Hotel / Hospitality Management

Directorate of Technical Education conducts hotel management and catering technology entrance exam for admission in hotel management course.
There are 100 questions in the exam from the following topics-
Current Affairs and General Awareness: Latest Events, Sports and Games, Geography, Tourist Spots, Aptitude for Service Sector, Business and Trade, Countries and Currencies.
Numerical Ability and Scientific Aptitude: Data / Table analysis, Calculation of fraction, percentages, square roots, Health and Nutrition, Basic Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics, Profit and Loss, Simple and Compound Interest, Graph, Pie-Chart and Bar Diagram.
English Language: Adverbs, Adjectives, antonyms, Synonyms, Phrases and Idioms, Sentence Improvement and Reading Comprehension.
Reasoning and Logical Deduction: Geometrical designs and Identification, Numerical Series Completion, Inference from 4 Sentences, Odd One Out and Numerical Pattern.

Hi,
STEP is Systematic Training and Education Program by Oberoi Hotels and Resorts.
In STEP program the candidate learns while working in any one of the Oberoi's properties.
Oberoi provides a degree of Bachelors of Hotel management from Indira Gandhi National Open University.
So, STEP is basically a distance course when learning happens inside the hotel and there is no formal classroom based study.
On the other hand, IHM-Aurangabad provides a full time Bachelor's in Hotel management. The student learns in the classroom, the practicals happen in a systematic way and the students are sent for Industrial Training for 4-5 months in various hotels where they gain practical experience.
In my opinion IHM, Aurangabad is better than STEP as the learning is systematic, a fixed curriculum is followed. There are managerial subjects that are taught by experienced professors.

Executive Chef (aka Group Chef) - Only the largest establishments have an executive chef, salary range around Rs. 1.5-2 lakh.
Head chef- The head chef generally controls the whole kitchen, from managing kitchen staff and controlling kitchen costs to liaising with suppliers and creating the menus. Salary scale range 1-1.5 lakh.
Sous Chef- The role will typically overlap with the head chefs, but the sous chef will tend to be more hands on and actively involved in the day-to-day running of the kitchen, the sous chef will also fill in for the head chef when they are off, salary range 50 k to 1 lakh.
Commis- A commis is a junior member of staff that works under a chef de partie in order to learn the ins and outs of a specific station, these are often people that have recently completed, or are still undertaking, formal culinary training. Salary scale is around 25k.
Dishwasher/porters- asks include basic food preparation such as washing salad and peeling potatoes, in addition to basic cleaning duties. The person responsible for washing dishes and cutlery. Salary scale between 10-20k.

Entrepreneurship is an exciting step for any individual as well as a huge risk that one can take for a career. Hospitality is one sector that has ample entrepreneurship opportunities as this is a people management sector. Customer service allows you to change the approach of the services that you provide to your guests in a manner that you fill best. The many option of entrepreneurship depend on the experience that you would have had in the industry as that give you the basic understanding of the functionality of the department. Some good options could be:
Related to food services- Restaurants / Food chains / Food outlets / Franchises, all these will give you the option to excel in the field of food production introduce your own recipe or menu. Although this does require investment but if done well the benefits are great.
Travel management- Travel facilities such as ticket booking, hotel packages, leisure packages, etc. These are all the various facilities that can be provided in this business.
Catering facility- The knowledge of food production can initiate a business of catering. This can be at a small scale that involves even tiffin services or large scale that offers marriage and event catering.
These can prove to be very good initiatives for the people aspiring for entrepreneurship. One just needs to be careful in analyzing the investment and the returns that you plan to make so that you do not face any losses.

The IIHM eCHAT for the IIHM centers across the country is a national exam.
It is a little different than other exam as it is computerized base exam that has multiple choice questions.
There is no special eligibility criteria apart from being 12th pass with 50% pass marks and English as a main subject.
There is no negative marking hence one can relax and attempt as many questions as you wish and time allows you.
The number of question are 60 to be completed in 45 mins and as it is computerized one must practice a lot of question papers to be able to attempt maximum questions.
Focus on the easy scoring sections such as English (practice grammar, true false and fill the blanks type of questions, general knowledge (the current affairs and newspapers will be a great source to score well in these sections), other sections will require specific concept application based preparation.

Sous chefs are second-in-command in kitchens, reporting to the head chef, overseeing the preparation and cooking of food at restaurants, diners, and other operations where somebody can get a bite to eat. Sous chefs make sure that a kitchen is a well-oiled machine, preparing food, managing the kitchen staff to make sure food prepared quickly and as delicious as possible, and enforcing food safety standards.
Experience is the key. Most sous chefs start in other positions in the kitchen, from the dishwasher, cook, etc., and learn the skills they need on the job to move up. However, some will gain experience through training at a Hotel Management/ Catering school, with 2 and 4-year degrees are available. Sous chefs looking for more advanced training can get involved in apprenticeships through culinary schools and other organizations. These typically last two years.
Tasks performed by Sous Chef are:
1. Assist management of food preparation, planning, and production.
2. Substitute for the executive chef or line cooks when off-duty or during staff shortages.
3. Supervise kitchen staff.
Their pay is generally in the range of 1.5-2.5 LPA. They are generally full-time workers and act as chefs in master chef's absence.