Your hard-earned hospitality expertise is more valuable than ever. All those years of juggling guest needs, managing teams, and staying cool under financial pressure—they’ve helped you build a master key of skills that can open doors across the field.
There’s no better time to advance your career, especially as hospitality businesses ramp up employment. But here’s the million-dollar question: How can you convince hiring managers that your experience is exactly what they need when you’re pursuing higher-level roles or pivoting into a new hospitality sector?
Let’s dive into how you can polish your resume and ace interviews by highlighting these transferable hospitality skills.
1. Agility
In today’s hyper-connected world, consumers are constantly searching for the next best experience, and new technologies seem to pop up overnight. Great hospitality leaders go beyond keeping pace—they drive the change.
It’s no wonder why hospitality companies want agile managers in their corner. These leaders stay attuned to industry trends and pivot swiftly to navigate new opportunities and challenges, from staffing shortages to local events that can bring a surge of guests.
Here are two examples of how you can show employers your agility:
- Explain how you improved the success of an event or campaign by changing directions when you recognized a new opportunity or initially fell short of target metrics.
- Highlight your role in leading teams through significant transitions, like company-wide reorgs or digital transformation.
2. Empathy
Great customer service is the bare minimum in hospitality. At the management level, empathy is an expectation. Companies seek leaders who understand and anticipate guests’ needs, creating seamless and memorable experiences. Emotional intelligence also gives employers confidence that you can resolve conflicts, as well as lead, motivate, and empower diverse teams with ease.
Here’s how you can put your empathy on display:
- Provide examples of how you identified and catered to the unique needs of guests, improving customer satisfaction.
- Detail situations where you took an empathetic approach to effectively manage conflicts with guests or within your team.
3. Data Literacy
Data is a valuable currency in our analytics-driven world—and it can be the secret to your hospitality success. Managers who know how to transform raw data into goldmines of operational and guest insights are high in-demand. Yet only 24% of managers and executives are fully confident in their data literacy.
Data literacy isn’t just about crunching numbers. It’s about predicting trends before they hit and translating data into personalized experiences. It also entails optimizing business strategies, including hotel rates and restaurant prices, to boost your company’s bottom line.
Here are two ways to show this critical hospitality skill:
- Explain how you tracked key performance indicators to identify and implement measurable improvements.
- Mention your proficiency with data analytics tools, such as Excel, Tableau, and AI technology.
4. Creative Thinking
Hospitality companies are constantly in search of new ideas. That’s what keeps them competitive. Creative managers bring fresh perspectives that can transform standard operations into exceptional experiences—and they can envision and implement unique concepts, such as themed events or high-tech services, that attract and retain customers.
Moreover, innovators are excellent problem-solvers who can quickly devise solutions in the dynamic hospitality environment.
Here’s how you can prove you think outside the box:
- Provide examples of how your creative thinking helped solve challenging problems, such as customer retention or an operational bottleneck.
- List any unique initiatives or programs you led, as well as the results of your innovation.
Show off Your Hospitality Management Skills
Highlighting the right hospitality skills on your resume can help you stand out from other applicants for management jobs. Today’s companies are in search of agile leaders, creative thinkers, and managers who can leverage data and empathy to make strategic decisions. Align your experience with these needs—in both your resume and your interview answers—to impress employers as you aim to level up or switch hospitality sectors.