After many years in the hsopitality recruiting business, I’ve learned that candidates often lack preparation when facing a career transition or job change.

Here are six simple steps to take before an interview to help you land the job.

1. Prepare Your Story
Throughout your hospitality career, you may pursue different directions. Be prepared to discuss the reasons for which you’re taking your career in a certain direction.

Organize talking points that help you tell your story. It’s important to touch on reasons why you may have left a company without bashing your former co–workers or supervisors. Explain with confidence the reason that you are making or have made a career change.

Remember that a lack of conversation reflects lack of interest. Be prepared to incorporate the storyline of your background into their organizational challenges.

2. Calculate Your Compensation
Know the difference between your needs, your value to the company, and market trends. Your financial needs are of no importance to the hiring manager or the hiring company. They care about your success, but they are not accountable for your financial responsibilities.

Investigate the market trends for the position for which you’re interviewing. The dollar amount is usually defined by what the market will bear for your position. This information can be collected from a variety of websites and market research. Keep in mind that this will also depend on the company’s size, revenues, headcount, geographic location, etc.

The value that you bring to the company is one that only you can define and present to your prospective employer. This will be based upon your demonstrated experience as determined by contributions you’ve made in previous roles. Capture and reflect revenues that you generated, incorporate costs and expenses that you managed, and/or numbers of people or clients that you have supported.

Understand acronyms such as OTE and MBO.

• OTE = On Target Earnings. This is what your total compensation package is, including annual base salary, bonuses etc.
• MBO = Management by Objective. This is typically used to identify a percentage of your annual base and may be paid quarterly or once a year.

3. Articulate Your Value
You need to be able to address the value that you bring to the company. Be prepared to share your skills and accomplishments and discuss how they benefit the company. Articulate these accomplishments in a problem–action–results sequence.

• Problem – This will reflect the specific problem, challenge, or situation that you are faced with. The way you would describe this is in the form of an overview or summary.
• Action – This represents the steps that you took to address the problem, challenge, or situation. Describe the methodology that you followed to drive results and deliverables.
• Results – This is where you define the success or accomplishment of your action. Use this as an opportunity to share how you evaluate the end result.

4. Determine Your Commute Threshold
Estimate how far are you willing to commute to get to work every day. Some candidates will use this threshold to represent miles and some will use it to measure total road time.

5. Determine Your Willingness to Travel
This will usually depend on the position for which you’re applying. Your previous experiences with work travel will be a true indicator to consider. You should also carefully consider the impact that this will have on your family and personal lifestyle.

6. Articulate Your Management Style
Be prepared to share and discuss the environment or culture where you can be the most productive. Are you most effective in a chaotic, fast–paced, high–stressed environment? Do you bring a calming influence in a chaotic setting? Are you detail oriented, driven by reports in a micro–managed structure? Be prepared to describe your typical activity in a normal work day.

If you do your homework well, you will be extraordinarily successful in your job interview. It will become easy for you to open new doors of opportunity toward landing the job of your dreams! Go get ‘em!

On Martin Luther King weekend I had the pleasure of backpacking the Appellation trail on a cold weather camping trip with my sons Boy Scout trip.  It’s a trip we make every January and I always look forward to it.  We decided to arrive Friday night after a 4 hour drive and hike 2 ½ miles, climbing 2600 feet, so that we could sleep in the Roan Mountain Shelter.  The Roan Mountain Shelter is the highest shelter on the Appellation trail.  Around Midnight, after hiking in two to three feet of snow, we arrived at the shelter under a cold, clear sky, the Milky Way lighting our way.

We awoke the next day and hiked about 5 miles, again in 2-3 feet of snow, until we arrived at the next shelter.  This shelter was small and only had three sides so we used it as a place to dine and play cards while we pitched tents and prepared for a windy and snowy/rainy night.  We knew there was a chance of rain but hoped that we were high enough on the mountain that it would snow, rather than rain.  This is when things started to fall apart.  When you pitch a tent in snow, traditional tent stakes don’t hold.  We tried to use downed tree branches as steaks and they worked well at first until the winds broke 30 miles an hour and the rain, not snow, was blowing sideways.  We did the best we could with what we had and tried to sleep with the wind howling and the rain pelting our tents.  I didn’t sleep well but I managed to stay dry.  I later realized that I was the only one is our group that stayed dry that night although my boots under the rain fly weren’t so lucky, therefore my feet would be wet all day.   Everyone was wet and it was a cold, windy 35 degree morning.  We decided to eat and pack quickly and then try to keep moving forward and hike out to where we had a truck parked about 6 miles away.  

