While talent gaps in the travel and hospitality are not new, the magnitude of the current shortage is unprecedented. In the United States, at the height of the Great Recession, there were roughly 353,000 open positions in hospitality, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. As of July 2019, with the travel industry surging and the U.S. unemployment rate at historic lows, that number swelled to 1,016,000.
For businesses in the hospitality industry to win the race for talent, they must be willing to disrupt the traditional hiring process. This change in the process starts with the measurement and analysis of more objective indicators of potential. Now, top businesses within the hospitality industry are embracing the growing trend of leveraging pre-hire skills tests to decrease the time to hire and increase employee retention.
The hospitality industry is big and diverse. And every sector—from accommodation and recreation to travel and entertainment—is continuously changing. As a result, it’s not possible to administer a one-size-fits-all skills test for hospitality candidates.
The solution: eSkill offers a user-friendly, automated testing platform with hundreds of customizable pre-employment assessments and simulations to measure candidates’ ability to succeed in specific job roles.
The Modern Workplace is Interpersonal
Robots aren’t replacing everyone, but artificial intelligence (AI) is beginning to automate ‘repetitive’ tasks. While the hospitality industry has been embracing AI technologies like chatbots, predictive maintenance, occupancy and rate optimization, and personalized rewards programs, AI can not eliminate the need for humans in customer-facing roles. Fact is, bots help but can’t effectively replace employees.
In fact, according to recent research, 54% of consumers believe that interacting with a chatbot will hurt their quality of life. With the automation of rote tasks becoming commonplace, soft skills are becoming employees’ most valuable assets, especially in the hospitality industry.
Interpersonal skills and characteristics like teamwork, communication, empathy, and problem-solving are essential in the customer-centric hospitality industry. These skills or lack-there-of are not accurately evaluated by only reviewing applicants’ resumes and conducting subjective interviews.
eSkill’s hospitality skills tests incorporate questions and simulations that evaluate personality traits to acquire a real, measurable analysis of candidates’ soft skills. These assessments use non-obvious statistical correlations between how an applicant responds to specific questions and their on-the-job performance. Quantitatively measuring behavioral intelligence takes the guesswork out of determining if candidates’ personalities are the right fit for a hospitality position.
Backed by objective data, employers can make informed hiring decisions that lead to predictable, measurable, and successful outcomes. Leveraging pre-hire assessments to make employment decisions increases employee retention rates, ultimately saving organizations the agony of costly turnover.
Identify Candidates Capable of Learning New Skills & Technology
Change in today’s workplace is constant. The future workforce will thrive on employees who are able to quickly learning new technologies and practices, and who are problem solvers capable of finding valuable solutions to the inevitable challenges that businesses face.
eSkill offers a library full of job-specific skills tests that measure soft skills, as well as technical and content-specific skills, like Excel, virtual chat skills, and hospitality terms. Additionally, all of these assessments include a measurement of candidates’ ability to learn new information, which is a predictor of continued job success.
These skills tests include measurements of logical thinking, verbal reasoning, spatial reasoning, abstract reasoning, and numerical reasoning, to fully understand candidates’ cognitive abilities. For example, eSkill’s ‘Hospitality Assistant Skills Test’ covers business communication, basic computer skills, customer service, food and beverage serving skills, and measure candidates’ cognitive abilities.
eSkill’s job-based skills tests show you proven examples of hospitality skills and are comprehensive measurements of soft skills, technical skills, and cognitive ability.
eSkill’s ‘out-of-the-box’ hospitality skills tests include: ‘Events Coordinator,’ ‘Food and Beverage Cashier,’ ‘Hospitality Associate,’ ‘Hospitality Manager,’ ‘Guide and Tour Operator,’ ‘Front Desk Personnel,’ ‘Room Service Staff,’ and ‘Travel Assistance Coordinator.’
These assessments can be combined and edited to measure the specific requirements of your speciic position. For instance, when creating a skill assessment for restaurant managers, you may start with the ‘Hospitality Manager’ assessment and combine it with eSkill’s ‘Training Skills’ assessment to ensure the candidates are capable of creating and implementing successful employee training programs.
The business world is continuing to change rapidly. Technical skills that mattered yesterday may not matter tomorrow. Assessing applicants’ soft skills instead of their technical skillset, education, or work history has become a top priority for most businesses, and you should be no different.
With quality test content, eSkill’s pre-employment tests are not only objective, but they are also reliable and valid. eSkill boasts the best compliance record in the assessment industry with a complete 15-year history of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) compliance. Therefore, eSkill’s pre-employment assessments are able to accurately and objectively predict potential hires’ retainability and on-the-job performance, without the worry of test-related litigation.
Assessing candidates’ skills and aptitude is essential to implementing an effective hiring strategy. Pre-employment hospitality skills tests help employers identify the candidates most likely to perform well on the job.
Leveraging pre-employment testing in hospitality leads to many company and customer benefits, such as saving time and money in the selection process, decreasing turnover, improving morale and better serving customers.
Learn more about the benefits of using eSkill’s hospitality skills tests and behavioral assessments to find qualified candidates quickly.
Request a demo today.