So You Want to Work in Hotels, Part II: The Interview

When I last wrote a post about how to get a job in the hotel industry, the economy was booming and hotels were so desperate for staff they were stopping just short of dragging passersby off the street and slapping uniforms on them. These days, occupancy rates have tanked, room attendants are dozing on beds rather than making them, and it seems the only place to find job vacancies is in the obituaries.

Are job prospects that bleak? Absolutely not. Hotels are always in need of great people, but competition is fiercer than ever. Taking the time to understand the unique culture of the hotel industry will give you a leg up on other candidates. Here are a few insider tips to help prepare you for that elusive hotel interview.

Martyrs need only apply. What’s the quickest way to get an interview with a hotel? Highlight “love working graveyard shifts” on your cover letter. The quickest way to end an interview? Say you’re looking for something nine-to-five. Hotels are a 24-hour operation, and most entry-level positions involve shift work. Your best chance to get a foot in the door is to apply for a high-turnover position like room service attendant, busser, dishwasher, line cook or any graveyard position. Be specific, and be keen. Not like the young lady I interviewed who explained that graveyard shifts would give her time to work on her personal art projects.

Beware of the super-friendly people in suits. Your interviewer will smile and use your name frequently and will maintain eye contact for freakishly long periods of time. No, you’re not being recruited into a cult. These basic service standards are programmed into our being. Some of us really are that happy, others are gifted actors, others are heavily medicated. Don’t be lulled by that pleasant exterior; underneath is a hard-nosed interviewer who will assess your appearance, communication skills and attitude in three minutes flat. That’s as much time as you’ll have to impress our guests.

Perfection is something we strive for but never achieve. If your interviewer asks you to identify areas you’d like to improve, it’s a euphemism for weaknesses. This question strikes fear into the heart of candidates and can result in awkward silences and moronic replies. Relax, it’s okay not to be perfect. Provide an honest, thoughtful answer—unless you suffer from kleptomania or multiple personality disorder, which you might want to keep to yourself. A woman I interviewed confessed that her only weakness was perfectionism. I drew my own conclusion—lack of humility and self-delusion—and quickly wrapped up the interview.

Is something burning? Hotels are notoriously short on office space, so don’t be surprised if your interview is held in a bar, kitchen, ballroom or suite (though hopefully not in a bedroom). The activity around you—sound checks, shattering dishes, grease fires—will be distracting, but stay focused on your interviewer. If you’re in the restaurant and are offered a beverage, ask for water or coffee, not a margarita and the filet mignon. During a dinner interview for a high-ranking position, I watched a candidate knock back two martinis and a half-liter of wine. Now that was distracting.

Hotels are glamorous for guests, not employees. Some hotel managers prance around like wealthy aristocrats, but in reality most employees live shockingly modest lifestyles when not on an expense account. The only exception is doormen, who own apartment complexes and small tropical islands. Should your interview take you into the back-of-house, the area not meant for the eyes of guests, brace yourself for a sharp contrast: general disarray, strange odors and employees who look like they’ve never seen the light of day. A career in hotels won’t make you wealthy, but it will make you rich in life experience.

Do you speak hotelese? Hotel employees are notorious for using jargon and acronyms to save time, sound smart and confuse guests into paying higher rates. If you don’t understand a word your interviewer is saying, don’t ask for an explanation—you’ll only be further confused. If you’re interviewing with the revenue manager, hire an interpreter. Do some advance research to understand the language of hotels and to determine whether you’re a good fit for the business. That way you’ll avoid the fate of the employee I hired who went for a break on his first day and never came back.

Interviewing with the general manager. If the GM is late, don’t fret. Given today’s tight labour budgets, he or she is probably making beds or baking breakfast muffins. He will wax poetic about how the hotel is a home-away-from-home for guests and how employees are like a family, and will seem distracted and vaguely irritated. If you don’t get more than a few words in, don’t be disheartened. This guy has been dealing with people so long he’s got you figured out even before you open your mouth.

