The Complete Hotel Hiring Process: Your Ultimate Guide to Building a Stellar Hospitality Team

Executive summary

• The hotel hiring process involves several steps, like creating detailed job descriptions, advertising job openings, conducting interviews, and assessing the best fit for the role.
• Having a thoughtful hiring strategy from recruitment to retention will make it easier for you to hire talent that fits your team’s needs and stays long-term.
• Building a positive workplace culture with strong management strategies can attract talent, promote staff retention, and reduce strain on your hiring team by keeping roles filled.
• Using a staffing solution like Qwick can help you connect with professional hospitality talent to fill open shifts in your hotel fast.

Perfecting the hotel hiring process

The hospitality industry has annual turnover rates that hover around 80%, placing consistent strain on hotel managers to fill roles. Short staffing leads to less efficient operations, lagging customer service, and potential financial losses for the business as a whole. This high turnover means perfecting the hiring process is crucial for all hotel managers to keep a robust staff capable of meeting guest expectations.

However, the hiring process can be time-consuming, as it involves preparing detailed job descriptions, advertising across platforms, screening applicants, and assessing who would be the best candidate. With so much work involved in the hiring process, it’s important for hiring managers to get the right candidate the first time so that they don’t have to repeat the process to fill the role all over again.

Thoughtful hiring strategies to build a strong team can help you reduce turnover, relieve stress on your hiring manager, and make your overall operations more efficient.

Understanding the hotel hiring process

Building a stellar hospitality team means developing a hiring process that attracts stellar talent. A successful process is comprehensive and detailed so that you can find the candidate who is the best possible fit without having to maintain consistent, time-consuming search efforts.

A successful hiring process involves the following steps:

• Preparing job descriptions and requirements – Creating detailed, accurate job descriptions that specify employee requirements and company benefits is crucial for attracting qualified, suitable candidates.
• Advertising job openings – Using job posting platforms like Indeed, LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, and others will allow you to reach a wide audience of candidates.
• Screening resumes and conducting initial interviews – Screening resumes for relevant skills will help you narrow down your candidate pool for the role you need to fill.
• Conducting in-depth interviews and assessments – In-depth interviews and assessments allow you to learn more about each candidate and determine whether they will be a good fit for your hotel.
• Making final selections and extending job offers – Once you have all the information, you should weigh all the potential factors to select the right fit for your hotel’s skill needs and company culture.

Understanding how to navigate these steps will allow you to choose qualified candidates who will best fit your hotel’s culture and skill gaps.

Crafting an effective hotel recruitment process

Recruiting quality staff to fill roles is essential for smooth hotel operations. The following steps are crucial in the recruitment process.

Identifying staffing needs and defining roles

The first step in an effective hiring process is identifying where your hotel needs support to begin with. Assess your staffing needs by looking at gaps in your operations—where are systems not running as efficiently as they should be?

In your assessment, ask questions like:

• Do lines get too long at the hotel front desk during peak check-in hours?
• Are maintenance requests taking longer to be fulfilled than they should be?
• Are rooms not fully clean by the time new guests are ready to check in?
• Are guests stuck waiting for food during morning breakfasts?

Using your answers to these questions, you can start identifying areas of need and define roles where your team may need more support. This information will guide positions you should post, whether custodial services, front desk staff, or kitchen staff, so you can recruit talent with role-specific skills.

Developing an attractive employer brand

Building an attractive brand has an important role in finding talent that wants to work for you—seventy-five percent of active job seekers are likely to apply for a job if the employer actively manages its brand. Meanwhile, 50% of candidates say they wouldn’t work for a company with a bad reputation.

With a limited talent pool in the hospitality industry, it’s essential to make your brand stand out amongst all the other potential options by demonstrating the value candidates can gain from working with you over another company.

Ways to develop an attractive employer brand include:

• Maintaining a strong social media presence that emphasizes your brand’s culture
• Displaying a positive workplace culture and benefits of working with your hotel on social media
• Highlighting your unique value offerings, like employee compensation and benefits, in job posts
• Showcasing testimonials from satisfied employees in ads, on your website, and social media
• Creating ad campaigns centered around the benefits of working with or interacting with your hotel

Utilizing various recruitment channels

Your recruitment methods should span multiple channels. Casting as wide of a net as possible will allow you to connect with more potential candidates, give you more options to screen from, and increase your chances of finding the best fit for your hotel’s culture.

Maximize your recruitment efforts by utilizing all or some of the following channels:

• LinkedIn
• Online job boards like Indeed and ZipRecruiter
• Posts on social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook
• Social media ads
• Google ads
• Your company website
• In-person hiring events
• References from current employees

Implementing applicant tracking systems

Applicant tracking systems are software tools that help hiring managers track candidates throughout the hiring process. Using these tools eases the administrative burden of hiring, saving your hiring and recruiting staff time and energy.

Instead of having to manually organize candidate qualities, initial impressions, and contact information, these tools keep all this information organized and sorted for you. They can also allow you to better focus on assessing the strength of the candidate rather than remembering all the facts about them.

Some tools can even support you in the screening process by narrowing down submitted applications based on target keywords and skills. This process can save your hiring team time and energy as they can jump to assessing candidates instead of screening applications.

