In this article, we have focused on tips and strategies for attracting more Job Applicants from the hospitality industry.
This is a big challenge for all the recruiters, especially in the labour-intensive industries like hospitality and travel industry. Thus, traditional strategies might not always work in order to attract the best talent or job seekers in 2022.
We have included some of the useful tips and best practices that can be used by the talent management teams of the to attract the best talent to apply for the roles advertised, promoted or required.
As a hospitality recruiter, it is crucial to get more qualified candidates apt for the respective roles. This becomes a big challenge at times and this is common across industries.
Let’s explore this further now.
Talent mapping, tight salaries, higher staff turnover across industries for lower and middle job roles make matter worse in terms of attracting the best professionals.
So, it is extremely important for any business to ensure that the creme de la creme of the respective industry apply to the job positions. Here we have outlined a few strategies that might help the cause of attracting the best job seekers from the hotel and travel industry.
Company’s Branding is crucial
One of the key hospitality recruiting challenges is also to make your brand stand out to attract the right talent.
When every other business out there is fighting for the right talent, it is crucial to place your brand in a way that helps the cause automatically.
It’s not only the hiring but the overall success that is impacted by the company branding.
People are attracted to the brand of the company.
Think of names like Hilton, Marriotts, Google, Apple, Hilton, Boston Consulting Group, Virgin, Tata and more.
It’s the brand that would ensure better visibility to your job adverts, better response to interview calls and better return on recruitment time invested.
A lot depends on the brand as far as attracting the best job seekers in concerned. So, it’s crucial to highlight the brand to ensure the best talent show interest in applying for the available job roles.
Targeting the Millennials
The customer experience is changing. The old school recruiting methods don’t work anymore.
The expectations have changed with millennials ready with the backpack looking for a better experience and a more interactive environment.
It is thus important to target the millennials to apply for jobs. It is these people who are built for technology and will help drive the hospitality industry forward post Covid Pandemic.
As per a conducted research, it is expected that 75% of the workforce would be constituted of the millennials by 2025.
Targeting the millennials is for sure an investment for a better future.
The below chart by Deloitte gives the key stats on the changing guest experience. The expectations are changing continuously and millennials of today are driven by change.
Effective Advertising holds the key to attracting top talent
It is important to be visible on multiple platforms and formats in order to attract the best professionals to apply for jobs.
There are a lot of Job Portals around the globe and posting hospitality jobs here help in better visibility within any niche.
Social media is overcrowded these days and thus it gets difficult to be visible properly.
Opting to invest time and money effectively on professional networking channels like LinkedIn can help in getting quality applications.
Most of the people especially the millennials look at social media for getting hired. It is always good to have the right mix by using certain portals and focusing on 1-2 social media channels.
Storytelling Technique for attracting the best Hospitality Talent
Turn to innovative ways to attract the best talent from your industry. This is crucial for an inclusive recruitment process.
Sharing videos and images which speaks a volume are a key to create a connection with potential job seekers.
Not only does it help potential job seekers in knowing the brand, but it also creates anticipation of the culture in the minds of the job aspirants.
Recruitment Process should be more employee-friendly
A lot of companies have over the years evolved into a complex ecosystem for human resources. The process of hiring at times gets too complex and bulky so that even applicants lose interest midway.
It is extremely important to be employer-friendly to expect the best talent coming your way. Some suggestions here:
- Recruitment processes should have shorter cycles
- Feedback mechanism must be improved
- Application channels must be streamlined
- Number of interview rounds should be limited
- Greater use of technology mixed with human intervention at key points would make the overall recruitment process swift.
Promote Employee Referral Programmes
We live in an extremely connected world now. Visibility has improved a lot.
Employee referrals back in the years were not given high regards. This was because referrals were being used by a lot of companies to promote lobbying, nepotism etc. However, things have changed a lot now.
It is extremely easy now to have a centralised and more transparent employee referral system now.
It does not only cut costs but also ensures that recruiters have easy access to focused talent referred directly by employees.
Background checks and feedbacks are a lot easier now due to technological advancements.
It’s time to have more of employee referrals in the recruitment process now so that best talent can be referred by some of the best talents your company already has.
Conclusion
Here you go. Some of the useful tips to ensure you keep the funnel open to keep attracting the best talent.
There are various industries where recruitment is even more challenging. The hospitality industry is one such industry with huge staff turnover and is labour intensive. Hospitality industry recruitment requires amazing people management and networking skills. Plus, the overlap within the industry leads to a lot of duplication. Add to that the turnover in this industry making it all the more difficult to hire the best people.
Thus, it is extremely important to have the best pool of candidates whenever that is required for industries like hospitality and travel. An old database doesn’t add much value as people change jobs quite often and thus a regular flow of applications is crucial.
Every industry has some challenge or the other when we are vying for the best talent from a limited talent pool. The tips given in this article would certainly ease some of the pressure in attracting the desired manpower.
