Welcome to the vast world of hospitality. Here, endless luxury and impeccable service is the name of the game. And how do you make your first impression stand out in this exhaustively competitive domain? Well, like any other industry—with an impressive curriculum.
Be it in India, the US, UK, or any other country, there are certain common qualities and data formats that HRs prefer in a CV for hotel management jobs. A good CV helps your reputation precede you and build your credibility as a person well before you are called in.
Hence, this article will help you in:
- Creating a hospitality resume format loved by HR professionals around the world.
- Presenting your CV in a manner that reflects your professional personality better.
- Learning new tips and examples of how to present your skills and achievements the right way
- How to target the right job post with the right presentation of experience and personal details.
Set The Right Format
In an industry where the tiniest details add up to a great guest experience or gruesome criticism, candidates are also scanned with the same critical view. So setting up your hotel management resume format to highlight the best of your career and academic skills is sure to catch their eyes sooner from the pile of other typical CVs.
Here are some guidelines to set up such a format:
- Add your name as a header that includes your personal information
- Add reader-friendly titles to every section so that it is easy to navigate.
- You can choose to go with the standard chronological resume template or a reverse-chronological order for your experience and achievements.
- The font is key. Use a font that is decent, professional, and easily readable. Calibri is a good example of modern professional fonts.
- Keep enough white space around each section to make each section spacious.
- Unless a recruiter asked to submit an MS Word resume (which is rarely a case), always save and share your CV in PDF format.
Always Start With An Objective & Introduction
With the right hotel management resume format in hand, you have a foundation to start with.
Now, understand that HR recruiters have several resumes coming in every day and less than a minute to scan each one of them. With such a short attention time for each resume, how do you make them stick to yours?
The answer is- with a magnetic opening introduction or summary.
A short and ordered summary would give them a quick glance at your entire career in less than a minute, making them want to know more if they are really interested.
Another crucial point is using the right words and numbers to allowed the reader to have a calculative view of the sentences. They should be able to grasp your total experience and add up all behavioural quirks by the end of the description itself.
Try to add what you have to offer rather than explaining what you expect from the industry. Nobody wants to hire candidates who work with the goal of self-preservation and self-growth only. Any hospitality recruiter looks for candidates who can add more value to their organization and work for the company’s growth.
Avoid going too overboard with the description though. Be practical and informative. Consider these examples of a hotel management resume sample introduction for a manager post:
The Wrong Way To Introduce Yourself
Optimistic and hard-working executive manager capable of all duties, including team-building, guest handling, and boosting the morale of other hotel staff. Have exemplary interpersonal skills and looking for an industry that would help me grow.
The Right Way To Introduce Yourself
XYZ Certified executive manager with 2+ years of experience and multiple guest service excellence honours. Seeking a post at your Hyatt Regency branch in Pune, Maharashtra. Was commended for sustaining a 95% positive guest response for 2 years in my last organization. Named ‘employee of month’ 5 times. Skilled at maintaining personal bonding with guests. Seeking an organization that is ethical and aims to outgrow the competition.
List Your Experience In A Crisp And Relatable Order
Your experience will ultimately decide if you’re readily trained for the job and your deserved pay grade. To ensure that the recruiters find your experience to be more prominent than the other 1000+ candidates applying for the same post, follow these guidelines carefully:
- For the best elaboration of your career, start with your current job and list your previous positions in the reverse-chronological order.
- Don’t ever forget to mention the full company names, period worked, and locations.
- For each organization, highlight your role and key achievements with bullet points in your hotel management resume format. 5 or 6 bullets per organization are enough, do not overexplain.
- Craft your bullet statements with psychologically positive and action-driven words, such as cooperated, trained, helped, created, boosted, managed, etc.
- Try to mention the experience points that are relevant to the job posting requirements.
- Always bold numeric quantities with numbers in as many bullet points as you can.
If you’re a fresher with no experience, you can still highlight related work experience with transferable terms such as:
- Volunteered at a hotel kitchen work for X months
- Waited tables for X months
- Tended bar & Managed people
- Led a small project during an internship
- Worked with the public during an event
Highlight Your Education
Your educational level not only supports your qualifications but also accredits your upbringing, mannerisms, teamwork capabilities, and general knowledge about certain subjects.
Hence, your education section should be given some importance with sufficient elaboration. Here’s the best way to put down your academics:
- Stick to the reverse-chronological order, starting from your latest graduation and work up to your schooling.
- For each organization, highlight your degree and key achievements with bullet points in your hotel management resume format. 2 or 3 bullets per organization are enough here.
- Add all organization names, degrees, graduation years, and locations.
- Don’t forget to add your best of extracurricular activities, academic accomplishments and awards, as well as relevant coursework.
Mention All Extra-Curricular Skills
& Certifications
Remember, a job posting isn’t limited to its designation. Recruiters often mentioned the specific skills their looking for in job descriptions. Almost all of us overlook those and stick to emphasizing experience and academics.
There are many candidates who would match the same level of experience and education as you. Then the only things that can put you in the spotlight are the specific skillset and certifications the recruiter is looking for.
Here’s what you need to do:
- List down all your skills and abilities, including your spoken skills, practical skills, and technical skills.
- Reread the job posting to check what skills the recruiter requires.
- In your list, put those skills at the top with rich text and clear explanations.
- Put the remainder of your strongest skills below as a shortlist.
- Now, in the certification section, arrange your certificates in the same order as the recruiter’s requirements, to bring their preferred skills to the top.
- Every certification should be a separate paragraph or a bullet point.
Here’s a good example to consider for a hotel manager resume:
Suppose the recruiter mentioned key expected skills for a hotel manager post as Precision, Positive Attitude, and Problem-Solving. Then you should list your top skills as:
- Managed large budgets and team incentives with 99% Precision.
- Praised by all my teammates and seniors for being proactive with a positive attitude.
- Received 3 letters of appreciation from guests for Solving critical problems during events.
The rest of the skills can be mentioned as quick list:
- Guest Service,
- Computer Skills,
- Collaborative,
- Flexible Working Hours,
- Accounting Knowledge,
- Presentable.
Never Underestimate The Power Of A Cover Letter
50% of the recruiters expect you to attach a cover letter to your job application. The rest of the 50% are still impressed to see a cover later even if not necessitated.
A cover letter proves that you are serious about the job and want the recruiter to make your resume more seriously than the thousand other generic ones.
Here are some tips to make your cover letter effectively impressive:
- Keep it short. Make it personal and show what you have to offer.
- Refer to the recruiter’s name so it immediately catches their eye.
- Prove how you suffice their expected job requirements.
- Share your relevant accomplishments and how you add value to your tasks.
- Always end a cover letter with an offer or request to connect with the recruiter personally.
Pro tip
When adding your contact details at the end, remember to mention the following info:
- Your professional email address
- Your personal contact number
- Your LinkedIn profile link (in soft copy) or handle name
- Other social media accounts where you share routine work posts