Hotel Hiring: The Value of the Right Employee

Here at ApplicantPro, I talk a lot about the hiring world from the perspective of HR folks because so many of my clients are HR Professionals. I’d like to change the pace a bit by addressing another one of our primary clientele demographics – the hotel industry.

Your employees affect your client experience which in turn affects your hotel’s online reviews and the amount of revenue you generate with return customers and new customers

Unlike most companies, majority of hotels (whether you have a staff of 50 or 500) don’t have a dedicated HR Representative to mediate and manage the hiring process. Instead, finding and hiring new employees becomes the responsibility of General Managers. The challenge with this is two-fold: firstly, most General Managers aren’t familiar with the latest trends for recruiting and managing job candidate flow and so the reach for finding great employees is limited at best, and there’s a lot of money spent trying to advertise on somewhere like Hcareers.com with poor ROI. Secondly, and more importantly, your employees affect your client experience which in turn affects your hotel’s online reviews and the amount of revenue you generate with return customers and new customers.

There’s an easier way; and it doesn’t require you to waste more money on advertising for better applicant flow. It will also help you to hire more people efficiently come “busy season.”

So, when I sit down with General Managers to develop a plan to revamp their hiring process, these are my top three suggestions guaranteed to transform a limited applicant pool of mediocre candidates, to an abundant supply of quality applicants for their entry-level positions, almost overnight.

Create a career site and online application

I can’t help but be amazed by the fact that most hotels (who employ hundreds of people) still use paper applications to manage hiring; not only that, but their “recruiting” methods rely on referrals and a Help Wanted sign in the window of the hotel lobby. By simply building a Career Site into the hotel website and using an online application to manage applicant flow, you’ve amplified your audience reach significantly meaning you have access to a larger number of potentially qualified candidates and you’ve eliminated extra work for yourself by automating a piece of the hiring process.

Attract a quantity of quality applicants by customizing screening questions designed to target the right fit for your openings

Believe it or not, drawing the right job seekers to you begins with designing the right job ad for your audience: you want to create an ad that’s appealing and includes keywords commonly searched by your job seekers. You also want to produce strategic screening questions that ensure the right candidate will be sitting in your office come interview time.

Implementing a tracking and reporting method is vital

If you don’t measure your results, then you’ll never know what works and what doesn’t. Simply put: you’ll want to start calculating what yielded results in terms of a good applicant after the individual has been hired. Ask your new employee what drew him/her to your opening in the first place, who/what referred them, etc. You’ll also want to determine turnover percentages and what that means for you in terms of ROI.

Obviously adopting an applicant tracking system or hiring software like ApplicantPro can automate these processes (and many more) affordably. We also offer an “out-of-the-box” solution perfect for Managers in the Service Industry looking to simplify their hiring processes. Whether you make the decision to use our hr software, or to adopt my suggestions to enhance your current methods, you’re one step closer to better employees, less turnover, and higher revenue as a direct result of better customer service.

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