7 Personality Traits to Look for in Hospitality Applicants

Some people are born to work in hospitality. Friendliness and a never ending willingness to give guests a great time are like a second nature to them. Most of us however, aren’t born to work in hospitality. We certainly can be friendly at times and we want our customers to be happy, but we’re glad to have these restraints on weekdays only, from 9 to 5.

We’ve said it before, hospitality people are a special breed. They are the face of your hotel or restaurant, your living business card. Your staff is in continuous contact with your customers and as such they are the go-to-people when something isn’t exactly as your demanding guests expected. Needless to say, the ideal hospitality employee has an impressive skill set. We serve a lot of hospitality clients here at Harver and we’ve done extensive research into what makes a good candidate. Here are 7 competencies every hospitality applicant needs.

1. Listening

Someone once said ‘We’ve got two ears and only one mouth, which means we should listen twice as much as we speak.’ This is true for a lot of things, but even more so in the hospitality industry. Listening to your guests is vital, especially if they don’t speak the same language. Good hospitality staff knows how to listen, not just with their ears, with their entire body. It’s not only about what guests tell them, it’s also about their non verbal communication; are they nervous, stressed, do they seem a little lost? And what does the guest tell them between the lines?

There are different ways to assess an applicant’s ability to listen. A combination of a personality test and a couple of real life job scenarios (via a Situational Judgement Test) is probably the most efficient. The personality measurement should provide you with information about the candidate’s character; some people are naturally good at listening, others aren’t. The Situational Judgement Test — SJT — shows you how the applicant deals with job scenarios that occur on a regular basis.

2. Oral Communication

After the listening comes the talking. This one is almost as important as the previous one. In particular when your guests speak a different language, you want to make sure your staff is confident about their English or whatever other language they’re required to speak. And it’s not just about the way they talk. Again, it’s about the employee’s general attitude; they need to look the guests in the eye, have a friendly face, speak clearly, etc.

Obviously, clear communication isn’t for everyone, nor is talking to strangers. But it is a vital part of a hospitality employee’s job and therefore an essential skill for candidates to have. Testing can be done in various ways and depends on your organisation’s requirements. If you need your staff to speak English, a language test could come in handy. Applicants will be asked to correct sentences for instance, which will allow you to assess their proficiency.

3. Customer Orientation

‘The customer is king’ is something that goes for all businesses. Even more so in hospitality though; your guests come to you to enjoy a well-deserved celebratory meal or holiday. Expectations are high and if not lived up to, disappointments are big. Hospitality staff needs to go out of its way to make their guests happy. The customer’s interest is always number one, no matter what day or time it is. As we mentioned earlier, this kind of demanding work asks for a special breed of people.

Hospitality employees have a natural desire to make other people happy. They can forget about the fact that it’s late at night, or early on a Sunday morning, they find fulfilment in making sure their guests have everything they need. Hospitality staff needs to be able to put themselves in second place. Again, this is not for everyone and something that can be assessed.

4. Stress Tolerance

Working with different people from all four corners of the world inevitably leads to stress. Whether this is caused by an unhappy guest shouting at a reception desk worker, or by a baby that doesn’t stop crying during the night thus waking up people in neighbouring rooms doesn’t matter; your staff needs to be able to deal — very — well with all kinds of stressful situations.

First and foremost because if your employees freak out, your guests will get even more stressed. Secondly, in the hotel or restaurant business, a stressful situation will occur at least once a day. If your staff doesn’t deal well with a minimum of constant stress, it’s best for both you and them to go your separate ways. Because of this it’s essential to assess a hospitality applicant’s ability to cope with stressful situations.

5. Quality Orientation

Now we’re not saying being quality minded isn’t important outside the hospitality sector. Of course it is. When it comes to receiving people in your hotel, B&B or restaurant however, quality standards do go up a notch. Think about fire exit regulation, pool safety rules and a first aid facility for example. Without mentioning the extra health and safety procedures to take into account when you’re dealing with food. As an employer in the hospitality industry, it’s your responsibility to make sure your employees know about the necessary rules and regulations. But once your part in their training is done, they’re on their own in following them when needed.

You’ve probably already guessed it: not everyone is of the rule abiding type. Some of us simply are better at following rules and procedures than others. And some people just have an issue with procedures in general. That’s fair enough, but when it comes to other people’s health and safety, a more goody-two-shoes kind of person is desirable. This is why you need to make sure you have a good indication about a candidate’s character when it come to applying your company’s rules.

6. Work Standards

Depending on the job, working in hospitality can be pretty tough. It often means long hours, being at work when your friends and family aren’t, and literally running around all day. Add some demanding, not always easy, guests to the list and you know your staff needs to be extraordinary. Hospitality applicants need to have a particularly strong attitude when it comes to their work. It’s important they know exactly what they’re getting themselves into before they start. No nonsense; a real preview of what it is like out there in the hospitality world.

7. Multitasking

It’s not hard to imagine a scenario in a hotel or a restaurant where an employee has to do two (or more) things at the same time. Think for instance of a reception desk worker with a complaining guest in front of him, simultaneously having to pick up the phone and cancel a booking on the computer. This is just one situation that can occur, but there are countless scenarios that require a hospitality employee to multitask. Therefore it’s wise to assess an applicant’s ability to perform multiple tasks.

How?

Once you know what personality traits you’re looking for in an applicant, it’s time to assess. The good news is, all of these competencies can be tested. Most of the time, an SJT in combination with a personality and skill test will get you a long way. Especially when used together with Predictive Analytics. Sounds complicated? Not to worry, there are HR technology tools out there for exactly this kind of thing. Preselection software utilises the different assessment methods we mentioned as well as Predictive Analytics. The outcome you can use to support you in your selection process.

Please hit the green heart if you thought this was a good read! And don’t forget to go here for more about HR Technology.