At Hot Bread Kitchen, we connect our members with quality jobs in New York City’s vibrant food industry. Our team has a commitment to securing roles for our members that provide living wages, stable and predictable hours, advancement opportunities, and safety and a sense of purpose and dignity in one’s work. There are many different factors contributing to what makes a good job. The answer is not the same for everyone. Caretaking obligations, commuting restraints, personal goals and interests, preferred work environment, these are all just some of the things that impact one’s experience with work. Our Job Placement Team and case managers know this, and as result take an individualized approach to help each member find the best employment opportunity to fit their needs.
THE PROCESS
The job placement process at Hot Bread Kitchen is highly collaborative and goes far beyond just sharing open job listings with members. During training, our job placement team and case managers meet with the culinary instructors to share their insight on each person, their kitchen strengths and challenges, their personality, leadership and teamwork skills, and anything else that may help inform what types of employment opportunities would be best for each individual. Our Culinary Instructors come from top restaurants throughout the world, and know first hand what it takes to thrive in a professional kitchen. For example, Culinary Fundamentals instructor Chef Barbara has a professional cooking background in fine dining, including working as the Chef de Cuisine at a Michelin-starred Italian fine dining restaurant in Brazil. Her professional expertise and experience working closely with each member brings an invaluable component to the job placement process, and helps us find the best candidate for each job opportunity.
“Our Employer Partners know they can just tell us what they need and we are going to do the work to find the right person.”
— Julia Liburdi, Employer Partnerships Manager
Unlike a headhunter or job placement agency that only looks at your resume, our program instructors have a much more holistic understanding of how a person can thrive in the workplace after close observation during their training. Our team then works with members to help build their resumes and prepares them for interviews with multiple rounds of mock practice to make sure each member is as prepared and comfortable as possible. The team then uses all the information they have collected, along with each member’s personal preferences, to connect them to job opportunities with our employer partners that are a good fit for both the member and the employer.
OUR INDIVIDUALIZED, MEMBER-CENTRIC APPROACH
The individualized approach at Hot Bread Kitchen is what makes job placement here so unique. Our employer partners know that the people we’ve sent to them have already been vetted for their needs such as schedules, type of work, work culture, and more, removing a significant amount of time and labor normally spent screening a candidate. For our members, they are able to enter the job search knowing that they are not alone and that their wants and needs as well as their strengths and challenges are being considered. Throughout the process, our team meets with each individual member to identify all of these factors and find a situation that works best for them.
Job Placements
“My schedule is perfect to drop my kids off at school and pick them up. It’s literally a dream job, like I’m set. I’m very thankful to be here.”
Patricia (She/Her), Culinary Fundamentals Graduate
Originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Hot Bread Kitchen member Patricia felt drawn to a career in the culinary industry having grown up selling food with her father out of their home. In New York, she was eager to find a career where she could pursue her interests while still having the flexibility she needed as a mother. Through our job placement team, she was connected to her new job as a prep cook with Restaurant Associates in the corporate cafeteria of one of their top tech clients. In this role Patricia has a set schedule that allows her to get her kids to and from school on time while still having the opportunity to expand on her culinary skills and grow her career.
“[At my job] they have compassion for their staff. If someone makes a mistake, there is no screaming, you don’t get any attitude like you see in kitchens on TV. They see you make a mistake, and they just give you the opportunity to fix it.”
Gladys (She/Her), First Course NYC Graduate
Lifelong New Yorker Gladys had always dreamed of becoming a chef, but felt that culinary school was financially inaccessible. In addition to free training at Hot Bread Kitchen, the weekly stipend gave Gladys the freedom to take the time to work towards her goals without worrying about her finances. After completing her training in our kitchen at Chelsea Market, Gladys continued on to on-the-job training* with First Course partner Lilia, an acclaimed Italian restaurant in Williamsburg. Seeing her potential and growth throughout on-the-job training, Lilia brought Gladys on as a permanent member of the staff as Garde Manger. In this role, Gladys has found a work environment that she describes as a second family. She explained, “they have compassion for their staff. If someone makes a mistake, there is no screaming, you don’t get any attitude like you see in kitchens on TV. They see you make a mistake, and they just give you the opportunity to fix it.”
**First Course NYC includes 6 weeks of on-the-job training with select restaurant partners. Our team works carefully to help make the best matches for each member and each restaurant partner. Participants who prove they are committed, dependable employees during their apprenticeship will have the opportunity to advance to become a permanent employee.
“What made me interested in a career in the culinary industry was the idea of making personal connections with people through food, so I knew I wanted to work with a small business.”
Bry (They/Them), Culinary Fundamentals Graduate
A graduate from our Culinary Fundamentals program at one of our outpost locations in Brooklyn, Bry came to Hot Bread Kitchen looking to start a career with smaller, community-oriented food businesses. After sharing these hopes with the job placement team, we were then able to connect them to our employer partner Starrlight Pizza, a micro-bakery and pizzeria based in Bushwick, Brooklyn. In their new role, they’ve not only expanded their culinary skills, but have had the opportunity to learn and work on other aspects of running a food business, such as copy editing the website and menu, and helping to put together promotional flyers.
Owner and founder of Starrlight Pizza Emanuel first connected to Hot Bread Kitchen through our community partners at GrowNYC. Emanuel shared that Starrlight decided to hire with Hot Bread Kitchen because, “we thought it would be great to have a partnering organization that is already connected to qualified people who are looking for work. It is great to know that someone went to Hot Bread Kitchen for 5 weeks and they are reliable and willing to show up.”
