Hospitality is absolutely everywhere – you can’t miss it – but have you ever wondered about working your way up in this busy, lively industry? Many of us have had the chance to experience what it is like working in a restaurant or hotel, however, very few of us go into this job intending to climb the hospitality career ladder. Instead, we use it to fund studies for an alternative career path. If you were to concentrate all your energy on this job, there is huge potential to become a manager one day. With that in mind, here are the top ways to become a manager in the hospitality industry.
Decide on a Sector
Within hospitality, there is a vast range of options for where you will work and what your job will entail, for example, work on a cruise ship to learn about hospitality whilst traveling the world or work in a high-end hotel or casino to get a taste of how the other half lives.
Once you have decided in what kind of establishment you would like to work in and where, you can then narrow down your search even further to specialize in areas such as wine, large events, bar, fine dining, etc…This will then give your training a focus and enable you to work on a niche that will be your competitive advantage when looking for a job and to excel as a great manager one day.
Let this discovery be fun by trying out different areas of hospitality before deciding on what area you would prefer to specialize in. Perhaps work in the housekeeping department and then maneuver into the restaurant department; you will learn transferable skills that will benefit your development, no matter which department you settle on.
Make a Plan
All this discovery and knowledge building will lead you to a decision that will certainly require a plan if you are looking to develop your career. This is highly important in ensuring that you don’t get stuck in a rut since management can look at you and assume that you are happy working at an operational level and may never consider you for a promotion.
This can leave you bitter and de-motivated, so ensure that you talk through your career development plan with the human resources department so that they are made aware of your aspirations. Furthermore, making a career development plan will provide you with a gauge in which you can measure your progress and help you to understand why you are even pursuing this career path.
Without a purpose for all your hard work and effort, it can be hard to look forward to your future career. You must identify the things that bring joy and meaning to your work or else you might wake up one day and look back on a career that you hated and just continued to pursue, simply because it was easier to not take a risk.
Study to Become a Leader
It is possible to enter hospitality management through experience and promotion alone, especially if you have a natural knack for customer service and are a genuine people person. Nevertheless, it will be easier to enter a management-level position much sooner if you have a degree in management since you will learn the skills that are necessary for this position, including revenue management and employee training. Enroll in an MBA distance learning course at Aston University to gain these important skills and learn from wherever you are in the world to enable you to gain the ability to think like a leader and join a global alumni network of more than 90,000 people. This way you will have the confidence to apply for supervisory and management roles and enjoy a competitive advantage against other applicants, showing recruiters that you mean business.
Develop Your Interpersonal Skills
Hospitality is all about interaction with people, whether that be with guests, team members, suppliers, or bosses, so you need to have great interpersonal skills. This means understanding people’s emotions and gauging their reactions to always anticipate their every need and making their communication with you a positive experience. You should also be completely non-discriminatory since you will probably be working and dealing with people from multicultural backgrounds, and from different ethnicities. This often requires your language to be concise and straight to the point when communicating, for actions to be efficiently undertaken.
Written communication should also be seamless and respectful, with the correct use of grammar and spelling and responsible email etiquette. This is since you might spend a lot of time writing responses to reviews, sending emails, putting together training material for standard operating materials, and much more.
Develop this skill by reading more, especially books about hospitality management, and practice writing emails in the correct format before sending your resume for a potential role.
Find a New Hobby
Finding a new hobby might not necessarily directly impact your ability to be a better manager, but it is incredibly important for your life in general and, therefore, you’re work-life to have activities that can help you escape or be challenged.
If you have ever been asked the “tell me about yourself” question and gone on to reel off all the many qualifications you have and places you’ve worked, you may have been doing it slightly wrong. This is a chance to show potential employers that you are an interesting person with lots more to offer a company than just the immediate job requirements that are advertised. Take sport, for example, this will help you to show motivation and dedication in other areas of your life and can directly impact your performance at work due to increased brainpower and energy.
Being a manager in hospitality is a deeply rewarding career that can allow you to earn a good salary and communicate with an abundance of interesting people daily. Nearly everybody has the capability to perform well in hospitality but not everyone will be cut out for the demanding nature of being a manager, therefore, plan your journey well and reflect at each stage.
Related article: 10 Biggest and Most Important Traits of an Extraordinary Hotel Manager
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About Are Morch
Hi, I am Are Morch. Your Digital Marketing Coach and Customer Experience Expert specializes in creating effective digital customer experience offer for hotels while growing and scale customer acquisition and revenue.
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