Cook Job Description: Template for Line, Prep and Fast-Food Cooks (2026)
"Cook" covers five different jobs with five different pay rates, and posting the wrong one is the most common reason a kitchen ad gets no response. Below is a copy-paste cook job description template with variant sections for line cooks, prep cooks and dishwashers, the requirements worth keeping, and what it costs to reach kitchen staff on social, from Boostpoint's campaign data.
What a cook does — and which cook you are hiring
The BLS separates cooks into five categories with visibly different medians, all May 2024: private household cooks at $21.41 an hour, restaurant cooks at $17.71, institution and cafeteria cooks at $17.53, short order cooks at $17.12 and fast food cooks at $14.50. That $3.21 spread between a restaurant cook and a fast-food cook is not a rounding difference — it is a different job, a different candidate and a different ad.
So before writing anything, decide which one you are hiring and put it in the title. "Cook" as a job title competes with every kitchen in your city; "Line Cook — Grill, PM Shift" competes only with the ones hiring the same person. No formal education is typically required for any of these roles, though employers may prefer a high school diploma, and roughly 432,200 openings are projected each year over the decade — a market where speed and specificity beat a longer requirements list.
Cook job description template
Copy this into your ATS or job board, replace the bracketed fields, and use the variant section below that matches the role. Order it the way kitchen staff read: station, shift, pay, then everything else.
Job title
[Line / Prep / Short Order] Cook — [Station], [AM / PM] Shift, [Full-time / Part-time]
Summary
[Restaurant name] in [city, state] is hiring a [line] cook for [PM] service on [grill / sauté / fry]. Pay is $[XX.XX]–$[XX.XX]/hour depending on experience. Shifts are [Tue–Sat, 3pm–11pm], scheduled [two] weeks ahead, [with two consecutive days off]. We run [X] covers on a busy night with a kitchen team of [X].
Responsibilities
- Set up, run and break down the [grill / sauté / fry / pantry] station
- Cook to spec and to ticket times during service; call and respond on the pass
- Follow recipes and portion standards consistently across every plate
- Handle, label, date and store product to food-safety standards
- Complete prep lists and par counts before service
- Keep the station and walk-in clean; complete closing checklists
- Communicate 86s and shortages to the [chef / kitchen manager] immediately
Requirements
- Able to work [6–10] hour shifts on your feet in a hot kitchen and lift [50] lbs
- Available [Tue–Sat evenings], including [Friday and Saturday]
- [State or county] food handler card, or willingness to obtain one within [30] days — we pay for it
- Reliable transport for a [3pm] start in [neighborhood]
Preferred
- [1+] year on a line in a [high-volume / scratch] kitchen
- Experience on [grill / sauté / fry]
- ServSafe or equivalent certification
- Conversational [language]
Schedule and pay
- $[XX.XX]–$[XX.XX]/hour based on station and experience
- [8-hour] shifts, [5] days a week, [two consecutive days off]
- [Overtime available / paid weekly]
- [Shift meal provided]
Benefits
- [Health coverage at 30 hours a week]
- [Paid time off after X months]
- [Food handler card and ServSafe paid]
- [Path to lead line cook, sous chef]
- [Employee discount and free shift meal]
Variant sections: line, prep and dishwasher
Line cook
Name the station in the title — grill, sauté, fry, pantry — and say the covers. Experienced line cooks judge a kitchen by volume and ticket times, and a posting that gives both reads as written by someone who has stood on a line. Restaurant cooks had a $17.71 median in May 2024; if you pay above it, say the number rather than the word "competitive". Mention whether you run scratch or assembly, because that decides who wants the job.
Prep cook
This is a daytime job and that is the selling point. Lead with the hours — "6am–2pm, home before school pickup" does more work than any duty list. Prep is where kitchens most often hire without experience, so say so explicitly and describe the training path onto the line. Requirements should be knife-comfort, reliability and the food handler card, and nothing else.
Dishwasher
Dishwashers fall inside the BLS group for food and beverage serving and related workers, which had a median of $15.24 an hour, or $31,710 a year, in 2025 across 5,143,000 people employed; the handbook does not publish a separate dishwasher median. Post it as its own job rather than as a line in the cook ad, keep the requirements to availability and physical ability, and state the shift end time — the honest question every applicant has is how late they will be there. One thing worth stating explicitly: if your kitchen shares in the tip pool, say so, because it materially changes the pay and it is a genuine advantage over the restaurant down the road that does not.
