Jeff Ross, managing director of Hospitality Graduate Recruitment on understanding and managing the expectations of graduates
The key hospitality industry benchmarks forecast continued positive growth in the coming years, and hospitality employers are under increasing pressure to explore and capitalise upon as diverse a range of recruitment channels as possible. One such channel is hospitality graduate recruitment – targeting undergraduates, graduates and alumni, from hotel schools and universities globally.
Graduate recruitment remains a valuable yet relatively poorly managed recruitment segment within the international hospitality industry.
Few companies have found the right strategy for understanding and managing effectively this diversity of talent that is eager and motivated to enter the workforce.
The benefits of implementing a sound approach to this should be obvious - succeeding in the employment of educated, motivated and high-value personnel, and recruiting individuals that have the potential to be managers of the future. Organisational succession planning cannot be sustained forever via the internal labour market.
Understanding hospitality graduate expectations is a key component in ensuring effective management of this recruitment channel. Here complications arise. The sheer diversity of international schools, universities, qualifications and of course students, means that it is hard to treat the topic in a general fashion, and almost impossible to consider graduate expectations uniformly.
Employers must therefore make more effort to understand the offerings of each educational establishment, correlating this information to the recruitment needs of their organisation. They should try to understand better what the finished (graduate) ‘product’ variables look like.
The good news about this diversity, is that it means that there are hospitality graduates in the market that look for entry level, supervisory and junior management roles.
No longer can we entertain the misconception that the hospitality graduate purely seeks a management position.
From a graduate perspective, frustrations are evident where employers do not consider the right way to manage and control their vocational expectations.
Some want the earth, but most do not. The majority merely seek an element of recognition and discussion around what they may or may not be capable of, and what areas of development would benefit both graduate and employer. Surely this is neither unreasonable, nor difficult to manage?
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