3 Fastest Ways to Hire Top-Tier Hospitality Employees
Ruthie White | Hiring Advice, Hotel Management, Opinion, Restaurant Management | May 9, 2024

If you work in hospitality operations, or if you’re a hiring manager or experienced management candidate in this industry, you know how important it is to have a full bench of top talent on your team. The last thing you need is to find yourself suddenly or chronically short-staffed, which causes remaining staff to burn out and provide lower levels of service. Employee well-being is just as important as having a full team.
This all-too-common staffing situation can materialize rather quickly and have a detrimental impact on the business. After more than two decades in the hospitality industry, including my current role as a talent recruiting specialist, I know that hospitality talent acquisition is an ongoing challenge for employers across the food, beverage, hotel, and restaurant markets.
So, what are the fastest ways for operations leaders and hiring managers to recruit and onboard top talent with the right skill sets to fill those critical roles? It’s all about the recruitment strategy!
Let’s dive into three proven methods to keep your bench stacked and operating at full capacity.
1. Tap into your network – referrals work!
Job postings on job boards are not enough. When it comes to filling hospitality industry jobs fast with top talent, there’s no better place to start than your professional network. I highly recommend making word-of-mouth advertising a key component of your talent recruitment process and company culture.
Start with a grass roots referral program. Connect with your current team members, along with friends and colleagues who work outside your company. Ask if they have connections with people who could be a good fit for your team. Ask colleagues if they’ve recently interviewed anyone who they think would be a great new employee for your open role.
Getting employees to help in your recruitment process by referring job seekers is not only effective but also comes with talent retention benefits. As shared by LinkedIn, “Research shows they’re more likely to stick around the company longer because they feel a sense of community as well as a level of responsibility to the employee they recruited.”
About 90% of our new hires came from network connections! When I worked in restaurant operations, we always reached out to our networks when we were opening new locations. The results of our strategy were beyond impressive, and it went far beyond filling roles fast. With our new hires being based on referrals, we were able to build a strong company culture where everyone truly wanted to be there. And our reputation spread. People regularly stopped by to check with me on job openings and when they might be able to start working for us. People wanted to work for our company.
2. Leverage social media’s recruiting power
Use social media sites like LinkedIn, Indeed, Instagram, Facebook and others to attract people to join your team. Ask your social media manager or marketing team to create compelling visuals and get your job postings in front of as many people as possible. Here’s an excellent article from our own social media manager with five job posting tips from a social media perspective.
Another option is to engage in groups on LinkedIn and meet with individuals face-to-face through local networking groups. There are many qualified candidates out there, and using social media is a great strategy to make sure you cross paths with the best candidates.
3. Keep your hiring process simple
When your need is immediate to fill an open role, this is simply not the time for drawn-out onboarding processes and overly lengthy job descriptions. Keep in mind that the best hospitality job seekers get discouraged and move on when a company’s recruitment process is complex or takes too long. To quickly onboard the best candidates, you need a simple but effective recruitment process and hiring strategy.
Here’s an article with solid advice on how to create urgency to win the best talent. Many of our clients find great success by incorporating these steps into their talent recruiting, interviewing, and hiring processes.
Remember – the easier you make things for job seekers, the faster and greater your hiring success will be.
Connect with a trusted hospitality recruiter
In a perfect world, you would never be short-staffed, but as all hospitality industry professionals know, it happens. And it doesn’t help when there’s a lack of time and resources to turn it around. You’ll be in a much better position to conquer the hospitality industry talent acquisition challenge if you apply the easy initiatives outlined above
Partnering with an award-winning talent recruiting firm is also an effective solution, especially one that specializes in hospitality industry recruiting. Goodwin Recruiting has been around since 1999, and since our roots are in hospitality, we know your world like the back of our hands. Nationwide, we have more than 300 recruiting partners and a pipeline of experienced hospitality job candidates who are ready to answer your urgent staffing needs.
Connect with me when you need a helping hand in hiring top-tier candidates for your team. I am a senior recruiting partner with Goodwin Recruiting and welcome the opportunity to champion and streamline your hiring needs. I can also provide insights for job descriptions, job postings, social media strategies, and hiring processes that work.
Here are some of the positions we fill for our clients across the hospitality industry:
- Executives and C-Suite Professionals
- General Managers
- Directors of Operations
- District and Regional Managers
- Hotel and Restaurant Managers
- Food and Beverage Managers
- Facilities Managers
- Executive Chefs
- Sous Chefs
- Kitchen Managers
- Finance and Accounting Staff
- Human Resources Staff
- Sales and Marketing Staff
- Office and Administrative Staff
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