When you are wet and cold, as long as you keep moving, you can keep from getting hypothermia and frost bite.  The key was to keep moving and heat up the moister in our cloths.  The first half of our Trek was on a virgin trail, three feet of snow that no one had walked on since the snow had fallen.  On the Appellation Trail the blaze markings are spread out about one every fifth to one every tenth of a mile.  As a team we found our way to the over mountain trail 3 miles away at a rate of less than one mile per hour and then proceeded to head down about 3000 feet to our car.   At this point we were struggling to find the trail and found ourselves hiking through a briar patch.  A branch flew back and penetrated my left eye.  I was in saver pain but realized I would have to suck it up in order to make our truck by dark.  If we didn’t make it, then we would risk hypothermia and possible frost bight.  We moved forward.  At 5:15 pm after hiking for 7 hours, we made it to the truck and drove to the hospital and home. 

I look back now, mostly out of my right eye, and think about what I learned from the trek and the ordeal.  Mostly it is this, when you have no choice but to achieve a goal, a literal life and death situation, leaders figure out a way to make it happen.  In the past 18 months, the restaurant business has been on the brink of disaster and yet many companies, including yours, decided to move forward or change direction and are better for it today.  Others through up their hands gave up and made excuses.  They are now in the restaurant graveyard.  If you work for a company that has shifted direction but kept moving over the past year then you should be very happy.  Even though you may have had to alter your plans and move in a different direction then originally planned, you are still here, delivering guest service every day.

Although I believe the worst is behind us, we all must keep our eye on the prize, providing excellent customer service and delivering on guest expectations.   In 2010, I pledge that I will do just that, to my candidates and clients.  They are my customers.

At some point in your life you will be out of work.  When this happens and you find yourself interviewing for a job, be honest as to why you are out of work, especially if you were let go for cause.   With today’s technology, companies can easily find out why you were let go.   While HR won’t talk, chances are the host who answers the phone in your old restaurant will.  Be honest, take responsibility for your actions,  tell the interviewer what you learned from your experience and sound remorseful.  Finally, Make sure that you let the interviewer know that you learned your lesson the hard way and it will never happen again.   At this point move on.

There are some companies, such as Darden, that will end the interview right there.  Many, however, will appreciate not only your honesty but your ability to learn.

One of the most important tools in a job seeker’s arsenal — and possibly the one that is treated most casually by the job seeker — is the resume. How well could a carpenter perform with a broken hammer, or a surgeon with a faulty instrument? Likewise, landing the job that’s right for you will be far more difficult without a powerful, accurately targeted marketing tool.

Crafting an effective resume requires stepping back, making objective assessments of oneself, being organized, and writing well.

Where to Start

Before sitting down to write your resume, it is best to have a clear plan. As a result, it will be helpful to consider the following:

Find your direction

As you would for any journey, decide where you want to go. The more specific you can make this decision, the better. If you have been a widget-maker all your life and you wish to continue in this field, the decision is simple; if you want to switch to making thingamajigs, you will need to dig a little deeper and possibly do some in-depth personal assessments.

Once you have decided upon a goal, you have a resume target. This will guide you in selecting the details that match (as closely as possible) the requirements of the type of position you seek.

Uncover your qualifications and accomplishments

Identify the information you will be using including work history, education and/or training, certifications, accomplishments, strengths, etc. Keep in mind that your accomplishments and strengths help ensure you stand out from other candidates with similar skills; therefore, it is essential to draw out those most relevant to the position you are targeting so that you may showcase them in your summary and work history.

Many people, surprisingly enough, have difficulty recognizing their strengths and completely overlook some of the best accomplishments they have to offer. The trick to uncovering these key points involves looking at what you do (and/or have done) from the employer’s point of view: How have your actions benefited the organization?

Everyone has accomplishments, yet often we are unaware of them. If you are particularly proud of something you have done, it is probably an accomplishment. Also, it can help to think in terms of challenge / action / result: What challenge existed? What action did you take? What was the result? If you can quantify the results — by using percentages, dollar amounts, or time frames, for instance — you will give your resume more authority and “punch” when an employer reviews it.

