Every week we comb through the news to find employment trends affecting the hospitality industry so you don’t have to. This week’s Hospitality in the News topic: how to become a hospitality recruiter.
As businesses in the hospitality industry continue to face hiring challenges, more are turning towards hospitality recruiters to assist them in finding the talent they need. But what exactly are hospitality recruiters?
To put it simply, recruiters find and screen candidates for job openings. They partner with businesses to learn about their hiring needs and specific position requirements. As a recruiter, you’re responsible for the entire process that goes into attracting applicants. In addition to finding and screening candidates, this can involve:
- Creating and managing job postings
- Reviewing resumes
- Interviewing candidates
- Verifying references
- Staying in communication with hiring managers
- Preparing the candidate for final interviews with the client
Hospitality recruiters in particular find and source candidates for clients in the hospitality industry. These clients can include restaurants, hotels, country clubs, and more. It’s possible that you’ll be recruiting entry level employees, but it’s more likely that you’ll be searching for managerial and executive level candidates.
Now that you understand what they are and what they do, it’s time to find out how to become a hospitality recruiter.
How to become a hospitality recruiter
Because you’re aiming to be a recruiter in a specific industry, you’ll need a thorough understanding of recruiting and hospitality. Ideally, you’ll have some sort of experience in both industries. That said, it’s not unrealistic to think that you can gain this knowledge without having hands-on experience; but it will require a strong desire and willingness to learn (either independently, from your peers, or through your employer).
The most practical and effective way to become a hospitality recruiter is to land a job with a recruiting firm and then increase your knowledge of the hospitality industry. Which you can do through research whether online or within your network.
If you have a background in hospitality but not recruiting, start gathering more information about becoming a recruiter and then set out to find an entry level job. With the growing need for employee placements comes the need for more recruiters – so it’s a good time to get into the industry.
If you’re a recruiter with no hospitality knowledge, it will be important to do a deep dive into the industry. This will help you effectively screen and interview candidates.
Advice from an executive hospitality recruiter
LGC has been operating in the hospitality staffing space since the early 2000’s. We have a team of recruiters that find and place employees in the hospitality industry. Carson, one of LGC’s executive recruiters, had experience in hotels before joining our team as a recruiter. Since then, he’s become an integral part of our Permanent Placement team, fulfilling the hiring needs of a variety of clients. We asked Carson what the most important thing a hospitality recruiter can know when getting started in this industry – here’s what he had to say:
“When learning how to become a hospitality recruiter, having an understanding of hospitality operations as a whole is crucial. Knowing how everything facilitates and how major decisions impact other departments can help you work better with the client to accomplish their goals.
If you’re communicating with a candidate, don’t downplay the flexibility when talking about hospitality positions. That’s a huge benefit to working in this industry.”
Now that you know how to become a hospitality recruiter, you can find a job in this dynamic industry that has tons of room for growth.
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LGC’s Permanent Placement team partners with clients nationwide to connect job seekers with great opportunities. If you’re looking for your next career move in the hospitality industry, contact us today.