7 Personality Traits and

Competencies Hospitality
Applicants Need

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 clients to be happy, but we’re glad to have these
restraints on weekdays only, from 9 to 5.

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’ve done extensive research into what makes a good candidate.

Here are 7 personality traits and 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, but with
their entire body. Because it’s not only about what the guest tells 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?

In short: it is crucial for a hospitality employee to be a terrific listener, whether

they work at an upscale establishment, a quick service restaurant, a bar, or at
a hotel.

2. Oral communication
After the listening comes the talking. This hospitality characteristic is just 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 are 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 (foreign) strangers. But it is
a vital part of a hospitality employee’s job and therefore an essential skill for
candidates to have.

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 often 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.

So the, employees, or you, have to have a natural desire to make other

people happy. You can forget about the fact that it’s late at night, or early on a
Sunday morning. They should be able to find fulfillment in making sure their
guests have everything they need. Hospitality staff needs to be able to put
themselves in second place.

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 neighboring rooms doesn’t matter; your staff needs to be
able to deal – very – well with all kinds of stressful situations.

Stress tolerance is an essential hospitality trait your employees should have. 

Note:

First and foremost because if your employees freak out, your guests will get
even more stressed. Secondly, in the hotel or restaurant business, some kind
of 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. But 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.

Of course, 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
those procedures 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 of a
candidate’s character when it comes 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.

As good as today’s video technology is, there’s no video in the world that can
make a hospitality applicant feel what it is like to stand on your feet for (more
than) 8 hours a day. Let alone run around with a heavy tray full of hot plates
and drinks.
The physically demanding side of working in hospitality is not to be
underestimated. Needless to say, the majority of people isn’t cut out for this.

In order to avoid premature departures and wrong expectations, it’s important

that applicants experience what it is like to be running around your hotel or
restaurant all day. Therefore, if possible, try to incorporate one or two days of
‘on-the-ground’ experience in your selection process.   

This is the only way for hospitality applicants to really find out what they’re
getting themselves into and decide whether or not it’s right for them. If it isn’t,
then it’s better for everyone involved that they back out now rather than a few
weeks or months further down the line.  

7. Multitasking
It’s not hard to imagine a scenario in a hotel or a restaurant where an
employee has to do two 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.

Now, how to hire the right hospitality employee?

Once you know what hospitality personality traits you’re looking for in an
applicant, it’s time to assess. The good news is, all of these competencies
(except for the physical element of the job) 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 (PA).

Here’s how it works in a nutshell:

Your candidates enter an engaging, online environment that takes them on a

virtual journey through your company. Think of it as an online day on the job.

While they’re touring the hotel or restaurant, the applicants are presented with
a selection of real life, on-the-job scenarios and a variety of hard and soft skill
assessments. All of this based on the personality traits and competencies you
are looking for in a candidate.
Once they’ve completed the process, the applicants get an individual
feedback report that indicates how they scored on the various parts of the pre-
selection test. Hence giving them valuable feedback on their performance,
something they can use to their advantage even if they don’t get the job.

But what happens behind the scenes you ask?

A lot. While your candidates navigate through the different stages of the online
assessment, data is gathered based on their input after which our self-
learning algorithms calculate a so-called matching score.

In short: a score that indicates to what extent an applicant fits (or doesn’t fit).

The matching score specifies – among other things – how likely it is that a
candidate will be successful in the role he or she is applying for, but also the
likelihood of them fitting into your company culture.

A win-win-win situation!

On a final note
Yes, finding great hospitality applicants is hard. If you keep in mind these 7
personality traits and competencies and get a little bit of help from the right
HR technology though, you’ll be able to find this special breed of rock stars.  

https://harver.com/blog/7-personality-traits-to-look-for-in-hospitality-applicants/