Managing post-interview anxiety disorder. You survived the interview, now what? More interviews. From two to five depending on the position and up to seventy-three for large chain hotels. Then silence. No, hoteliers don’t take glee in tormenting you. Every position is critical to our success, and the hiring process takes time. Don’t badger your interviewer with hourly calls or issue Twitter updates like “Just interviewed with uptight chick at ABC Hotel. Hope I got the job!” Send a handwritten thank-you note or email—no butterfly decals or smileys please—and continue with your search. It’s out of your hands now.

Yes, it’s a tough job market, but if you’re a good fit for the hotel business your resourcefulness and persistence will eventually pay off. Good luck.

For more tips on working in hotels click here.

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Hotel Grooming Standards: When the Breakfast Hostess Shows Up in Hooker Boots

Walking into a hotel in Seattle last month, I did a double-take when I saw an employee behind the front desk with a black eye. I assumed he just looked tired, maybe he worked a double shift. Hotels can do that to you—beat you up. But on closer inspection there was no denying it: he had a big purple shiner. I had to wonder what possessed management to schedule him when he looked like he belonged on the door of a biker bar. Were they that short-staffed?

This black eye is symbolic of the current state of the hospitality industry: bruised and battered by labour shortages. New hotels are popping up across the continent and there are simply not enough qualified people to staff them. The crisis isn’t exclusive to the hotel industry. Everywhere I go, whether it’s a coffee shop or retail store, I encounter the poorly trained, the inexperienced, the linguistically challenged, and employees who just aren’t the right fit. But nowhere is the problem more glaring than in hotels, where employees should be as sparkling and polished as the silver spoons in the hotel restaurant.

The shrinking labour pool has forced hotels to do the unthinkable: compromise. I can see the desperation of the HR manager in the faces of the scruffy staff I encounter. “Well, she’s not the ideal fit with that eyebrow piercing and dog collar,” she tells herself, “and there’s that three-year gap in her resume she can’t explain, but I have no other candidates and if I don’t fill this position soon the department is going to lynch me.” She reminds herself that sometimes risks pay off. “Think of Bob in Accounting. We had our misgivings, but just look how—oh right, Bob got fired for embezzling. Never mind.”

Hotels typically have rigid rules for personal presentation, but these standards appear to be slipping. Years ago an AAA Five-Diamond hotel I worked at had a section on grooming standards in the employee manual that rivaled the Holy Bible. Bad hair was a source of personal vexation for the general manager, who was nicknamed the Hair Police for her zero tolerance policy. A small scandal occurred when a front desk agent showed up wearing a black bra instead of the requisite white bra and it was visible through her opal blouse. Females had to wear dresses or skirts, and one of the housekeeping staff, a bit of a tomboy, was so uncomfortable in a skirt she opted to work graveyard shifts, where she could get away with wearing pants. Since then things have changed at this hotel—females can now wear pants—but so has its rating: it’s now a Four-Diamond hotel.

However oppressive, rules of presentation are essential to hotels because employees are a reflection of the brand. You don’t spend millions of dollars on interior décor only to have the breakfast hostess show up in a tube top and hooker boots. Consistency is important too. But some hotels take it too far, churning out a line of front desk staff so cloned and clinical you feel like you’re checking in at a Clinique counter.

Independent hotels and especially contemporary hotels have more latitude to allow employees to exhibit individual style and personality. This can be refreshing, but it’s also risky. Too much style and not enough personality and you get the model-types who look great but have all the warmth and depth of a mannequin. Too much personality and not enough style and you get chatty, overly familiar front desk agents wearing polyester scarves. I love to see individual style and personality shine through, but I don’t want to be served breakfast by Marilyn Manson and I don’t want to hear about the relationship problems of the woman turning down my bed. Call me a curmudgeon.

Problem is, as soon as a hotel relaxes the rules someone ruins it for everyone by showing up with a frosted perm or a safety pin in his nose. When an employee showed up at Opus with a seventies-style moustache we very quickly implemented a no facial-hair policy. One Halloween we thought it would be fun to allow staff to wear costumes—until a bellman reported for duty in full drag. An emergency executive meeting was called and, after much soul-searching, we decided that as much as we admired his chutzpah, we had to think of how our guests might react to a guy in a skirt with big fake boobs carrying their bags. This wasn’t Bangkok after all. So we sent him home to change, and didn’t encourage staff to dress up again.

