In such a fast-paced industry, if you’re ready to meet the challenges of a senior-level position in hospitality, you already have some familiarity with the standard interview process.
The interviewer wants to get an idea of your suitability for a senior role and it’s your job to display your suitability, cultural fit, and drive during the interview.
These roles generally come with rather stiff competition, given that other candidates for the role will also have considerable experience under their belt and the hiring process for senior-level roles will involve upwards of 5 shortlisted candidates.
Interviewing for senior hospitality roles – ops managers, area managers, HR, hotel managers – requires you to indicate how you can transform a hospitality business by thorough preparation.
Display your knowledge
Years of experience on paper are good, but they aren’t necessarily a solid indication of job suitability.
Knowing the business you’re being interviewed by, the customer base, the business’s online offering, and the competitors displays a working knowledge.
The key here is that for roles of every level, a certain level of research is required – for senior roles, applying your research to your working knowledge is essential.
You want to be able to touch on the company’s:
- Goals
- Culture
- Strengths
- Weaknesses
- Competitors
- Customer base
Then you want to demonstrate how your skills will not only fit into the company but also help to improve it.
Industry trends is another equally beneficial area to display knowledge in, which can be done through reading online publications which can be cited for specific statements made in your interview.
For example:
“I’ve read about the impact of free hotel booking links through Google search pages on Boutique Hotelier, which could have a significant positive impact for hotels as it allows them to connect with more potential customers than ever before and streamline bookings at no extra cost.”
This information could then be followed by your thoughts on how this links to metrics, e.g., “By being able to track the performance of the free booking links, we can adapt to customer preference and change our value offering accordingly based on the data.”
It’s not about what you’ve done, it’s about how you’ve done it
Though the hiring manager or whoever is overseeing the process has already determined your experience to be adequate for a role, that isn’t the primary purpose of the interview.
For senior roles specifically, it is important to show both what you’ve done and why you’ve done it for cultural fit purposes, as well as to assess your working style and how it aligns with the company.
Rather than giving a brief overview of your experience or potential projects, you want to give clear deliverables – examples of what you were targeted on, and how exactly you achieved it.
An operations manager, for example, could discuss the process of hiring new employees at a previous job. Rather than simply mentioning that they have undertaken the hiring process, they could also discuss:
- Their process for analysis and market research
- Revamping the job offer to be more appealing based on market research
- Advertising in the optimum places for the role
- Contacting staffing/recruitment agencies
Covering these areas would show the full process for completing a task and also give a clear indication of the level of detail and commitment that goes into each task, project, and area of experience.
Top tip: many hiring managers will be on LinkedIn. Taking a look at some of the content they post, share, or engage with can give you some really beneficial talking points in your interview and also a strong idea of the company’s approach to specific areas.
Highlight your skills in context
Interpersonal skills – the skills we use to communicate, build relationships, and manage teams in this case – are one example of a skill that is integral to senior and management roles.
Whilst anyone can say that they have ‘strong verbal communication skills’, displaying your whole range of interpersonal skills is a different thing entirely.
Similarly, your experience, accomplishments, previous mistakes (and how you overcame them) and management style are all different skills that you will have applied differently to each situation.
What proven experience do you have for leading and growing a team, or adding value to business operations?
It’s your job to apply context to your skills and tell a story to the interviewer of not only which skills you’ve used, but when, how, and the result.
Top tip: with many of the competency-based interview questions, or questions related to specific skills such as interpersonal skills, you can utilise the STAR technique:
- Situation (describe the situation and when it took place)
- Task (explain the task and the intended goal)
- Action (details about the action you took to reach the goal)
- Result (the results of your action)
Don’t be afraid to be ambitious
The answers you give throughout the interview process can tell the interviewer a lot about your character, cultural fit, skills, and career progression goals.
One area that can be frequently overlooked is career progression, as many candidates can be hesitant to appear to be rushing or assuming things when clearly emphasising that they desire a role in which they can move up the ladder.
However, you’ve already proven you can make your way into a senior role – so why not make it clear that you’re willing to keep on adapting and learning to go even further?
What you don’t want to do is imply that you’re under the impression that you should be promoted within a month of potentially getting the role.
What you do want to do is clearly convey that you have the determination and commitment to take on the role and continue learning – and potentially upskilling or training if these options are available – in order to remain being a strong asset for the business.
This is a great area to tackle when asking questions at the end of the interview (e.g., “Are there clearly defined career progression paths that would be available for this role?”).
It’s time to put your experience into action and take the next steps in your hospitality journey.
Good luck!
If you’re looking for a new career opportunity, take a look at our vacancies or get in touch with our specialist recruiters!