"Can I speak to your manager?": What hospitality jobs teach you that internships can't.

Linkedin-Merchant (definition #14)

NOUN

1. Someone that preaches inclusivity and #bekind to their network whilst simultaneously abusing their 16 year old waitress for getting their coffee order wrong. They can often be found telling bouncers that they will be "working for them one day" when being refused entry for their horrendous but expensive trainers.

• Pret (probably): "No don't clean that up leave it for them, it's their job"

Dear Network,

Welcome back to Officially Unemployed! I hope your resolutions are going well and you're not yet in a heap rethinking the daily ice baths! This week, we talk about something that I feel is constantly overlooked during the recruitment process. I have been trying to express this one properly for a while. Let's set the scene...

It's time for online application #752. It is no secret that demonstrable experience in a relevant field is invaluable for getting your CV through the AI barriers, and to talk about in interviews whether they are online or in person. Daddy’s firm and those ultra-competitive summer internships are a sure-fire way for Clemmy and Barnaby to dazzle those emotionless robots behind a screen. I mean, at least that’s what we are led to believe by career days that preach inclusivity and equal opportunity but exclude those without the best access to resources and professional experience. Meanwhile you are sat there, poring over your application wondering how you can spin your more humble hospitality job to demonstrate a direct interest in whichever type of consulting you landed on this week.

What Minty and Rufus have never dealt with before though (their rent and post-exam frivolity is generally covered by the bank of mummy and daddy), is a steaming-drunk regular at the local Wetherspoons giving them dog’s abuse because they told them they weren’t allowed to vape inside for the fifth time in the first hour of their 10 hour shift. I wonder who would deal with workplace stress better...

As much as this week is driven by more jealousy-fuelled angst, there is definitely something to be said here. At a so-called "entry level", it is arguable that the soft skills gained from working in hospitality and service roles can be equally if not more valuable than 6 weeks photocopying and making presentations about what you've learnt (not a lot) whilst fulfilling a largely uninterested firm's moral obligation. Employers should consider this when recruiting graduates.

I have spoken to a few of my peers and colleagues who have done both corporate and hospitality jobs (sometimes simultaneously) as well as using my own experience to compile a series of skills/concepts that simply cannot be taught to the same degree in an office environment.

Dealing with people... Not people management and not (just) customer service

This seems obvious and I'm sure many will say that their people skills are exemplary having not worked in hospitality, and this isn't necessarily untrue. However, this concept runs much deeper than managing a highly-motivated team regulated by HR and working in the service industry can develop your skills beyond employing Hofstede's framework to manage across cultures (MBA's look away).

A key way that this skill presents itself is the question of motivation. A popular response from the people that I asked about this was the idea that, aside from the CS aspect, people in the service industries have vastly different motivations for doing the job and that can lead to an interesting management and working environment. Experienced waitresses who are masters of their job having worked in a given place for 5+ years and know the ins and outs of every aspect of the establishment deal with 16/17/18 year olds that work one shift a week for beer money alongside their GCSEs, A-Levels and degrees. This creates a unique challenge for both those that manage this team and its members that is much more than diffusing the occasional Karen.

Understanding different people's motivations and learning how these impact their work is a really useful skill and extremely adaptable in the corporate world. Immediately any qualifications and ego that you have are thrown away and it's about how you operate in a stressful, time pressured environment that can require you to deal with extremely difficult and unreasonable people without much support. The service industry often emphasizes teamwork and collaboration and the tight-knit environment encourages mutual support and quick coordination, fostering a sense of camaraderie, the intensity and immediacy of the service industry can provide a different perspective that can be applied effectively in an office environment when deadlines are at a critical point. In my opinion, there are few better places to get hands-on experience of this dynamic and hiring managers should see this type of experience as a major plus.

These jobs also frequently allow you to practice empathy and emotional intelligence. One of the main things I picked up from my time at Hurley's is how quickly people outside of this industry forget basic common decency, especially when a drink or two is involved. Very quickly, service staff are treated as a lower species and basic politeness goes completely out the window. We often joked about a national service-esque system in which corporate LM's should come and do a shift once a year at a bar so they remember that their salary doesn't excuse their abhorrent behaviour. In the bubble that office work is, meaningful work outside of it provides much-needed perspective which can help decision-making and interpersonal relationship development.

By the same token, being able to diffuse tense situations involving different combinations of people is a highly transferrable skill that is very relevant in a corporate sphere. Conflict resolution within a team and with clients is a mainstay of hospitality jobs and should, along with broader people management skills, be taken into account by recruiters.

