Hotel management jobs are now more competitive than ever. Not so long ago, if you were a graduate of UNLV or Cornell, you were pretty much a lock for any position. Today, however, schools like Widener University, Penn State, Michigan, and a host of other major programs are churning out potential hospitality professionals.
With so many new faces in the industry, the competition for executive-level positions is even more fierce. Those high-level positions are hard enough to find, let alone win when you are faced with a big field of candidates. Add in the fact more people are willing to relocate for the right position, and that competition is ever fiercer. Even so, there are a few things you can do to make sure you stand out from the crowd.
Know the Hotel’s Challenges
This information can be hard to come by if you do not have an inside source. To that point, it is why it is very beneficial to be working with a hotel recruiting company like JDI. Hotel recruiters are well versed in all the issues the property is currently facing. They will share that knowledge with you so you can develop a potential game plan to present during an interview.
Some of the potential challenges faced when starting a new position would be:
- How can you reduce employee turnover?
- How can you help to improve liquor/food/labor costs?
- What out of the box ideas do you have to help improve the online presence of the property?
Reducing Employee Turnover
It is no secret turnover in the hospitality industry is almost double that of virtually every other type of business in the country. Many of the positions offer low pay and hard work, something that quite frankly does not appeal to a large sector of the population. The challenge hospitality managers face is in how to make these individuals want to actually come to work. How can you make their job enjoyable? How can you keep your staff motivated?
Improving Waste
Be it wasted labor, food, or beverages, there is generally a significant amount of waste in this industry. You must be able to control the controllables. Take the time to actually visit the property during a function or check out the hotel bar/restaurant and make observations about obvious wasteful procedures and/or habits you see in place. Then, come up with ideas on how to improve these areas. This not only showcases your management capabilities but also shows you actually cared enough to take the time to investigate the operation to see how you could improve it directly.
Developing an Online Presence
While old-school marketing is still relevant, it may not be for much longer. Consumers today rely on their smartphones and tablets for virtually everything they do, which includes booking rooms and researching hotels and restaurants to spend their travel dollars. Regardless of your department, there will be ways to help develop the online presence of the hotel to help bring every facet of the operation to the forefront of consumers attention when they are online.
While social media and online advertising are the predominant ways hotels are drawing in new guests, the actual medium itself is barely tapped. Hotels are still not dedicating enough focus and resources to promoting themselves online. The manager that comes aboard with a realistic plan of attack can end up being a superstar for that organization.
Are you looking for that next great opportunity? If you are not working with hotel recruiters, you may be missing out on dozens of possible opportunities available to you, which is why you should be working with Joseph David International, one of the top-ranked hotel recruiters in the country. For more information about our candidate services or to see some of the opportunities we currently have available for executive hotel managers, click here.
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