Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a food technician and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.

A Food Technician assists the food scientists with research by testing and examining food products while ensuring that the food is compliant with the Food and Drug Administration as well as help in improving the food products on the market. This position also develops better methods to package foods and helps discover ways to process foods that preserve the nutrient levels.

The primary responsibilities include improving food quality, ordering supplies as well as keeping, conducting tests to detect the coloring, nutrients, moisture levels and other portions of the food items, analyzing tests results and compiling presentations on the material, monitoring the use of additives.

Core Skills Required to be a Food Technician

Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.

Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.

A food technician should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.

Listening Skills:

Listening Skills are a practical ability to accurately receive and interpret messages you receive during the communication process to ensure flow and accuracy are maintained.

A Food Technician ought to have outstanding listening skills that lead to a better understanding at the workplace between the management and the staff, customer satisfaction in return yielding greater productivity with fewer mistakes and increased sharing of information in a more creative and innovative way.

Knowledge of Company Processes:

Knowledge of Company Processes is the in-depth understanding of a collection of related, structured activities that serve a particular goal for a group of customers or clients who are valuable to the enterprise.

A Food Technician ought to maintain consistency across the daily processed while keeping a keen eye on the overall plan of the organization by ensuring the company processes are performed and followed.

Equal Opportunity and Diversity:

Equal Opportunity and Diversity means having employees from a wide range of background that includes different ages, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious belief, educational background, physical ability and treating them equally.

A Food Technician is required by the law to create a workplace free from discrimination and harassment to its employees as well as understand and adhere to the rights and responsibilities under the human rights and antidiscrimination law.

Ethical Behavior:

Ethical Behavior is acting in policies that are consistent with what the society and individuals typically think are good morals or values.

A Food Technician should put emphasis on ethical behavior as best as he does to performance because it's as important as high morale and teamwork to all individuals who are committed to keeping the company values as well as speaking up when such costs are broken.

Competitiveness:

Competitiveness is the skill of being able to compete as a team or a company with other enterprises in the same line of entrepreneurship and emerging as the winner.

A Food Technician needs creativity in setting the pace for the organization on the policies and factors that determine the level of productivity of their enterprise against their competitors leading to the growth of the business and the income.

Role Awareness:

Role Awareness is the ability to be informed of your role in a given environment as well as understand the expectations placed on a position and to see how they are met apparently.

A Food Technician must assess, measure and quantify his employee's awareness of their roles to see if they are transparent about what is required of each of them and review what kind of results they are delivering from their understanding.

Time Management:

Time Management is the capacity for an individual to assign specific time slots to activities as per their importance and urgency to make the best possible use of time.

A Food Technician must schedule each task within a stipulated period for each employee and ensure all the tasks are completed promptly thus actually teaching the staff the value of time and how to utilize it for the interest of the business and their growth.

Intercultural Competence:

Intercultural Competence is the knowledge and skills to successfully interact with people from other ethnic, religious, cultural, national and geographic groups.

A Food Technician should have a high degree of intercultural competence that enables him to have successful interactions with people from different groups as well as train his employees to be sensitive to the cultural differences and be willing to modify their behavior as a sign of respect for each other.

Process Improvement:

Process Improvement is the creation of new processes or improving the existing ones that will work and take your corporation to the next level.

A Food Technician must maintain the continuous improvements in the workplace that are favorable to the current investors, potential investors, and stock owners while working with methods that can serve as a foundation for future business decisions causing a profitable growth.

Research:

Research is the ability to stay updated on the latest trends in different fields as per your concern or the concern of your company or business.

A Food Technician ought to stay up to date on the latest trends in hiring, leading, retention, technology and much more by using the newest research methods that allow him to make better decisions and improve productivity.

Hard Skills Required to be a Food Technician

Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.

Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.

A food technician should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.

Food Technician: Hard skills list

Analytical
Administration
Biology
Building
Chemistry
Computed Aided Design
Computer
Construction
Design
Engineering
Electronics
Food Production
Geography
Innovative
Listening
Machine
Marketing
Math
Mechanical
MS Excel
MS Word
Physics
Public
Problem-Solving
Research
Safety
Sales
Science
Security
Spreadsheet
System Analysis
System Evaluation
Technical
Technology Design
Time Management
3D design software

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