Josh TolanHospitality is the world’s fastest-growing industry, according to a survey by Eastern Michigan University. If you are part of a hospitality HR team, you can attest to the whirlwind of growth across your company’s hiring efforts. If you haven’t felt the pressure yet, chances are you will soon. In fact, the same survey revealed the hospitality industry will add one new job every 2.5 seconds.
For perspective, in 2018, moving at this incredible rate led to a massive 16.54 million employees working for the hospitality and leisure industry, according to a Statista report.
The catch is, hospitality employees are arguably some of the most challenging to hire. Their customer-facing roles will either make or break the customer experience, which is everything to your company.
It’s often difficult to identify high-quality hospitality talent because the skills and personality traits they need to possess are hard-to-measure. To add to the challenge, you’re usually trying to fill multiple in-demand roles in a short period of time.
There’s still hope because evolving HR tech increases your ability to quickly hire the best hospitality employees. However, evaluating and determining which of the thousands of tools are right for your specific needs takes more time than you have. That’s why we’re making the process easy by sharing our five favorite hiring tools every hospitality HR team needs:
1. TextRecruit
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found the rate of separation in the hospitality industry was 5.5% in November 2019. That’s higher than any other industry.
High turnover rates mean your HR team needs to be prepared to communicate with candidates quickly. Unfortunately, without the right communication tool, keeping in constant contact with candidates can drastically slow your hiring process.
TextRecruit supercharges your hiring process communication through text messages. Through the platform, you can personalize text messages and send them to multiple candidates at once. Your team saves time by automating the process so they can focus on evaluating candidates and building stronger relationships.
You also contact candidates through their preferred, immediate form of contact. In fact, two-thirds (64%) of workers in Jobvite’s Job Seeker Nation Report who received a text message after applying for a job stated they prefer this type of communication over email or a phone call. Even more promising, 95% of texts are read within the first three minutes, and users respond on average in just 90 seconds.
2. Kandio
Having a fast hiring process is pointless if ill-fitting candidates filter into your company. Of course, you know how challenging it is to assess hospitality-industry talent effectively. Quickly determining if their soft skills and experiences align with both the company’s and customers’ needs at the rate of the industry’s growth is daunting.
Kandio is an assessment platform with tests created by in-demand specialists. You simply type in the role or skills you’re hiring for, click on the best-fitting option, and receive a test designed by an expert in that field for your talent needs.
The assessment tool integrates with other platforms, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, and is easily customizable for your branding and domain. Kandio also offers easy-to-read assessment reports, empowering your hiring team to make confident decisions regarding talent. In the hospitality industry, this means more accurate indicators of a candidate’s immediate and future success in a role.
3. JazzHR
Turnover and seasonal hiring require you to be prepared to scale at a moment’s notice. If you’re not equipped to do so, your customers and current employees suffer from talent gaps.
JazzHR is an applicant tracking system (ATS) that covers all your hiring bases. It allows you to streamline the entire process from candidate sourcing to employee onboarding, and everything in-between.
For example, you can connect with hospitality industry candidates, no matter where they are, with just one job post. Then, you can entice the right candidates to apply by branding why your company is a great place to work. From there, JazzHR manages resume screening to help you get through more quality candidates faster.
4. RolePoint
Your company is packed to the brim with highly-talented and dedicated hospitality employees. These employees are one of your top tools for sourcing new talent. Employee referrals, according to SilkRoad’s recent report, remain the top source of hires, delivering more than 30% of hires overall and 45% of hires from internal sources, an increase of 5% year-over-year.
Without the right tool to manage your referral system, however, your employees may not be sending as many referrals your way as they could. RolePoint makes it easy for your employees to share talent from their network.
This platform simplifies the employee referral process by automating the distribution and tracking of referred candidates. It also promotes employee engagement through the Engage algorithm. This tool doubles back on your messages to ensure they’re optimized for participation.
5. Spark Hire
Hosting open calls to spend hours scouring through countless resumes just to send candidates through to phone screens or in-person interviews takes up an immeasurable amount of time and manpower. You either spend 30 minutes on a phone call not being able to fully assess a candidate’s soft skills or demeanor. Or risk spending time during an in-person interview with an unqualified candidate.
Our one-way video interviews offer the next step you need between resume screening and in-person interviews. Pre-recorded interview questions allow candidates to respond on their own time without the issue of scheduling conflicts. Their recorded responses are sent to hiring managers so you receive quick, collaborative decisions about which candidates should move through to the next round.
The convenience of recording responses improves the candidate experience for hospitality candidates with unforgiving and unpredictable work schedules. Additionally, they speed up and enhance the accuracy of assessing candidates earlier in the hiring process.
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