There are many skills hospitality professionals pick up throughout their career, but these 7 are great skills to make sure you highlight on your resume and during your interview to show that you are a great fit for the industry!

Use the keywords below on your resume to grab the hiring manager’s attention and set yourself up for success.

1. Building and maintaining relationships

Working the hospitality creates many opportunities to form connections. Between guests, other team members, vendors, and local community organization leaders, hospitality professionals are constantly interacting with other people throughout their days. 

During your interview try to talk about real-life examples of you building and maintaining relationships in a previous job and how that relationship helped the organization’s success or goals. 

Keywords to use: relationship building, communication, guest relations, client or vendor management, team leadership.

2. Listening

To be successful at building relationships, hospitality professionals must have excellent listening skills. There are many instances where hospitality professionals have to listen carefully to the guest or team member to read between the lines and come up with a good solution for the situation or go the extra mile. 

Highlight the types of listening that you practice daily and how those have helped you be successful in helping a guest or a teammate

Keywords to use: active, empathetic, critical listener, communication, feedback

3. Flexibility and adaptability

After living through the most recent global pandemic and economic crisis, we quickly learned how important flexibility and adaptability are to the hospitality industry. Many face hours being cut, having to take on more responsibility, taking on new roles, new cleaning processes and safety procedures, and even new technology. 

Even when we’re not facing a global crisis, hospitality professionals have to pivot quickly to help teammates or guests, working longer hours than anticipated and handling unexpected situations. 

Keywords to use: flexible, adaptable, ability to pivot, versatile, resourceful, problem-solver, solution-oriented

4. Resilience

Hospitality is not an industry for those who are thin-skinned. You work in a high-paced environment with a lot of moving pieces. But the good news is you can learn how to maneuver through that by gaining experience and handling situations as they present themselves! It’s important to maintain the mindset that a lot of things are out of your control except how you choose to react. 

During an interview, you can talk about situations that were out of your control but through your attitude and actions, you were able to provide a solution that made the guest happy or helped reassure a teammate, or controlled an unexpected equipment malfunction, etc. Remember to never talk negatively about other people in the situation and focus on your actions. 

Keywords to use: Optimistic, calm, solution-oriented, creative thinker, positive attitude

5. Multitasking

Similar to being flexible and adaptable, hospitality professionals must be able to multitask well. You may have to balance a guest request while managing your job responsibilities. Working on your time management and organizational skills will greatly help you be a pro multitasker.  

Keywords to use: project management, organized, time management, efficient 

6. Attention to detail

It’s the little things that go a long way, for both guests and team members. To help create extraordinary experiences, hospitality professionals have to pay attention to little details, like leaving notes for guests or setting up specific amenities for guests if they are celebrating a special occasion, or even remembering and greeting guests like they are family every time they come back. 

If you have a story about a time you went above and beyond for a guest, make sure to share it when you are talking about your attention to detail in an interview. 

Keywords to use: attentive, observant, attention to detail, creative thinker

7. Cultural awareness

Hospitality is made up of people from all over the world and all walks of life – with different beliefs, values, personalities, expectations, and more. Hospitality professionals should not only be open and welcoming to everyone but should also want to learn more and be exposed to other ways of life. This really helps travelers feel more comfortable and creates loyal, long-term relationships. 

Keywords to use: open-minded, communication, collaborative