing, as well as honing skills in problem solving.

Start to think of yourself as a leader, and cultivate your leadership skills and abilities. Begin displaying your leadership skills within your own health care setting.  As you become comfortable as a leader, look for other opportunities both within and outside your organisation, you will also find that when you are thinking like a leader, people will value your opinion and opportunities will start coming to you.

  1. Find what you like to do

Our biggest tip to all nurses, is to find what you like to do in your career and do the best job possible and seek out work environments that are positive and growth promoting. Your career isn’t going to prosper if you don’t feel passionate about what you do, so make sure that you love your area of work within the nursing industry.  

So there are our top tips on how to advance your career as a staff nurse! Keep your eye out for nursing positions that fall outside what you are doing now- Job advertisements and articles about nurses in other settings will open your thinking about career opportunities. Also remember that around 50% of nursing jobs are outside the hospital, so don’t limit yourself! If you are a newly graduated nurse who is preparing for your first job, check out our blog on the topic. You can also take a look at our job listings which we update daily.

Detox nurses are mostly commonly understood to help those who are looking for aid with dealing with their alcohol and drug abuse. However, alcohol and illegal substance abuse are not the only addictions that detox nurses treat. After all, the science is in on gambling addiction and brain activity for gambling addicts is comparable to substance addicts such as heroin and cocaine and they suffer similar withdrawal symptoms to drugs abusers too. I will be discussing how a detox nurse treats patients that suffer from gambling addiction.

Acceptance

Unlike with other addictions, compulsive gambling will not drastically affect physical appearance and physical health, so it can often go unnoticed and untreated. The addict themselves may also be reluctant to admit that they are addicted and it is the work of the detox nurse to help their patient come to the realisation that they are addicted and they need help before treatment can start. The detox nurse needs to know that their patient truly wants to help themselves work on controlling their compulsive gambling.

Changing Behaviour

The detox nurse knows that a patient acknowledging their addiction, and acknowledging that it is a problem and sincerely wanting it to change is the first step, but it is not enough. Nurses that specialise in addiction will work on helping their patients’ habitual behaviour that is not helping their pursuit to control their addiction. There will be activities and behaviours for a gambling addict that make it difficult to resist their urges. The detox nurse will help their patients recognise their behaviours that do not help their treatment.

Treatment Plan

A detox nurse develops a treatment plan that’s tailored to their patient’s needs. A treatment plan a detox nurse prescribes will be the roadmap for their patient. They have a plan that they issue to their patients and will explain to their patients each step and action involved and continually manage the patient’s progress.

Detox nurses treat all kinds of addiction in their patients. As you can imagine, they all require different approaches and treatments. This means detox nursing requires a wide range of knowledge on addiction and many ways to treat it. Gambling addiction provides its own specific problems to patients and to the nurse treating them. It is remarkable that detox nurses can treat a wide variety of patients effectively.

Clinical Nurse Managers- Two Difficulties They Face Managing in Hospitals

The Clinical Nurse Manager has a tough role – they have to manage a department’s staff to provide the best care possible to its patients. This job of managing a team of nurses comes with problems that the clinical nurse manager must overcome. I’m going to be talking about some of the areas that a CNM will have to deal with working in a hospital with a  team of nurses.

The clinical nurse manager has a reoccurring problem. That problem is understaffing. The CNM has to manage their team effectively to treat their patients which will continually prove to be a challenge. Many hospitals struggle with staffing problems and CNM’s often have to manage it by giving overtime to their nurses and sometimes  involves the unpleasant task of asking their team to work on their days off.

Dealing with Conflict

Fortunately, this problem that management in nursing deals with is not as common as it could be considering the stakes can be very high in the hospital. Conflict in the hospital staff is often dealt with by the nurse manager. The clinical nurse manager will have to become adept at dealing with conflict appropriately. There is considerable pressure on nurses which can ignite conflict or balloon it’s size making it essential that the CNM can treat conflicts in her team or with management effectively.

Here’s a helpful link to a really informative journal article on conflict management strategies for nurse managers:  https://journals.lww.com/nursingmanagement/fulltext/2012/02000/Keeping_the_peace___Conflict_management_strategies.13.aspx

You could imagine how the two mentioned challenges faced by clinical nurse managers can be interrelated. A shortage in staff causing a conflict. A conflict causing a shortage in staff. It is fortunate that conflicts among the team are rare and treated carefully and nurses are flexible in work often taking on overtime and extra days when it’s unwelcome. This certainly makes the job of the clinical nurse manager that bit easier.