How people actually get hired
KIA does not hire mashgichim and does not place them anywhere. Neither does AKO. Hiring is done by the certification agencies and by the establishments they supervise, and it is worth understanding how that works before you spend money on training.
What KIA does run is a job board. Employers post their own openings on KIA Jobs (opens in a new tab) at no charge, and an application goes to whoever posted the listing. KIA does not screen applicants and has no say in who an agency approves. The board is new, so the useful thing to do there today is set up an email alert. It will tell you when something is posted near you.
Most mashgichim are approved by a certification agency and then assigned or recommended to establishments that agency covers. Some are hired directly by a restaurant, a caterer or a hotel, but even then the agency has to be satisfied with the person before it will let them supervise under its symbol.
Before you take a course, find the agency that certifies in your area, write to their office, and tell them you are interested in the work. What they say is the only answer that applies to you, because requirements differ from one agency to the next and sometimes from one role to another inside the same agency.
Most agencies want formal training before they will approve anybody, and many of them use the AKO Mashgiach Course for it. Finishing a course does not make you approved. The agency decides that, and it can withdraw the decision later. Be careful of anyone who tells you a course will get you a job.
What to ask when you contact an agency
- What training do you want to see before you would consider approving somebody?
- Do you run your own edition of the AKO Mashgiach Course?
- Is there work in this area at the moment, and is it full-time, part-time, or a few hours around deliveries?
- What happens after the training? What does your approval process involve?
What the work is actually like
A mashgiach stands in a professional kitchen while it is under service pressure, usually as the only person in the room thinking about kosher rules, and has to hold the line without wrecking his relationship with the staff.
The ones who are good at it treat kosher problems as questions of Jewish law rather than as criticism of anybody. If a cook picks up the wrong knife, a good mashgiach does not raise his voice. He quietly hands over a kashered one and asks whether they would mind using that instead. The problem is solved and nobody has been told off.
One senior figure in the field describes it as commanding respect rather than demanding it, and that difference is most of the job. A mashgiach who walks in looking for people to catch out makes enemies. One who walks in trying to set the kitchen up to succeed builds a team.
The glamour is zero and the patience is everything. People who go in knowing that tend to stay.
What it pays
We do not publish figures, because we do not have reliable ones. Pay depends on the agency, the country, the kind of establishment, and whether a role is full-time, part-time, or a few hours around a delivery. The agency you are speaking to knows its own market.
Where to start
If an agency is already interested in you, they will tell you which edition of the course to take and approve you to start it. That is the only route that can lead to an AKO Mashgiach ID card.
If you are not there yet, start with the part of the job you can practice today. Checking produce for insects is one of the things a mashgiach does most often, and agencies teach it hands-on because getting it right takes repetition. Six rinses is common before a case of romaine is clean. Our course on it is free, takes under an hour, and asks for nothing but an email address.