Way back when while I was working at the Harbour Castle Westin we were undergoing lobby renovations. Management decided to make light of the disarray by having front desk staff dress up as construction workers. It seemed like a cute idea until I had to deal with an extremely irate guest while wearing a construction hat and orange vest.

Last year at the W Montreal I was at the front door desperately searching for a staff member to assist me. All I could see were long-haired ruffians in faded jean-jackets. It wasn’t until one of them approached me that I saw the W stitched into his collar. W Hotels is to be commended for introducing style to hotel uniforms, but this might be taking things a bit too far.

If hotels allowed more individualism and personal expression they would attract a larger pool of candidates, which would help fill some long-empty vacancies. But that doesn’t mean compromising. Guests who are paying hundreds of dollars a night for a room have the right to expect staff to look polished and professional. If an employee doesn’t take pride and care with his appearance, how can he be relied on to take pride and care with guests?

And by “personal expression” I don’t mean it’s okay to show up with a black eye. If that happens, send the employee home or put him on switchboard until the bruising heals.

Check out my previous post for a few of my more unconventional ideas for addressing the labour shortage. And for a satirical look at grooming standards read Murder at the Universe, in which the fictional Universe Hotel hires on “sparkle factor” and fires for simply not smiling enough.

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Overseas Experience: SOS From Island Paradise

An important step in a well-rounded hotel manager’s career is getting overseas experience. I’m proud to say that I have overseas experience – all of one month’s worth. I alluded to this story last June, and since then a number of readers have asked for the sordid details. So here goes.

In 1996, a hotel company approached me about a job as director of sales & marketing at a luxury resort in Palau. I wasn’t keen on living on a tropical island, but they assured me it would be my base only and I’d be traveling around the world on business at least six months a year – in Australia, Europe, Asia and North America. It sounded too good to resist. I signed a two-year contract, gave up my apartment, job and happy Vancouver life, and told friends I wouldn’t be back for at several years because this was the beginning of my life as an international hotelier and playboy.

A month later I was back.

The problem had little to do with Palau itself, which is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, a chain of 200 islands in the South Pacific, with friendly people and some of the world’s best scuba diving. It had more to do with me. Things started off badly when, upon arrival, I learned that the travel budget had been axed. In the next six months I’d be going to Korea and Taiwan and nowhere else. Island fever quickly set in.

During my first week I attended a 5-day orientation session that could have been covered in an hour. In week two I wrote the resort’s marketing plan, reorganized the office, designed a series of ads and launched a marketing campaign. By week three I had nothing to do. The bulk of my job involved printing form letters, placing them in envelopes and mailing them. I took four years of university for this? To keep from going insane I learned to lick envelopes very, very slowly. Still, I could get a day’s work done in the first half-hour. I would have just called it a day and headed for the beach, but face time was important at this resort.

Staff always seemed busy, although I wasn’t sure why. The phones rarely rang, there was no email, and faxes were reserved for emergencies. When I realized life was going to be like this for two long years I decided it was an emergency. I scribbled “Get me the hell out of here!” on a piece of paper and faxed it to a colleague in Vancouver. I never heard back. During lunchtime I’d go for long walks and contemplate hurling myself into the ocean. At night I was obliged to attend the resort cocktail party and schmooze guests, which I found particularly difficult because I hated them for being happy and tanned while I was miserable and pale.

Shopping on the island was interesting. When I needed sunglasses I was forced to choose between a pair of Minnie Mouse sunglasses and some bad-ass Terminator sunglasses. I opted for the latter, which did little to boost my popularity on the island. The GM let me drive the resort’s beat-up old car, which was nice, except, being Japanese-made, its steering wheel was on the right side. One day I lost my bearings – maybe it was the sunglasses – and swerved onto the shoulder of the road, almost taking out a local. I came so close I heard his sharp intake of breath. This didn’t help my popularity either.