Consider the visual elements

Determine the design of your resume. If you generally submit a resume utilizing 8-point font and quarter-inch margins on all sides (a mistake often made by those who believe in the one-page myth), objectively assess the entire document. Will it stand out in a stack of resumes? Will your skills, strengths, and goals be quickly and easily identified?

White space can be used to your advantage. In fact, if you are at a mid-career level, a two-page resume is most common; and executives or those at highly experienced levels may find a two- or three-page resume is appropriate (depending upon your history and goals).

The idea is that you need not be concerned about keeping your resume to one page. It is more important that you present your most relevant qualifications and strengths in a clear and concise manner that maximizes the impact.

As You Craft…

Now that you have a plan, the next step involves crafting the resume; it is important to keep these fundamental strategies in mind:

The 15-second review

Employers are likely to spend only about 10-20 seconds on the initial pass. Your objective is to capture his/her attention while encouraging a more in-depth reading. This can be a valuable guide when deciding what to include in the summary and what to eliminate: Will it have enough impact to pass this rule?

The basic elements of an effective resume will include:

• A clean, visually appealing appearance that invites tired eyes to read.
• A dynamic and powerful summary of qualifications that targets the position requirements.
• Accomplishments emphasized in the initial summary and/or work history.
• Keywords and phrases appropriately placed throughout the document.
• A strong, well-written work history that highlights the last 10-15 years; earlier positions may be included in condensed fashion unless the skills are particularly relevant to your current goals.
• A section highlighting education, professional development (workshops, seminars, or other training that relates to your job goal), and other relevant certifications, publications, etc.
• Depending on your level, field, and goals, a table or list of specific technical skills may prove beneficial.

Summary of qualifications

Think of this as the “headline” to the “advertisement” that will “sell” you to the employer. Select your top skills, abilities, and strengths while ensuring they pertain directly to the type of job you are pursuing.

While it is critical to align your qualifications with the type of positions you are pursuing, quality of the writing is important, too. Write concisely, and write well. Keep in mind that while the language should be strong, sentence fragments are standard practice for resumes; however, cover letters need to be complete sentences (i.e., in first-person narrative form).

Work history

If you have a resume that details every job you have held beginning in high school, it will be a relief to know you may be able to eliminate them and free up a great deal of space for important information. You want to include information that demonstrates your strengths and illustrates your track record utilizing skills relevant to your job target. Positions you have held during the last 10-15 years are considered the most important unless you are a Senior Executive and you need to show a more complete career track. Sometimes earlier positions can be included in a block of additional experience.

It is important to be concise and pointed. Back up the statements made in the summary of qualifications with information that demonstrates how you used your skills and how they benefited your previous employers. Here, too, it is vital to remember your target, choosing and arranging information so that it will highlight your most relevant abilities and background.

Education and Training

An overview of your education is typically reserved for the end of the document; however, if it directly relates to your job target, you may place it early in the resume following the opening skill summary. This can be especially helpful if, for instance, you have a degree in widget making even though your work history has been largely in thingamajigs.

Give brief information that includes the level (e.g., associates, bachelors, etc.), kind (e.g., arts, science, etc.), and area (i.e. major and/or concentration) of degree(s) that you possess as well as the awarding institution and location.

If you have attended seminars include these. If you have obtained certifications in your chosen field, or ones that show you could easily secure any required certifications, list them either before or after the continuing-education portion of this block. The relative importance of the certifications will determine their position; for instance, a technical certification will be more important for a job involving information technology than one involving hospitality services.

Finally — A Resume that Gets Noticed!

You are just about done, and you should have a much stronger resume document. Just a few additional points to consider:

• Personal information — age, marital status, health, religion, and ethnicity should not be listed when seeking positions within the US. (When pursuing jobs in other countries — particularly with non-US employers — various personal data is often included, depending upon the country.)
• References are rarely included because they are submitted at a later stage in the process when mutual interest has been established between you and the employer.
• Often, particularly for a job you really want or need, there is no substitute for having a resume professionally prepared. Just knowing that writing specialists — who are highly trained and keep up with industry and job trends, and innovations in resume preparation — are preparing a powerful document for you can be a big boost of confidence, which allows you to wow interviewers. And you can’t put a price on that.

Either way you do it, think positive and be confident as you enter your job search!

Resume Strategies for New Graduates

Emphasize skills gained through experience and studies to fully develop a powerful, qualitative resume.

