He showed up for the interview 20 minutes late and couldn’t give a valid excuse. She bad-mouthed her former employer when you asked why she was looking for a job. Sometimes danger is easy to spot, quickly enabling you to rule out poor hospitality job candidates—but not always. Before you hire that perfect-on-paper line cook, front desk clerk, or sales coordinator, make sure you haven’t seen any of these sneaky warning signs.
1. He or she won’t look you in the eye.
Poor eye contact—or total lack of eye contact—generally indicates one of two things according to body language experts: the candidate is lying or is extremely nervous. Both are warning signs when hiring hospitality employees. You obviously don’t want to engage workers you cannot trust. But you also don’t want to onboard timid, hesitant or uneasy professionals when the job at hand requires a confident, outgoing and friendly personality.
2. Your questions do not receive straight answers.
If you ask a candidate a clear, direct question, his or her response should be equally clear and direct. Hospitality job candidates who are evasive with their answers may be trying to hide something from you—such as past poor performance, a termination or skills weakness. Applicants who ramble or fail to get to the point are equally dangerous. They may exhibit the same behavior on the job, irritating your hotel or restaurants’ customers and bringing down the level of service for which your establishment is known.
3. His or her references don’t include former supervisors.
While reviews from fellow waiters/waitresses, bartenders and housekeepers can help you paint a picture of what it’s like to work with a particular candidate in a team environment, a reference list devoid of supervisors is a definite warning sign. Professionals with a history of poor performance may attempt to steer you away from the managers who previously evaluated their work in order to hide it from you.
4. There are logistical issues.
His background is exactly what you’d want a controller to have. Her skills and credentials are a perfect match for your sous chef requirements. It appears you’ve found the ideal candidate—or have you? Even if the applicant looks great on paper and aces his or her in-person interview, you must still take practical issues—such as where he lives or if she has reliable transportation—into consideration. The best banquet manager in the nation won’t be good for your hotel if he or she has difficulty getting to and from work on a daily basis.
5. You feel like you’re settling.
Your dining room manager is getting cranky because she doesn’t have enough wait staff. Your reservations team is finding it difficult to get all the phone calls answered in a timely manner. You can certainly remedy these situations by hiring more hospitality employees, but if you settle for a subpar applicant because he or she is the best you can get right now, you may be doing more harm than good. You’re almost always better off keeping a job open and searching for the right candidate (maybe even using temp help in the interim) than employing someone who isn’t a good fit for the position, your team or your culture.