It wasn’t all bad. One day the GM took me to Jellyfish Lake, hidden in a crater at the centre of one of the islands. The lake is full of enormous jellyfish that, through some ecological phenomenon, have lost their sting. You may remember it from Survivor: Palau, when it was featured as a prize in a reward challenge. We swam through schools of them, tossing them around like balls of Jell-o. Maybe it wasn’t so bad here after all, I thought. The next day I was evicted from my gorgeous room at the resort and relocated to a dark, prison-like apartment in Koror. That’s when I began to plan my escape.

Word got around that I was lonely. One night there was a knock on my door and a Palauan woman about twice my size stood grinning at me, smelling strong of perfume. I thanked her and sent her away. I was lonely, but not that lonely. Another night the resort’s ex-pats invited me to a party. I arrived hours late and angry, having driven around the island several times, lost in the total darkness among the winding roads. The party was in a garage. I was sipping beer, trying to look happy, when an enormous coconut crab (see above) fell from the rafters and landed on me. Have you seen those things? They’re the largest terrestrial anthropods on earth and look like those creatures in Alien. Everyone laughed. I almost fainted.

Within a few weeks I decided I had made a terrible mistake. I was a city guy, not an island guy. I went to see a travel agent. That afternoon, by coincidence, resort staff surprised me with a welcome reception. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I had just booked a flight home. The next day I broke the news to the GM. He didn’t believe me, and who could blame him. What kind of fool would fly halfway around the world to accept a job in paradise, only to go home after a month? Me, apparently.

As far as I’m concerned, those contestants on Survivor: Palau got off easy. At least I now know that island paradise is not for me, unless I’m on vacation. Chalk it up to experience – overseas experience.

posted by Daniel Edward Craig at 11:25 AM

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8 Comments:

caro said...
Daniel, Some years ago, when my husband and I were traveling half-way around the world (okay, mostly Asia/South-east Asia and Australia), we encountered a coconut crab ... somewhere in Malaysia (was it Sipadan Island?). The room key chain was a rectangle piece of wood about 3/4" thick. Someone pointed out a coconut crab climbing up a post and one of the guests poked it with his key chain. The crab got a hold of it in it's claw and wouldn't let go - to the point where it cracked the wood piece lengthwise. And it was a smaller crab that the one in your picture. But I'm happy to finally read your story about Palau. Now, I wait for your book....
10:02 PM

roland said...
Good Day!I am Roland,i would like to post my interest that i want to work in any hotel in Palau, it's my dream- I am a very skillfull person, ice carving and doin' the styro arts is my skills! If there's any one willing to hire me or let me enter to Palau---i am welcoming you! Thank You!Roland R.AbocejoPaete,Laguna,Philippinescell # +63915-2050-994 or email me at roland.abocejo@gmail.com
6:17 AM

Garry said...
Daniel, Hi as a fellow hotelier who also has his background in Canada. i was able to cope with the island life in fact I am still here . from a no nothing diver to a divemaster candidate. i just have to learn to blend in. but I strongly agree it really depends on one's personality.
12:11 AM

Anonymous said...
wow. i didnt even know general managers had a blog. i dont think i even know what a general manager is. but hey im bored searched coconut crab and this story. and i tell ya buddy, it was a good story. sorry you did have a happy ending (well there was the giant island lady) but besides that life's doing ya good now so no worries :)-Seth Dendy teenage story searcher & famed movie maker
11:21 PM

Anonymous said...
hi daniel,Your blog made up for some very interesting reading. I haven't laughed such a lot in ages... Hope you are happy where you are now. The coconut crab encounter was the Pièce de résistance. It's truly awful that you were both shaken and stirred in what you had hoped would be a "BOND" ing experience.... So what if aren't licenced to kill... you are definitely licenced to thrill... iona
9:36 AM

Anonymous said...
I've heard that these are the tastiest of crabs because of their coconut diet. Mmmmmmm...coconut crab. Can anyone confirm or deny this?
2:46 PM

Cherlyn said...
Wow... interesting stuff. The coconut crab sounds terrifying. And Palau sounds... fun to visit but not necessarily fun to live on.
4:09 AM

Anonymous said...
well put. Consider writing once you retire from your present job :). You have good "writing" skills and sense of humour. Good read.good luck.
9:36 PM