How Food Handler Certification Can Help Professional Food Service Aspirants Get Going
It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. That’s the adage of how to get ahead in your career. It’s pretty good advice too: there’s no substitute for networking and making contacts to help you push your career forward. But despite what some detractors might say, education is also needed. In some cases, it’s just plain necessary. It IS your leg up in getting going with your chosen career and in some ways an entry point in and of itself. Food handler certification is like that and so vital to helping food service aspirants in getting their career started properly.
Starting with a Step Up
Talk to some people that used to or currently works in the food industry, and they might tell you they started way in the back of the restaurant. In the “dish pit” as a dishwasher, mopping up, and maybe cleaning the disposal areas are and were common work entry points. There’s nothing wrong with these either—despite being somewhat unglamorous, they help one build resilience, job skillsets, and provides a beginning worker a sense of what food service is like.
True enough but let’s face it: you want to work in food handling. You’re not against hard work or cleaning, but you want to get behind the stove, ovens, and preparation tables to apply yourself fully. Having a food handler certification can put you there as a step up to get to real food work. Since you’ve got the certification, you can bypass the more rudimentary jobs in food services and begin to apply your skills faster.
Theory into Practice
Food handler certification is, in a phrase, fast but intense. You get one day to cram in nearly a dozen chapters of knowledge, complete with legal, scientific, and behavioural information, then get tested for it to get your credential. It’s a lot and for some outsiders it seems excessive.
But food handler certification is designed to give all this theoretical knowledge so you can apply what you learned in that first food handling job you get. If you’re the new hire and are tasked to stock the freezer with delivered food products, you’ll know the correct food ordering in shelves and how to space items. If you receive damaged goods, you’ll have learned what action to take. You spot a pest infestation in your restaurant. Rather that be alarmed, you’ll know what corrective action to take. That’s what’s covered in food handler certification and it’s the rarer form of education where what you practice what you studied.
ActiCert wants you to learn and practice proper food handling techniques. Come and join us for our next session by going online to ActiCert.com/food-handler-certificate. ActiCert wants to help you get going!