When you own a hotel, you need managers who will represent you well. In part, this means checking references, reviewing resumes, and getting a general feel for a candidate. Beyond this, your interview can provide an opportunity to understand a candidate’s strengths. Hotel management is more than applying collected experiences; it provides the primary means by which your hotel will succeed or fail. Three questions can help you separate the right candidates from the lesser ones. 1. How Do You Evaluate Employees? Variations on this question can hone in on reward and discipline; on communication style; or on quantity and quality of evaluations. In any event, you should learn how a hotel management candidate relates to the staff who will work under him or her. Understanding this process might help you understand potential issues with morale or confusion that could arise—and avoid hiring someone who may cause them. 2. Tell Me About a Mistake You Made in Your Last Position No one is perfect, particularly in management roles where an objective “right answer” seldom exists. This question helps you see hubris or dishonesty if someone does not answer with a mistake. More than that, though, the answer often reveals insight into a candidate’s approach to problem-solving. Most people manage well under easy circumstances; the best managers show the ability to adapt and recover when something goes wrong. 3. What Has Been Your Biggest Success? Here, you have a chance to learn about what matters to the candidate. Everyone defines success differently; when you ask this question, you give a candidate an opportunity to tell you what success is, and attach a narrative of how that person seeks it. Success should mean more to you if the person can repeat it, and a clear sense of what the person did and why will give you a sense of how repeatable that success will be. Interviewing hotel management candidates should give you insight not only into the person, but into how that person will approach working for you. Questions that delve into both areas can give great insight to your candidate search.
