Monday, February 25, 2013

How To Be A Star Employee!

The first few days on a new job are usually the most exciting for a new employee and it is really crucial because it is the time when both you and the employer form an impression about each other.

Ideally speaking you want the impression to be a positive one. A good employer will hire the best candidates for the job, train them, provide them the tools and resources to do their job, provide guidance, and recognize the good work that employees do. On the flip side, employers want to see that new employees are engaged, enthusiastic, take initiative, and are quick and dependable employees.

However, the reality of our industry is that many employers only seem to hire when they are short staffed or plan on an expansion. In both scenarios, this leaves the employer with very little time to recruit and properly train employees.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Get High Performing Employees!

While most employer realize that they need to train, supervisor, and support new employees in order to set them up for success, many employers fail to provide any adequate training. Why? The majority of them have the same old lame excuses:

  • I’m too busy and don’t have time to train.
  • It’s an easy job, they’ll get the hang of it soon enough.
  • No one trained me and I did fine.

The truth is no matter how easy a job is and how experienced an employee might be, some form of training is necessary to ensure familiarity and consistence. You can’t expect to provide “quality” services and products if each employee does things a different way.

Monday, February 11, 2013

3 Things Hospitality Employers Look For in a Job Applicant


Regardless of what position you plan on applying for in the hospitality or more specifically the food service industry, there are three basic characteristics that all employers look for in a job applicant. In fact, they’re not just basic characteristic they’re fundamental qualities. Almost every single quality an employer is looking for in a new job applicant can be categorized under these three things:
  1. Attitude
  2. Aptitude
  3. Appearance

Attitude

By attitude I mean the right attitude for the hospitality industry and the job you’re applying for. The hospitality industry is personal people based industry, which means that you cannot do your job or generate any revenue for your company without having lots of personal interactions with many people from within your company (coworkers) and outside the company (customers, vendors and suppliers).

Friday, February 8, 2013

Best Hospitality School For You!

As a Hospitality Management professor and program director at a community college, one of the most frequently asked questions that I receive from students is, "what school should I transfer to earn my bachelor’s degree in hospitality management?".

The answer to that question is never the same because the best school for you to pursue a bachelor’s degree in hospitality management is different for each individual student.

The short and simple answer to that question is you should pick a school that provides a broad range of hospitality courses with the option of specializing in a particular segment within the industry. Unfortunately that answer doesn’t really help most students. So a more elaborate answer is necessary and it begins by first attempting to define what your professional goals are. That is to say, begin with the end in mind. Defining what your dream job in the hospitality industry is makes it easier to match you with the best school for them.