Start Your New Hospitality Industry Career

You've had a lot of jobs in your life and now you're ready for a career. Yet, how do you know what career is right for you? One way, certainly, is to look carefully at your likes, dislikes and hobbies to see what it you like doing. One you love your work, you no longer have to be a "clock watcher" who waits for the work day to end.

One rising career over the last twenty years is the hospitality industry, which is a simple way of describing all those jobs in the hotel, restaurant and tourist industries.
So what kinds of jobs are there in the hospitality industry?
Whether you're talking about a cruise ship, resort hotel or gourmet restaurant, there are both back-end and front-end careers. Most of us are familiar with the front-end jobs of the hospitality industry: waiters, bell hops, bar tenders, clerks and servers are essential to making sure that guests are taken care of.

Yet most people aren't aware of the back-end people, the managers in particular, who supervise staff, plan events, order food and supplies, keep the accounts and generally make sure that people at a restaurant or a hotel have a wonderful time.
The titles for some of theses important people include:

Front Office Manager
Lodging Manager
Convention Services Manager
Food Services Manager
General Manager
You've probably been to a number of hotel and restaurants and never had a single interaction with one of these professionals. If that's the case, it means the manager and their staff was doing their job. It means that the establishment's operation was well managed and the staff filling their assigned role. The only time your average guest might meet these people is when they have a complaint and their server or clerk can't help them.

What's common to all of the above careers is that they all require excellent management skills, good people skills and a great sense of organization. Some of these qualities are inborn for sure, but much of the particulars of the business can be learned in a hotel and restaurant management training program.

Here's a sample of some of the things you'll learn in a hospitality program:
Identify examples of the kinds of businesses that make up the hospitality industry
Identify key trends driving change in employment opportunities in the hospitality industry
Distinguish terms used in the dining and eating market
Name the food service segments that are currently growing or declining, and identify the reason for these trends

Recognize the main responsibilities and jobs associated with the front of the house, back of the house, and office
Accredited, formal training will provide you with the base you need to work at a hotel, resort or restaurant and make the kind of professional impact that keeps customers happy and keeps a corporation profitable.

Students today have the great advantage of being able to take a hotel and restaurant training program 100% online, which means that as long as you have an Internet connection and a computer, you can begin studying for your future career.
If you save all your time and vacation time to spend 10 days a year on a cruise ship or at that favorite coastal resort, perhaps you should put your passion to work and get trained for a career in the hospitality industry.