"Hard Work"

Before any 26 hour a day brokers and first year law trainees start foaming at the mouth, I know. Corporate and office work is challenging too. This is actually the point I'm trying to make.

In my admittedly short time in hospitality, I have noticed the differing challenges that come with doing a hospitality job. The most noticeable one, is the physical element. Being on your feet all day with very little time for breaks, moving and changing kegs, and other physical tasks require a lot of effort which then has to be balanced with maintaining quality customer service. Sometimes you can be asked to work double shifts or do the job of two or three people by yourself. It is quite rare to find something comparable in office work.

The point I'm trying to make here is that this kind of work creates a real sense of perspective and allows the development of a true work ethic. When deadlines have been tight in office jobs and internships, it has been very helpful to remember that even though my manager has taken a few minutes more than usual to respond to my Slack about something I should have been taught in onboarding, I am not working until 5am on a full weekend of ice hockey when the Boston Bruins come to town to play the Canadiens (oddly specific, but famously hectic. Go habs go).

If nothing else, recruiters can be sure that people who have worked in hospitality have been put through the mill on multiple occasions and have developed unrivalled resilience, no matter how ridiculous the situation may be.

Imperfection in structure

As much as these firms look for "motivated self-starters", I'm not sure we know what that really means. Can work with little direction or supervision? How about, no training, 0 supervision and zero f***s given by any other employees?

That's right, working in these industries creates self-starters in their purest sense. Whether it's being thrown behind the bar with barely enough knowledge to work the till because someone has called in sick and there's a full Premier League bill followed by a reservation for Jonno's stag do at 6, or being left to deal with complaints because the manager is out, you have to hit the ground running in this game.

It is not uncommon to be left to your own devices either, everyone has their own jobs to be getting on with and it's extremely rare for someone to be allocated specifically to training you. Trial shift, and then you're on your own. This creates profiles that are able to learn as they go and deal with the inevitably half-done onboarding they receive when they come and work for you, particularly convenient for most graduate employers!

Actual Responsibility

This one is more about a comparison between hospitality jobs and internships as, of course, graduate level jobs do come with genuine responsibility. However, when looking at a CV and seeing a 6 month internship at a big company or 6 months in hospitality, you can tell straight away who's daily actions carried more weight for the employer.

This is not really a criticism though. After all, internships are often designed to allow people to come into a company and get a flavour of what is going on without the added pressure of performance related targets or expectations and learning being the main priority. By contrast, the way you conduct yourself on shift in the service industry has a direct impact on the way the day runs for the establishment and your fellow employees. You have real responsibilities and you are consistently held accountable for these. When you add this to the fact that many young people will be juggling this role with commitments to education and other extra-curricular activities and family commitments, I would argue that these kinds of qualities and soft skills should be considered in equal measure when making an informed decision on a candidate.

In an effort to not sound salty that Paypal rejected me on Christmas Day 2020, I'd like to clarify my point of view here. These two sets of experience are incredibly different and I would never encourage anyone to discount internship work when reviewing potential candidates. However, it is definitely worth remembering that access to these types of internships are extremely limited and, in my experience, incredibly susceptible to nepotism. Therefore, part time jobs in difficult industries like hospitality should be considered valuable, as a lot of the soft skills you seek can be found in candidates who have held them down in a scenario where the playing field in terms of access to these roles is much more level.

Takeaways:

The main message I want to carry through for this week is one addressed directly to recruiters. That is that specific workplace skills that are bespoke to the role can be taught through effective onboarding and training. However, soft skills that will really stand applicants in good stead are developed experientially. In most cases, these desired soft skills are nurtured effectively in part time and service industry jobs to a much greater extent. In terms of character building, a role in hospitality can offer unrivalled experience in gaining different perspectives and dealing with different people. Ultimately, a higher regard for these positions and less emphasis on a company name will create a more diverse workforce with a broader range of ideas. What this ultimately boils down to on a functional level, is my consistent complaint with the process, and that's getting to know candidates better. We have to look beyond keywords and video interview mannerism analysis.

To my fellow merchants, I leave you with another message of encouragement. Don't feel discouraged from applying to things because of a lack of "corporate experience". Have confidence in what you've learnt in real life and carry that into interviews and conversations. STAR (situation, task, action, result) questions actually lend themselves well to situations you will have found yourself in. You can find more info on these here: The STAR method | National Careers Service . No matter how much the odds may feel (or actually be) stacked against us, someone will see all the great things about you. Keep plugging.

See you in the next one, merchants!

Your favourite LM (and Paypal reject),

AT