Food and hospitality
Cook, Restaurant in the United States
164 postings read · sampled 2026-09-01 · source ats
What employers actually ask for
Credentials named in the 164 postings we read, ranked by how many mentioned each one.
None. Across 164 postings, no certification or licence was named often enough to call it a requirement. For this role in this market, employers are hiring on demonstrated work rather than credentials — which means money spent on a certificate here is unlikely to be what gets you the interview.
Lower signal for this role
Credentials that barely appeared in this sample. That is not a claim they are worthless — plenty are valuable for a different job, a different city, or a promotion later. It is a claim that employers here mostly did not ask.
- ServSafe Food Protection ManagerNational Restaurant Association1%
What the official taxonomy says
O*NET surveys people already doing this job. That describes who got hired over a long window, not what employers are asking for now — where it disagrees with the counts above, the counts are the more current answer.
- High school diploma or equivalent47%
- Less than high school diploma34%
- Associate’s degree or other 2-year degree12%
Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed. Usually requires a high school diploma or GED, though some occupations may not.
O*NET 35-2014.00 · pulled 2026-09-01 · percentages are of surveyed workers, each rounded separately, so they need not total 100
What it pays
BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. A different survey from the postings above, so the two do not share a sample.
Who was hiring
Employers with at least one matching posting in this sample.
DIG Chefs-In-Training · Boyd Gaming · Wynn Resorts · Dream Golf (Bandon Dunes/Sand Valley) · Otterbein SeniorLife · SpaceX · Westgate Resorts · Fixins Soul Kitchen · HelloFresh · Level99 Entertainment · The Mather in Evanston · City of New York · Convene · Crestwood Behavioral Health · DIG Restaurant Teams · Luminis Health · The Florida Panthers
Next
- Roast and Resolve — Now aim your résumé at this target. Free roast, paid rewrite.
- Synap — Two-minute daily lessons to drill the skills underneath the credential.