You can progress in your career as a Chef in the following steps:

1. When you join a hotel or a restaurant, you spend most of the time as a part of kitchen staff and coordinating with other cooks. You will be doing a lot of prep work like cutting vegetables, helping in the cleanliness and all. You are also required to assist in food preparation and help in deciding menu items for the kitchen.It appears like internship work, but you have to do this in order to get going.

2. After an year or so, you get more prominent role. Normally you will be required to handle one section of the kitchen or cooking specific kinds of meals. You will also start assisting freshers so that they can get started with the work. This time you will start to meet your clients as well. The managerial role comes in to the picture.

3. As your expertise grow, you become more proficient in the cooking. You develop certain specialties and prepare them according to your skills. The administration work also becomes important after 3-4 years of experience. You will have to take care of the trainee Chefs and guide them in all the situations.

4. Once you become assistant to the Head Chef, your role becomes very prominent. You work on a number of planning assignments and do the research work to come up with new recipes. You assist the Head Chef in almost all the major activities.

5. After becoming Head Chef your responsibilities are many. As a Head Chef you need to ensure everything in the kitchen. It's like the whole kitchen is under your control. Whether it's supervising the staff, planning the menu items, planning expenses and operations costs, or communicating effectively with clients - you will be required to do many tasks. But it's fun. You will get to learn so many things. Also, the job will bring a lot of satisfaction in monetary and non monetary terms. Head Chef is not the end point in the career of a Chef but a starting point to excel in this field.