Hospitality Recruitment

Facing the Challenges of Hospitality Recruitment

Recruiting in the hospitality field is the perfect storm of labor shortages coupled with the growth of its various industries, including vacationing, food service, lodging, and more.

  • In 2019 there were more than one million jobs that went unfilled in the hospitality industry.
  • There are over five million guest rooms with a seasonal occupancy rate of more than 65%.
  • Developers keep building; nearly 2,300 hotels, inns, and motels were added in the last three years.
  • Cruise ship occupancy rates surpassed all expectations in the past few years.
  • Restaurants have unprecedented labor shortages, from line cooks to the front of house.
  • Employee turnover in hospitality is very high, making the retention of qualified staff a serious problem.

Here’s the reality that hospitality recruiters face: There simply aren’t enough workers to fulfill the amenity requirements of today’s modern traveler, diner, or parkgoer. It puts a lot of pressure on hiring teams as they try to find qualified candidates to fulfill the needs of companies in the hospitality field.

While recruiters can employ specific hiring strategies to attract more talent many of these efforts remain far too manual in scope. Recruiting is a numbers game, so how can hospitality-hiring teams improve their efficiency and reach more potential candidates — faster?

Solving the Hospitality Recruitment Problem

To combat the issues inherent in hospitality hiring, organizations can employ software to help improve workflows. While hiring teams can’t make more workers, they can use modern technology tools to reach more of the existing pool of candidates. Today’s sophisticated hospitality applicant tracking systems can automate basic sourcing and hiring processes to help hiring teams stretch further. Then the same hospitality recruitment software tools can help companies improve onboarding and help employee retention. For example, hospitality applicant tracking systems can:

  • Cultivate more talent more quickly. Today’s hospitality recruitment software can engage potential workers by sending automated yet personalized emails to your candidate pool. It’s a way to build relationships with a workforce over time that also build a funnel of high quality job candidates in your market. You can use these personalized communications to build your company as an employer of choice in the hospitality field.
  • Automate the recruitment process. Modern hospitality recruitment software can also automate resume harvesting and screening, eliminating much of the busywork and keeping your recruiters focused on personally engaging with qualified candidates by phone and in person. This will help you recruit more efficiently, reduce stress, and improve your time-to-hire.
  • Employee retention can be improved by systematizing how we track engagement. Hospitality recruitment software can help organizations use workforce analytics to track engagement. These tools can help spot employee absences that are a precursor to a resignation or chart employee satisfaction with organizational culture and benefits. Monitoring these and other trends will improve your ability to retain your top skilled workers and keep the momentum going beyond your initial recruitment efforts.


Recruiting in the hospitality field is incredibly hard, but the right hospitality application tracking systems can give you a competitive advantage.

Finding Talent with TAM Technology

Recruiting hospitality staff is easier when you have the right tools for the job. The Applicant Manager (TAM) is a modern hospitality applicant tracking system that offers cloud convenience and affordability with the most versatile features of any software on the market. TAM streamlines the efficiencies of hiring teams by:

  • Attracting candidates to your customizable careers page. Once there, candidates can browse intriguing positions in a format that is mobile-friendly for today’s modern applicants. TAM streamlines applications through intuitive auto-fill and language translation in a user-friendly and fast way to apply for jobs.
  • Screening candidates is easier with automation, drag and drop, and customizable prescreening questions that disqualify candidates before you waste time with manual screening. Each candidate has a simple all-in-one profile page and a customizable interview guide for recruiters. Smart search allows hiring teams to find the right candidate for the job requirements quickly.
  • Selecting candidates and scheduling interviews takes no time at all with our integrated calendar features. Automation does the scheduling for you so that all the recruiter has to do is prep for the interview — and show up.
  • Hiring candidates is simply faster when you let the software do the heavy lifting. TAM has a customizable candidate approval process that speeds up time to hire. Personality assessments and reference checks can automate, saving valuable time for the recruiting team. This best in class hospitality applicant tracking system can even integrate with payroll to eliminate errors and automate offer letters to ensure you remain compliant with all local, state, and federal hiring rules.
  • Onboarding candidates via TAM software will ensure you leave nothing to chance for new employees. The software can link with candidates so their onboarding process begins well before they arrive on site. This can eliminate the number of “ghosting” incidents between hiring and the first day that may currently plague your hospitality team. Employee handbooks, new hire paperwork, and government required forms can all be handled and stored within TAM’s executive functions. Even reporting and compliance is tracked and handled from within the confines of this one-stop-shop software tool.

Finally, reporting is often a laborious and manual process for organizational hiring teams. Not anymore. TAM automates all metrics, so that managers can customize a report, then just click a button to get what they need when they need it. Or, they can automate reporting for an even more streamlined response.

With TAM, hiring teams can:

  • Effectively track time-to-hire over time to determine their success.
  • Measure the cost-to-hire by tracking salary and bonuses against recruiter workflows to determine value.
  • Track which advertising language solicited more applicants to improve candidate outreach.
  • Determine the volume of interviews it took to successfully hire.

We understand the challenges of hiring in today’s hospitality field. That’s why we created TAM—to streamline your hiring processes and solve the problems recruiters face every day. Still skeptical? Check out what our clients have to say on our Client Success Stories page.

Find out how next-generation hospitality recruitment software can improve your efforts to find top talent.