An effective resume captures an employer’s interest within the first 15 seconds. Typically, a new graduate’s most relevant skills are gained through academic study. However, unless a candidate’s education is in a highly sought after area, competing with more experienced candidates may prove challenging—especially if one does not have related work experience. Thus, a well-designed resume with a qualitative (versus quantitative) focus will immediately pique interest and maximize the marketing potential of your recent education, practicum, internships, etc.

Rarely will the title of a program or degree fully convey the full breadth of one’s skill set. A carefully designed resume—through strategic presentation of key program elements and your personal areas of focus—will quickly demonstrate to an employer the skills you bring to the table; this in turn allows you to stand out from other candidates. An Academic Skill Conversion™ resume leverages your hands-on classroom, project, lab, and internship activities as they pertain to your current career goals. And if you have related work and volunteer experience, it can be used to add further value to your overall presentation.

Also, it is not uncommon for new graduates to underestimate the strength of transferable skills gained through work that is unrelated to the degree. For example, you may have held service-oriented positions in the retail or hospitality industries. In these instances, it can be advantageous to show professional strengths that demonstrate aptitude in customer service, administration, or general operations. This is achieved by developing a well-targeted qualifications profile.

In addition to an effective qualifications profile, you can present specific details of projects in the experience section that follows your profile and education. If you have work, volunteer or internship experience, it would be listed here, in reverse chronological order. Ultimately, the key to a successful job search will be largely determined by the power of your presentation. You’ve worked hard to earn your degree, and now it is time to have your degree work for you.

Last month I was in Chicago at the Gecko Hospitality conference where we spent two days discussing how to better help our clients with their staffing needs. On Tuesday night we flew in to Chicago early in order to prepare dinner at the Ronald McDonald House at the University Of Chicago Hospital. The gecko team of recruiters prepared homemade meatloaf, garlic mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, salad and a chocolate cake that looked like it came from the cover a Saturday Evening Post in the 1950’s.
Now I’m not sure if you ever been in a Ronald McDonald House but they tend to be at hospitals that specialize in treating children for cancer. The Chicago house is amazing, having room for 35 families and a kitchen large enough to host a reality TV show. The 35 families staying in the house, live there rent free while their children undergo treatment for various forms of cancer. Many times the children stay in the hospital and the house is a place for the parents and siblings to come back to in the evening and be around others going through the similar situations to their own.
We did meet one 8 year old boy who has had cancer since he was 4 years old. He has been having Chemo treatments for a while and had been in the hospital for 2 weeks straight. The dinner that we had cooked was the first meal outside of a hospital bed as well as the first real food that he had eaten in 2 weeks. The boy cleaned his plate. He also told me that he found out only hours earlier that he was cancer free and proceeded to show me all of the sharpie marks on his arms and legs that the radiologist had used to make sure that he was cancer free. They were his badge of honor.
If you ever need a pick me up, cook and serve dinner to a smiling 8 year old boy on the night he found out that his cancer is gone. I had a big smile on my face the rest of the evening and into Wednesday morning. Let’s never take for granted what’s most precious in life; our family, our friends, our community and life itself.

It’s hard to believe that December 24th is already upon us. It’s been an interesting time in the restaurant industry over the past year. Value is back in fashion and every restaurant that has a decent menu of meals under $10.00 seems to be busy when ever I go in. Of course I still like to frequent my favorite spots on the weekends where the prices may be a little higher but the food is top notch and the service is impeccable and attentive. The greatest change that I have seen in the restaurant industry over the past 6 months is that servers, managers and even chefs will approach us and genuinely thank us for our business. Last Saturday night after a wonderful chicken dinner (I’m not cheep, I really love free range chicken) at my favorite restaurant, the chef came out of the kitchen to thank my wife and I for our continued business. This simple act has me coming back to the restaurant this weekend for more, chicken most likely. More importantly, it made me think that I need to thank my clients for continuing to allow me to help them staff their restaurants, even during these difficult times. I relay do appreciate the business as well as their continued belief in me and in Gecko Hospitality. As we enter the thick of the holiday season it’s always great to remember that the greatest gift you can give someone is your sincere appreciation for what they do to make your world a better place. Give the gift of a “Thank You” this holiday season. Your bank account and the people you thank will be very thankful that you did.
Posted by Brian Blum