Pin It

Hotel Receptionist Jobs: How to get Hotel Front Desk Jobs

DKrunner | Oct 13, 2010 |

1 Comments | Rating: 1

Hotel receptionist jobs can pay quite well, and they offer lots of room for upward advancement. Some hotel front desk jobs will also get you perks when you travel; the hotel that you work for might offer specials on room rates for employees.

Hotel receptionist jobs are in high demand and even in a rough economy, it has not been unusual to see multiple hotel front desk jobs listed in the paper and online. They offer very flexible hours (you likely have hours around the clock, morning and night to choose from) and frequenly come with benefits. Hotel front desk jobs can turn into an opportunity for advancement to management, marketing or administration. These jobs pay even better and they come with great benefits. Keep reading to learn how to get into this line of work.

Get your high school diploma or GED.
Nearly every employer requires that their potential employee hold a high school diploma or GED. Some hotel jobs will even want an Associate of the Arts or two year college degrees, but most wont. The front desk hotel jobs can be good jobs for high school students, but they will be more limited in which hours that they can work due to laws regarding employing minors.

Write a resume geared towards the skills necessary for hotel front desk jobs.
In order to get any job, you should always write a resume specifically for the position that you are applying for. The reason for this is that different jobs require very different skills, and other times, skill sets between jobs overlap. For example, if you are applying to a cooking job, you might list all of your cooking skills and abilities, which is great, but only if you are applying to that particular kind of job. If you take that same resume and use it to apply to a customer service job, you might not be selected for an interview. You want to tailor each and every resume to the specific job that you are applying to. The best way to do that is to look at the job description and pull keywords and actions from their actual list. You can paraphrase in order to select the skills that they are looking for that you have; then work them into your resume. When the person doing the hiring for the hotel receptionist jobs sees your resume, they will notice you because you are stating that you have the very experience that they are looking for.

Turn in a cover letter when applying for hotel receptionist jobs.
Whenever you really want a job, you want to create a cover letter specifically for that job. Again, just like the resume, you are going to want to pick out skill sets that they are looking for that you have. You will have a much better chance of getting hotel receptionist jobs if you are specific about why you are the candidate that they are looking for.

Walk in and apply for hotel front desk jobs.
Hotel receptionist jobs are often one of the rare places left that still take in-person resumes and applications. Visit all of the hotels in your area and turn in a resume, cover letter, and application.

Look online for hotel receptionist jobs.
While they do typically still accept applications in person, you will find many more hotel hospitality jobs if you include online listings in your search. Apply to hotel receptionist jobs online, and if you are able to tell which location of which hotel is actually hiring, consider taking an application into them in person.

To help you build your resume and cover letter, here are skills and attributes that are commonly needed for hotel receptionist jobs:

Professional and friendly
The person who fills the hotel receptionist job will be the first face that people see when they walk into a hotel. This person plays a huge part in the customer's first impression of the place. This is very important to hotel management, so they will want someone who is both professional, and friendly.

Clean in appearance
Because they are the first impression upon the customer, the person who gets a hotel receptionist job should dress very clean and have good hygiene. This means clothes that are neat and work appropriate and tidy. They will also want someone for the hotel receptionist job who does not wear terrible amounts of makeup or gallons of cologne.

Phone skills
The hotel front desk job will require spending lots of time on the phone; taking reservations, canceling reservations, and answering customer's questions. Being able to sound professional on the phone is a must for a hotel receptionist job. To help with this, be sure to speak slowly and clearly on the phone, and do not chew gum.

Good at multi-tasking
When you work a hotel receptionist job, it is very likely that at times you will be expected to do more than one thing at once. For example, you might be talking on the phone when a customer comes to the counter to check out. You might be counting the till from your shift when someone calls to cancel their stay. Whatever the tasks might be, some of them will end up coming at your simultaneously and you will be expected to juggle them in an efficient manner, all while keeping a welcoming and happy smile on your face for the customers that are waiting in the lobby!

Organized
People who get hotel desk jobs absolutely must be organized. Without organization, things will get chaotic; reservations and luggage will be lost and people will get very unhappy very fast (people who are traveling and staying in hotels can get quite grumpy in a rather rapid fashion!). Make sure that if you have strong organization skills that you make mention of that on your resume, along with an example in your cover letter of a time when your organization helped you succeed in a task.

Hotel front desk jobs can turn into an opportunity for advancement to management, marketing or administration.