Whether you need front desk coverage or want to find an experienced hotel manager for your property, hiring the right person can seem like an impossible task.
The good news is that onboarding employees who bring excellence to your hospitality organization is possible.
The bad news is that it’s incredibly time consuming in today’s market, which is why you should consider partnering with a professional hospitality recruiting agency.
Challenges in Hospitality Recruiting
What makes hiring an especially daunting task for hotel HR departments and managers?
First, the high turnover rate in the hospitality sector means you’re almost always looking to fill one or more positions.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports turnover rates for the entire industry are relatively high, with around 6 percent of staff in most organizations leaving positions every month.
To keep up with the constant rate of hiring, hotels must have in-house HR reps fully dedicated to recruiting (which can be expensive) or work with a hospitality recruiter.
Another challenge for hotel HR is in managing the entire recruiting process.
Just getting the job posting in front of the right candidates can be difficult, and once resumes and applications start pouring in, staff must sort through them to identify potential hires.
Then there are interview processes, background checks and multiple other steps before a hiring decision can be made — all of which take valuable time and resources from the day-to-day management of existing hotel staff.
Finally, hospitality recruitment requires that you search for candidates at all levels with very specific skills sets — and those skills are often in high-demand across all kinds of sectors.
The candidates that demonstrate skills such as attention to detail, excellent customer service, team work, and creative problem-solving may be able to choose between positions, making it necessary for hotels to act quickly to land the best applicants.
In some cases, hotels also need candidates with a specific knowledge base.
Front desk and concierge applicants cannot just be good at solving problems; they should be able to suggest local attractions, dining establishments, and other resources to fully serve guests.
How a Hospitality Recruiter Can Help
A professional recruiting agency with experience in the hospitality industry can help you meet and overcome all these challenges.
Here are some ways a hotel recruiter can help your company:
- Recruiting agencies are always looking for top talent, which means they often have a list of skilled candidates ready as soon as you need them. That cuts down on the time between a position opening and your ability to fill it.
- The main job for professional recruiters is locating talent and matching applicants to positions. They aren’t also dealing with existing employees and day-to-day HR management, so they are better positioned to spend the time required on finding the right people.
- Good recruiting agencies put processes in place to assess candidates before they set up interviews with the hiring organization. That means applicants would likely have gone through first-level interviews, and someone with hiring knowledge would have thoroughly reviewed their resume.
The result of professional intervention from an outside agency is that your staff only interviews candidates who are truly prepared for the job.
Working with a hospitality recruiter ensures a more consistent supply of high-quality staff for your hotel, so you can concentrate on daily management and being competitive on the market.