Popular applicant tracking systems include:

• Hireology
• Gusto
• iCIMS
• BambooHR
• Greenhouse Software

Managing your hotel staff effectively

One often overlooked part of the hiring process is having proper management strategies to support the staff you already have on board. Effective hotel staff management will have a strong ripple effect on the hiring process, as good management leads to better employee retention, minimizing the need for continuous recruiting and hiring methods.

Building a positive workplace environment through mindful management makes employees feel more engaged and less likely to leave. Managers should prioritize creating an environment where employees can feel valued and fulfilled.

Some ways to practice positive hotel management include:

• Providing ongoing support and feedback to employees
• Implementing performance evaluation systems
• Providing ways for employees to share their feedback regularly
• Creating a culture of teamwork and support
• Training new team members effectively so they feel confident in their role
• Recognizing team members for their accomplishments
• Offering growth and development opportunities for staff to improve their skillset

Managing seasonal staff and peak periods

The nature of the hotel industry makes it challenging to determine the staff schedule at any given time–some periods are busier than others and require different staffing levels. Seasonal and reserve staff can provide relief by helping you fill roles when there is higher demand.

Assessing seasonal staffing needs

The first step in preparing a strong seasonal staff is identifying the number of staff you need for efficient operations. A proactive analysis of your seasonal staffing needs will empower you to find the correct number of staff to maximize your hotel’s efficiency.

Use these strategies to understand and stay on top of your seasonal staffing needs:

• Utilize historical data to forecast peak periods and determine staffing needs to keep up with demand
• Identify trends in occupancy rates to determine staffing needs
• Communicate with your team and department heads to identify any gaps where they may need support from additional talent
• Gather feedback from guests to inform your current success in meeting customer expectations and identify opportunities for improvement

Recruitment strategies for seasonal roles

Once you have a clearer picture of your seasonal staffing needs, you can begin the recruiting process to address them. Strategic recruiting methods will allow you to find skilled seasonal workers who can fill roles on demand without sacrificing your operational efficiency or falling behind.

As you navigate the recruitment process, keep the following strategies in mind:

• Early planning – Anticipating your peak periods will allow you to hire staff as soon as possible so that you are ready to go with the right resources once the season begins.
• Targeted advertising – Targeted advertising using Google, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms will allow you to reach candidates who are willing and available to fill open shifts during peak seasons.
• Flexible scheduling opportunities – Offer flexible scheduling to give seasonal staff more availability and maximize coverage during peak periods.
• Sourcing talent through platforms like Qwick – Staffing solutions like Qwick empower you to connect with skilled professionals to fill seasonal or on-demand roles as they arise. Simply post shifts and qualified professionals will jump in to fill them.

Retaining seasonal staff

The most efficient hotels maintain a reserve of seasonal or on-demand talent to provide support as peak periods or demand arises. Taking steps to make seasonal staff feel welcome and supported while working with you will increase the chances of retaining this talent long-term and relieve the burden of having to recruit more talent in the future.

• Provide opportunities for future roles – For some seasonal roles, the prospect of future work after a seasonal period ends can be an enticing option for attracting strong talent.
• Gather feedback from staff on improving your systems – Gathering feedback from seasonal staff on their experiences working with you will assist you in improving your future capacity to attract and retain seasonal staff.
• Recognition and incentives – Recognize seasonal staff with positive feedback for their contributions offer incentives like positive recommendations, bonuses, and meal discounts to boost morale and motivation.

Building a cohesive hospitality team

Once you hire for all your hotel shifts, building a strong, collaborative team dynamic and a positive work environment is crucial for maximizing the potential of the team you’ve assembled. A positive employer culture plays an important part in retaining staff, ensuring efficient operations, and providing the best possible experience for hotel guests.

A survey found that employees who feel connected to their organization’s culture are 68% less likely to feel burned out at work and five times more likely to recommend their organization as a place to work.

Hotel managers can create a positive culture by leveraging the following strategies:

• Promoting open communication and respect between team members
• Fostering an inclusive work environment where employees feel respected and supported
• Organizing team-building activities and events to build stronger bonds between employees
• Empowering employees to take ownership of their work and seek leadership opportunities
• Offering cross-training employees on various tasks so they can jump in to support coworkers as necessary

Take your hotel staffing to the next level with Qwick

Perfecting the hotel hiring process isn’t easy, especially with fluctuating seasonal demand, a short talent pool, and high turnover. Fortunately, hotel managers can utilize strategies like posting on job boards, using applicant tracking systems, and promoting their brand to attract new talent. From there, managers should build a positive workplace culture and a supportive team dynamic to retain employees and minimize the need for hiring efforts altogether.

Staffing solutions like Qwick can also help relieve some of the stress placed on hiring managers by allowing them to staff based on demand. When you use Qwick, you can adapt your staff schedule as demand requires—whether you need to staff for an unexpected call-out, staff up for an upcoming event, or manage fluctuating staffing needs on a weekly basis.

Qwick allows you to easily fill shifts with qualified professional talent, connecting you with the best fit for your open role. If you like working with a specific professional, you can even hire them full-time at no cost to you. (Talk about an efficient hiring process!)

Create a free business account with Qwick and start posting shifts today. No contracts or minimums required.

‍