As travel continues to boom and competition in the hotel sector soars, attracting and retaining top talent is critical to long-term business success. After all, success in the hospitality industry quite literally depends on having people in place to provide the quality guest experiences people expect.

But hotel hiring teams face a unique set of challenges in recruiting the best candidates quickly as the number of open roles in the sector continues to outpace the number of active job seekers. Gaining a leg up on your competitors starts with a better understanding of exactly what leading hotels are doing when it comes to attracting and hiring top job seekers.

At Hireology, we conducted an exclusive survey of more than 100 human resources professionals within the industry to uncover just that. Armed with these insights, you can equip your team with the knowledge and tools necessary to thrive in today's competitive hospitality market.

There’s no doubt that hiring is a real challenge among hotels today. But exactly how dire are these challenges?

For 91% of hotels today, hiring remains a challenge — with 30% of surveyed HR professionals noting that that challenge is extreme and 61% reporting that it is more challenging now than it was a year ago. Hiring has become so difficult that about two-thirds have admitted to hiring someone who wasn’t a fit simply to get the position filled.

When asked to give specifics on exactly where the biggest challenges lie with hiring today, poor candidate quality and ghosting — when a candidate stops responding, effectively removing themselves from the running — top the list.

While most of these challenges come down to the ongoing effects of the pandemic, there are ways to get ahead with the right job design, sourcing, process and technology strategies in place. Let’s dig into what leaders in the sector are doing in these four areas.

It’s clear that the challenges are widespread when it comes to hiring in the hotel industry. But what are leading hoteliers doing to stand out?

Great job design is one of the easiest things hotels can do to recruit talent. Workers in this sector — especially housekeepers, bartenders and other restaurant staff — have the upper hand. Winning them over often comes down to meeting their needs for benefits, culture and more.

According to the survey, workplace culture and schedule flexibility are the most common benefits hoteliers are offering. Extracurriculars such as company picnics come in third — offered by 40% of respondents.

It’s also important to understand where your competitors are sourcing their best hires. Most hotels and resorts are relying on a multi-channel strategy to source talent, with employee referral programs, social media and career fairs topping the list.

While hotels rely on a range of channels to source talent, there are a few that stand out in terms of applicant volume and quality. Respondents said that paid and organic listings on job boards and social media bring in the most candidates, but when it comes to quality, employee referral programs jump up to the top spot.

Referral programs driving the highest quality talent is no surprise as referrals are effectively already vetted by your top employees. Getting ahead when it comes to sourcing will require investment into your referral program — making it as easy as possible for people to participate and for your team to keep track of referred talent.

Great job descriptions and an effective sourcing strategy are critical, but they’re not enough to gain a competitive edge. Most hospitality job seekers accept the first offer they receive when looking for work, meaning it’s paramount that you equip your team with the tools and processes to move fast on top talent in your pipeline.

According to our survey, most hotels are able to hire qualified applicants in less than two weeks. When it comes to initial response time, 85% of surveyed HR professionals said they typically respond within 48 hours with 50% indicating that they respond the same day an application is received.

Given that most hotels and resorts struggle with ghosting and no-shows, it’s no surprise that they are prioritizing hiring speed. Leading organizations are able to do this by defining hiring processes and mandates, investing in tools that make moving faster easier — think automation and mobile — and adopting a more holistic mindset that considers the candidate experience beyond their initial application.

More than half of the survey respondents said they are using AI in some capacity in their current roles — much higher than any other industry surveyed. When asked where they feel AI could be most useful in the hiring process, about 17% said they don’t know or didn’t see the potential in any of the options offered. However, about a third of respondents listed AI is helpful in writing job descriptions.

Overall, the data shows that the hospitality sector is leading the way when it comes to the use of AI in recruiting. This makes sense given the ongoing challenges faced in this space. Leading hotels are leveraging modern technology to gain a leg up and capture top talent faster.

Those that are curious about AI can experiment without making massive investment by leveraging free resources such as ChatGPT. You could use these types of tools to draft candidate emails that you can revise and reuse throughout your hiring process. Or you could experiment with prompting it to write job descriptions.

Hiring in hospitality doesn’t have to be so hard. With the right strategies and an understanding of where you can stand out among the competition, it is possible to hire better talent today and build a great team for years to come at your hotel.

Adam Robinson is the co-founder and CEO of Hireology.

The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or CoStar Group and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concern.

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