Requirements: what to keep, what to drop
Kitchen postings tend to fail on the same three lines. Here is what each requirement is doing to your applicant flow.
| Requirement | What to know |
|---|---|
| The station, named | Add it. "Cook" is a category; grill, sauté, fry and pantry are jobs. Cooks search and self-select by station, and naming it is the cheapest specificity available to you. |
| Culinary school or a degree | Drop it for line and prep roles. No formal education is typically required for cooks, and requiring a credential in a market with roughly 432,200 annual openings buys you nothing but a longer vacancy. |
| Food handler card | Keep, make it trainable. Requiring a current card removes people who would get one in a week. "Or willing to obtain within 30 days — we pay" keeps the pipeline open. |
| Years of experience | Use sparingly and state what it is for. For a scratch kitchen it is real; for a fast-food or assembly line it is usually a habit. If you will train, write "we will train" in the ad, not just in your head. |
| Physical requirements | Include them. Heat, standing and lifting are honest and do not deter people who already do this work. |
| Résumé upload | Drop it. Cooks apply from a phone between shifts. Take name, phone, station experience and availability; get everything else at the trail shift. |
The highest-value addition to almost any kitchen posting is the schedule, stated exactly — days, start time, end time and whether the two days off are consecutive. In a category where nearly everyone advertises the same wage band, the schedule is the differentiator you actually control.
What it costs to reach kitchen staff on social
We do not publish a restaurant or kitchen family in our benchmark, and we would rather say so than lend you a number from a neighbouring category. What we publish is the whole distribution: across 891 campaigns and 1,334 campaign-months in our 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark, the median campaign cost $13.88 per applicant and the volume-weighted average was $8.02, with the middle half of campaigns landing between $6.48 and $29.74.
The mechanic transfers even where the number does not. Post-click conversion explains about 70% of the variation in cost per applicant; what the ad auction charges explains about 18%. Campaigns where more than 35% of clickers finished the form delivered applicants at $1.61 while campaigns under 5% delivered them at $53.77. For a kitchen role that means a short form, the shift stated in the ad, and no document upload. The restaurant-level view is in our cost per hire for restaurants breakdown.
If you are hiring cooks rather than describing the job, the recruiting side — where kitchen staff actually are, what the ad has to say, and what an applicant costs to reach — is on our line cook and kitchen staff recruiting page.
Writing the ad version
The template above is for your ATS and careers page. The advertisement that runs on Facebook or Instagram is much shorter and answers three questions in the first two lines: how much, what shift, where. Something like: "Line Cook — Grill. $19–$22/hr. Tue–Sat, 3pm–11pm, two days off together. [Restaurant], [Neighborhood]. We pay for your food handler card. Apply in 60 seconds, no résumé."
Then two or three knockout questions on the form — station experience, evening availability, distance — and nothing else. Every added field costs completions, and each screening question buys precision with volume. The mechanics are in our candidate conversion rate guide, and the writing method is in job ad copywriting.
Frequently asked questions
What are the main duties of a cook?
Setting up and running a station, cooking to spec and to ticket times, following recipes and portion standards, handling and storing product safely, completing prep lists and par counts, and cleaning the station and closing down. The balance shifts by role: a prep cook spends the day on production before service, while a line cook spends it on the pass during it.
How much do cooks make?
The BLS median for all cooks was $17.19 an hour, or $35,760 a year, in 2024. By type, May 2024 medians were $21.41 for private household cooks, $17.71 for restaurant cooks, $17.53 for institution and cafeteria cooks, $17.12 for short order cooks and $14.50 for fast food cooks. Posting the right category matters as much as posting the right number.
What is the difference between a line cook and a prep cook?
A line cook works a station during service, cooking to order against ticket times. A prep cook works before service, producing the components the line uses — breaking down product, portioning, making sauces and stocks. Prep shifts are usually daytime and are the most common entry point into a kitchen, with a training path onto the line.
Do cooks need any certification?
No formal education is typically required, though employers may prefer a high school diploma. Many states and counties require a food handler card, and some kitchens prefer ServSafe or an equivalent for lead roles. Both are inexpensive and quick to obtain, so treat them as things you pay for after hiring rather than as gates that shrink your applicant pool.
Other job description templates
See all job description templates — free, editable templates for frontline, trades, healthcare and warehouse roles.
Hiring cooks?
The job description is the document; the ad is the thing that gets read. We write it, run it where kitchen staff are actually scrolling, and report what each applicant cost — cost per applicant, not cost per hire.
Pay, employment, outlook and cook-type wage figures: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, Cooks (last modified August 28, 2025; 2024 wage and employment data, May 2024 medians by cook type) and Food and Beverage Serving and Related Workers (last modified August 27, 2026; 2025 data), both read August 28, 2026. Tip-pool statements: U.S. Department of Labor, Tip Regulations under the FLSA (dol.gov/agencies/whd/flsa/tips), read August 28, 2026 — summarized here, not legal advice. Cost-per-applicant figures: Boostpoint 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark — 891 campaigns, 1,334 campaign-months, advertising costs only. Cost per applicant is not cost per hire. Last updated August 2026.