Are There Hospitality Management Jobs Available for Older Workers?
Look at the demographics of culinary students and working cooks/chefs. You’ll most likely see that the field is populated primarily by young professionals in their twenties and thirties. The reasons for this are varied but largely due to the demanding nature of the job.
Chefs are notorious for working long days (and nights) on their feet, often 60 hours a week without weekends or holidays off. This lends itself to a younger workforce since they are more likely to be able to handle the physical aspects of the job—and they might not yet have a family that requires more stable working hours.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that you can’t be in your forties, fifties, sixties, or even higher and not enjoy a culinary career. Whether you’re looking for options to transfer to within the culinary field, or if you’re considering going back to school as an older adult, here are a few careers that might be in your future.
Chain Restaurants: Larger companies (think Disney or chain restaurants) like to boost their public image and promote diversity by hiring in a wide range of ages. The good news about jobs in these locations is that they’ll take age into account and offer you positions that don’t require you to be on your feet all day. You might also be able to work flexible hours doing things like prep work in the mornings
Management-Level Positions: If you have the benefit of experience, you might find the doors to management jobs are wide open. It doesn’t matter if your experience is in healthcare, business, or customer service. Combining a newly earned culinary career with decades of work experience can bring something new to the table. As long as you spin it right, you might find that you can skip working in the kitchen and go right to restaurant management.
Teaching: If you’ve put in the time and worked your way through a successful culinary career, now is the time to consider alternate options like teaching. Becoming a chef-instructor (or using your other work experience to teach business management, human resources, or even accounting for culinary students) is a great way to stay in touch with the restaurant industry on your own terms.
Retirement from one career doesn’t have to signal the end of your working life. No matter where you are in your job path, opportunities and advantages await you in the culinary field.
Is A Culinary Career Right For Me?
- What Happened to All the For-Profit Culinary Schools
- The Journey of Celebrity Chefs: From Passion to Fame
- Cooking for Business or Pleasure
- Give the Gift of Cooking Classes
- What It Takes To Become An Executive Chef
- Which Hospitality Management Jobs Pay the Best
- Interview with Top Ten Pastry Chef in America Mary Cech
- 10 Things To Consider Before Getting Into The Culinary Industry