We all know people who have spent years doing work they never really wanted to do. Sometimes the job simply happened. Sometimes they followed what somebody else thought was a good career. Sometimes they were afraid to make a change.

The problem often starts much earlier. They were never really clear about what they wanted.

Having a direction does not mean that you need a perfect five year plan. Hospitality careers rarely work that neatly anyway. You may start in front office and discover that you enjoy sales. You may begin in F&B and move towards operations. You may start in hotels and later move into education, consulting, technology, recruitment or your own business.

What matters is knowing what you are trying to achieve next.

I would start by asking yourself four straightforward questions:

• What type of work do I genuinely enjoy?
• What am I already good at?
• What role would I like to move into next?
• What experience or skills are missing between where I am and where I want to go?

Your goals should also be realistic enough to act upon. If you want to become a hotel General Manager, for example, you need to understand the operational, commercial and leadership experience that usually sits between your current role and that position.

Our guide on career goals and how to develop them goes deeper into this process, including short term and long term career planning.

One of the hardest parts of career planning is knowing how to get from where you are to where you want to be.

This is where studying other people’s careers can be extremely useful.

You do not have to copy somebody else’s career. In fact, you should not. But look at people who are already doing the kind of work you want to do. What did they learn? Which roles did they take? Did they move between departments? Did they work internationally? Which skills seem to come up again and again?

Hospitality gives you plenty of people to learn from. Chefs, hotel General Managers, sales leaders, entrepreneurs, revenue professionals and hospitality educators all have different career stories.

You can explore some of these career stories through our articles on well known chefs and influential hospitality business leaders.

But do not stop at famous people. LinkedIn is particularly useful for this. Find people who are two or three career steps ahead of you and study how they got there.

Sometimes one conversation with an experienced hotelier can save you years of trial and error. Ask sensible questions. Most experienced professionals are happy to share what they have learnt when the approach is genuine.

This is one of those things that sounds obvious but gets ignored.

A qualification can teach you knowledge. It cannot automatically make you a better communicator, manager, listener or colleague.

Hospitality exposes your strengths very quickly. If you are working on a busy front desk, running a restaurant during a peak service or managing a difficult guest situation, people see how you actually behave under pressure.

That is why self awareness matters.

Look honestly at how you communicate, how you respond to criticism, how you handle pressure, whether you take responsibility when something goes wrong and whether people enjoy working with you.

These things are not about becoming a flawless person. Nobody is flawless. It is about identifying the gaps that are holding you back and doing something about them.

Our guide to self assessment tools for career development covers several ways of looking at your personality, skills, preferences and development areas.

In hospitality, communication, service mindset, problem solving, leadership, organisation and technology confidence increasingly sit alongside technical knowledge. Our updated guide to hospitality skills employers look for is useful if you want to map these against your own profile.

Hospitality is not a nine to five industry for most people. Early mornings, late finishes, weekends, busy seasons, split shifts, travel and operational pressure are part of the profession.

That makes personal discipline more important, not less.

You do not need to live a perfect life. But if your sleep is permanently poor, you are constantly late, your health is neglected and you have no control over your time, eventually it shows up in your work.

A hospitality professional who wants to progress needs enough energy and discipline to perform consistently. This becomes even more important when you move into management because your team eventually takes cues from you.

This is also where balance becomes important. Hospitality can give you incredible experiences, international exposure and strong friendships. But if the job starts consuming every part of your life for years, it is worth stepping back and looking at the bigger picture.

A long career requires sustainability. You want to be good at your job for years, not simply survive the next season.

The job search should ideally begin long before you actually start applying.

Your resume is simply the document that tells the market what you have done. It cannot create experience that you do not have.

This is why I prefer the idea of building career evidence rather than simply adding more lines to a resume.

If you improved a process, record it. If you trained a team, remember the size of the team. If you helped increase revenue, understand the number. If you reduced complaints, improved guest satisfaction, cut costs or helped open a property, keep the details.

These are the things that eventually make a hospitality resume credible.

Our updated hospitality resume guide covers practical ways to structure your CV, while our guide to hospitality certifications can help if you are considering additional professional qualifications.

And one point I would strongly recommend in 2026: learn to use AI as a career assistant, but do not allow it to manufacture your career story. AI can help you structure a resume, identify gaps, prepare for interviews and research roles. The actual experience, achievements and examples still need to be yours.

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 also highlights the growing importance of technological literacy alongside analytical thinking, creative thinking, resilience and leadership. That combination is particularly relevant to hospitality because technology is changing how hotels operate, while the human side of service remains fundamental.

I have always believed that hospitality is one of the best industries for people who enjoy meeting others.

You do not have to become an extrovert. Being quiet or introverted is not a career problem by itself. The real problem is refusing to build relationships.

Your network should not be a collection of random LinkedIn connections. It should include people who know you, remember working with you and understand what you can actually do.

Stay in touch with former managers. Keep contact with colleagues who move to other properties. Speak to people from other departments. Attend hospitality events. Join professional communities. Talk to alumni. Meet people outside your own hotel.

And please do not make every conversation about finding a job.

The exposure you get by working with different people and travelling to different markets is one of the great advantages of hospitality. You see different service cultures, management styles, guest expectations and ways of running a business.

That exposure becomes part of your professional education.

LinkedIn’s own current job search guidance recommends keeping your profile updated, setting relevant job alerts, building professional connections, following companies of interest and engaging with relevant industry conversations. LinkedIn’s job search best practices are worth keeping as a reference.

The important point is not to become obsessed with LinkedIn. Use it as one part of a much broader professional network.