If you ever considered joining the hospitality industry but were worried about not having any hospitality-specific experience, now is your chance!

With most companies starting to plan for their rehiring phase in the future, they will begin opening their candidate pool to workers who have customer service experience, even if it was in a different industry.

Below are tips to format your resume to help highlight your skills and experience in a way to relate to the hospitality industry, and get you an interview.

Just starting out?

Being new to the hospitality industry isn’t an automatic “don’t call us, we’ll call you.” There are ways of tailoring your resume to get that all-important interview, even if you’re new to the business.

Your objective needs to be really clear. If you don’t have the resume to back it up, you must say up front you really love the restaurant industry, you have spent some time in the business, and you have the interest and a willingness to learn.

Quite often, applicants don’t have relevant experience, especially if they’re applying for a starter job in the restaurant industry. But this is not always an impediment to advancement, since attitude and passion for great customer service can oftentimes trump hard skills or experience.

Focus on your skills; quantify what you’ve done

Almost everyone, even the most entry-level candidates, has some level of work experience and possesses skills that can be marketable on a resume. Summer jobs, assignments, coop placements, part-time jobs, and internships all count.

For example, a young student may have worked at an ice cream stand. How would that person describe her job experience on a resume? You may have purchased raw materials, planned inventories, dealt with customers, grew sales by X%, generated Y% in profits, managed banking, handled cash transactions, honed customer service skills, arranged for repairs, located and hired staff, worked with the owners… etc. Suddenly, that summer job sounds very relevant to a position in the hospitality industry.

Where possible, job seekers should also quantify previous experience on their resumes. You weren’t just a server working in a particular restaurant. Include on your resume how many customers you served in a day, how many bills you managed daily, and how many receipts you gave without mistakes.

Servers have to remember all the specials, have to be able to tally the bill properly and have to be able to carry all those plates. These are marketable skills that can be articulated and quantified on a resume.

Mind the gaps

Gaps in your resume can be inevitable if you’re switching careers or have taken time away because of maternity leave, illness, traveling, or periods of unemployment. To a prospective employer, though, gaps can become red flags, so they should be handled carefully. If the gap was legitimate, be honest. If you were unemployed, explain what you did with your time and what types of jobs you applied for.

Tips for beefing up your resume

• Start with a strong “functional” resume.
• Lay your cards on the table. Let the employer know if you lack specific experience, but that doesn’t mean you lack appropriate skills and an enthusiasm for the hospitality industry.
• Make up for your lack of experience with a knowledge of the industry, plus specific knowledge of the establishment to which you’re applying.
• Emphasize your skills, not your places of employment.
• If you’ve worked in one job for the past 10 years, don’t assume this is the only job for which you’re suited. Job skills are transferable.
• Let’s say you want to move from a front desk job in a hotel to a different hospitality sector. Talk on your resume about how you’ve honed your customer service skills, developed your money management, learned computer skills, increased international skills, and enhanced your local knowledge.
• If you’ve jumped around from job to job, be prepared to explain why. Employment instability can be a red flag, especially in a high turnover industry like hospitality.
• Instead of listing your months of employment, use years and consider not listing every job you’ve held unless it’s relevant.
• Trying to shift careers? Research your new industry and tailor your resume accordingly.

If your number one skill is people handling, then look back at your career and find the top examples of customer service experiences.