Much like the retail industry, the hospitality business often hires seasonal workers during the holiday season – or the “festive season” as hotels often refer to this particular time of year. For most hotels, the holiday period is high season. Families and friends are traveling to see each other, to shop and take in shows or simply to make the most out of a few days off with a vacation. Businesses are also booking meeting spaces and hotel restaurants for holiday celebrations with employees.
To accommodate the high occupancies and increases in group business, hotels will often hire for any number of seasonal positions. Here are 10 seasonal hotel jobs to be on the lookout for if you’re looking to gain hotel industry experience or even earn some extra cash over the holidays. Any prior customer service experience will give candidates an edge in most of these jobs.
Night Audit: This is a hybrid between a front desk position and an auditor who accounts for the previous day’s business, but who is simultaneously available to check in and assist guests in the wee hours of the morning.
Front Desk Agents: With occupancy at or near peak, hotels require more front desk staff to check guests in and out and carry out additional tasks such as communicating guests’ needs to housekeeping and maintenance and answering phones.
Call Center Agent: The hotel staffers answer and process incoming calls, take and process new reservations and provide guests and potential guests with details on rates, hotel programs, and directions.
Concierge Services: This position will likely require extensive knowledge of the local area, including not only details of the area’s cultural, dining and entertainment venues, but also a host of phone apps that provide instant access to those locales. Customer service excellence will be key to landing this position as will a highly professional appearance.
Valet: If you have a driver’s license and a clean driving record, consider parking guests’ cars and then retrieving them as guests need at a luxury hotel or resort. Most properties pay an hourly rate on top of which valets earn tips too.
Housekeeping Attendant: This is a physically demanding job that can be repetitive as housekeeping is responsible for keeping guest rooms clean and tidy, changing bed linens and towels, making beds, vacuuming, cleaning guest bathrooms, polishing furniture, and restocking toiletries, in-room coffee supplies and sometimes mini-bars.
Laundry Associate: Depending on the size of the property, hotel laundry may have a dedicated team all its own, responsible not only for guest room linens and towels but also for kitchen and banqueting linens and towels as well as towels from the spa. Heavy lifting and the ability to multi-task are essential and often a flexible schedule is helpful in securing this job.
Ski Instructor: With winter comes gainful employment for snow sports enthusiasts and often, that means jobs at resorts with ski slopes. Ski instructors should have strong guest service skills as they meet and greet guests and guide them in learning and improving their ski skills.
Ski Patrol/Lift Operator: Ski patrol is responsible for the safety of all skiers and the care of those injured while lift operators ensure guest safety as they load, ride and unload chairlifts. Both of these jobs, as well as that of a ski instructor, require that at times, employees work in less than optimal outdoor weather conditions.
F&B Openings: There is always high demand in hotel food and beverage (F&B) for more job candidates and the need for additional staff is even greater over the holidays when guests are making use of hotel dining venues and group booking holiday parties at hotels. So the festive season brings increased demand for hosts, wait staff, bussers, bartenders, dishwashers, and line prep cooks. Also, because demand is so high, these roles also have more options for full- and part-time work.