I am starting to look for a PT/maybe FT job at local bakeries in town. What is the going rate for a decorator? I have a few meetings set up in the next few weeks at several bakeries. I have a few years expereince (working from home as a hobby). I was just wondering so I know what to reply when asked, how much do you expect to be paid? I live in North Carolina if that helps.
Also, what do you use for a portfolio? I have a book filled with 4x6 photos of several types of cakes, it is like a gaint scrapbook 12x12 pages. Is that what most of you use?

I was told if you applied at a bakery the range in anywhere from minimum wage to $13/ hr - probably depends on experience and speed....oh yeah, did I mention that they will probably have you frost & decorate a cake as part of your interview?? And usually these places are looking for SPEED.

They crank 'em out fast so no time to be creative or a perfectionist. Kind of why I decided I would never work in the local supermarket bakery, lol. I like to take my time and tinker......I wouldn't last a minute.

Good luck to you though - sure hope it all works out!

PS - when the local offered me a job, it was as decorator/deli supervisor and it was STILL only $1.50 above minimum, plus I had to work all Friday/Saturdays (late, late on Fri to complete orders) in addition to all holidays. My 4 little ones were still little so that was also a deal breaker.

thanks for the information. I am hoping this might be a little different. I am only appling at local bakeries (not the chain stores). They focus on baking and speciality cakes. Maybe they will let me play a little too. Who knows. I will be ready to frost a cake. Thanks for the advice!

I interviewed at one place & chicklette, a worker bee, gave me a chocolate cake and stiff white icing. That's the only time I was set up to be sabatoged in an interview.

They used these huge 16 or 20 inch piping bags filled with the different colored icing--they shared those bags if they needed that color. They were heavy. Make one ginormous bag of icing for the day?

I was coming from a place where on the weekends we worked 15 hour days kid you not --endless decorating. Hefting a big heavy bag like that could kill yah. But anyway it was a different type of shop.

Local bakeries want speed--they do more art but speed is essential.

I don't mean an Eiffel Tower cake in twenty minutes--but there's a great recent thread about this here somewhere...brb

A great topic on speed and the owner's mindset.

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-654208.html

I've worked in two grocery stores and two higher end local production bakeries. Speed is a factor in each--you have to be able to decorate well but also fast. One of the grocery stores had time standards which for single layer cakes was 80 in 60 minutes--yikes--I couldn't do it which is why I got out. The local bakeries were much better, but we still had to do a lot of cakes in one day. The advantage of working in a bakery is that you learn the tricks to make yourself faster--and it is much faster to decorate 10 of the same type of cake at one time than to decorate one cake at a time.

It's been a couple of years, but as a pastry chef (mostly decorator) at a local bakery I made 9.00/hour with 5 years of experience--and that was pretty standard for my area. Its going to vary a great deal depending upon where you are.