Complete Guide on How to Write a Hotel General Manager Resume

Overview

• What a hotel general manager does
• How to quantity your hotel experience on your resume
• The importance of highlighting experience across multiple hospitality sectors

If you love to interact with people from all over the world and like to travel, a hotel general manager job may be for you. In this role, you ensure that all of a hotel’s guests are comfortable and satisfied with their stay. This involves not only interacting with guests but also overseeing staffing and leading a team of both old and new employees, from receptionists to janitors.

Ultimately, the hotel general manager is responsible for the hotel running like a well-oiled machine — while making it all look easy. It’s a challenging but fun and rewarding job. How can you get the gig? A well-tailored resume that highlights your valuable skills and experience is the first step in winning over potential employers. Read on for a step-by-step resume builder guide.

Hotel general managers ensure that establishments offering overnight stays run smoothly. As a hotel general manager, you might find yourself working in a boutique New York hotel, a countryside inn, or even a tropical, all-inclusive resort. You could work for a big brand name or an independent company. In general, the larger the accommodation, the more people it houses — guests and staff included — and the more demanding and fast-paced the job will be.

Hotel managers have insight into nearly every aspect of business operations, including sales and marketing, food and beverage, housekeeping, and more. It’s a big job with lots of responsibilities.

The median pay for a lodging manager was $54,430 in 2019, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That said, the top 10% of earners in this field earned more than $105,720. Larger companies may also offer perks, such as free overnight stays at other locations when you travel.

Before you start putting information on the page, create a general manager resume template. You can then fill in the details. This will make it easier to organize information, allowing you to show off your talents, skills, and experience in a clear-cut manner so recruiters, hiring managers, and human resources (HR) professionals will be able to see if you’re a good fit for a role at a glance.

In general, it’s best to use a simple font such as Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman. The size should be 12 points. Insert 1-inch margins on all sides. For the content of the resume, you will want to include work experience, personal skills, and formal education. There are a few ways you can organize this information.

These are the three main resume formats you can choose from:

• Chronological. This format emphasizes employment history, starting with more recent positions and then going in reverse-chronological order. Include accomplishments and duties for each job. This format is ideal if you have significant relevant work history.
• Functional. This format highlights your skills first and follows up with work history. Divide accomplishments and skills into defined areas of expertise. This format is ideal if you have fewer years of experience.
• Combination. This format highlights skills across diverse jobs but uses the reverse-chronological format to display work history. It’s a combination of the above two formats.

Once you’ve selected a format and created a hotel general manager resume template for yourself, you can start filling in the personal details. Read on to find out what information to include and how to best present it.

Experience is greatly valued in the hospitality industry. It’s hard to cut corners, and people are expected to climb the ladder and put in their time as they rise the ranks. When creating your hotel general manager resume, it’s thus important to quantify the experience section using brief bullet points. Define how long you worked where. Be specific, including dates (year and month).

Being able to demonstrate growth within the hospitality industry is a big boon. It shows potential employers that you excelled in each position you held to the point that you were considered ready to advance to a more senior level with more responsibility. You can show growth via advancing titles, like from junior to senior food and beverage manager.

You can also show growth and development if you’ve moved to multiple locations. In some industries, changing locations or employers regularly is seen as a red flag. In hospitality, however, you are often expected to have diverse experiences spanning different cities, states, countries, or even continents. This speaks to globalized knowledge, which is very valuable.

You can most easily show growth by listing jobs in a reverse-chronological format.

As mentioned, hotel general managers oversee various types of teams at a property. Having experience across these different sectors is useful. It proves that you can understand, empathize, and communicate with the staff in these teams. Thanks to your background, you will be able to comprehend the challenges they face.

If you have experience in these sectors — even if not necessarily managerial — it’s worth flagging:

• Hotel operations
• Food service
• Maintenance and cleaning
• Corporate
• Sales and marketing
• Special events

In addition to highlighting general experience across an array of hospitality sectors, you should also flag management experience. This is important because it proves that you already have experience leading and managing people and overseeing operations in the hospitality industry. Emphasize past management roles and accomplishments relevant to the job description.

The hospitality industry is all about people. As a hotel general manager, you should make every guest who comes to your property feel like a VIP. Further, you have to inspire your staff to want to create that experience, too. The best general managers are people-oriented, charming, and highly personable.

Highlighting personal skills on your resume will help make your personality shine. Valuable competencies include:

• Organizational ability. General managers oversee many different departments and staff members. You have to keep track of everything from special events to VIP guests’ needs. This requires organizational talent, project management, and strategic planning.
• Leadership skills. General managers have to lead and inspire their team to deliver a top performance every day. Even when a staff member is tired or having personal problems, they have to present the guest with a smile and put their best foot forward. It’s your job to ensure they are delivering.
• Communication prowess. General managers must be able to communicate clearly with employees and guests alike, both in writing and verbally. Having diverse language skills can also help when interacting with international guests. If you have foreign language abilities, it would be beneficial to disclose that information.
• Patience. The job of a general manager isn’t always easy. When a disgruntled guest is unhappy, you will ultimately be the one who has to soothe them. You must remain polite and patient at all costs. You are the face of the property and can’t risk reputational harm by angering guests.

These traits will help you excel in the job, support good decision-making, and ensure customer satisfaction. Ultimately, customer satisfaction is what supports positive annual sales and drives a hotel’s profitability. As you can see, a great general hotel manager is an extremely valuable asset for any property to have.

Most hotel managers have a bachelor’s degree in hotel management or hospitality. Some may have additional training, like a master’s. There are also training programs available directly via hotel chains. Whatever educational credentials, professional certifications, or relevant coursework you have completed, list them in your resume. Include the name of the program, the institution, the time period you studied, and the graduation date. Note any honors received, as well.

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