Anyone work in Hotel, Restaurant or retail MANAGEMENT?

[Peter Trump]

I'm sick of my cubicledesk job and considering a career change. I'd like to work a job where I can meet people, be a boss, and not have to rot in a cubicle.

Is anyone in this field and if you are.. what can you tell me about it?

Qualifications? Skills? Pay? Environment? etc.

[Tayl405]

I went to school for Tourism and Hospitality Management, but I don't work in the field now. I highly recommend going to school for it if you want a successful career in the field. It's easy to work your way up if you start young and at the bottom, but once you are a little older you will likely need a degree to get into it.

Hotels, restaurants, and retail are very different from each other. As far as hotels and restaurants, be prepared to have sporadic hours. Also, unless you work in a higher-end hotel/restaurant, you probably aren't going to make very much. There is also a high turnover in these industries.

You really need to be outgoing and flexible to have a job in either of these fields. I loved working in restaurants, but I could never go back because of the hours and the crowd it attracts (big time partiers - fun in college, but not so much now).

They can be fun, glamorous jobs, but definitely do lots of research before you make the move. Those industries aren't for everyone.

[wordsmith]

One of my trainees/people I mentor at my job got his degree in this, decided it wasn't for him, and is now working on a master's in elementary education instead. He was doing hotel-specific management, and it was involving a lot of travel around the country, which he found he didn't really enjoy.

[winneythepooh7]

I worked in restaurants throughout college, and I found it to be mentally draining and overall, demeaning kind of work. I also worked in retail and found it to be a similar kind of environment. I was verbally and sexually harassed numerous times by other employees.

I also personally think it would be difficult to be a manager in this kind of environment, because not only are you dealing with the craziness of the general public, but in restaurants and retail specifically, you would be dealing with managing a lot of people with lack of work ethic, especially from P/T staff and younger "kids" who just work primarily for spending $$$$.

I had a waitressing job at a hotel once and I think I stayed for less than a year because I couldn't take the harassment anymore from other staff.

[sondra_finchley]

I have a bit of a background in this as well ( though I was more casinos and resorts)

If you want to go back to school for this then look into Cornell's program and maybe, if you are really desperate, UNLVs (though that is more towards hotel and gaming management). There is a program out in Switzerland as well that is well-known, but Cornell has more or less the best program going.

You may want to understand more about what aspect of the industry you want to go into- high-end properties or mid level? Folks running the low end are typically franchisees. Do you want to manage a small or really large property, or something inbetween? Do you want to maybe manage a department- food and beverage, convention sales, facilities, etc?

I cant say though that hotel management is really a well-paying job. I know from what we paid our management positions in some of our resorts in the DC area was not all that hot, and most of the time you will see jobs in the $40-$50K range until you start moving into much larger properties or the general manager type position. If you want to make more than that, then get a specialized degree in hotel management and look to move into corporate. Corporate wasnt bad at all ( and without a layoff I would probably still be there), but I never had floor experience other than being a maid one summer (totally unplanned) for a JW Marriott hotel- which was completely and totally eye-opening. I second the comment about trying to motivate people who are not well paid and may/may not speak english and have different ideas of cleanliness to yours (dont ever drink from a hotel glass!) while having to balance that against demanding customers. You really need to be customer service oriented if you are on the front lines.

Also- now would be a good time to go back to school if you want to get into this- the industry is way down and there are few big deals being done to open new properties, but pipelines still have to be built. Give it a few years and maybe things will have turned around. If you want to work internationally then I would expect India to have the largest growth in the future, and perhaps Russia (if they can get their act together over there).

[Tayl405]

Temple University has a really good program as well (that's where I went). I highly recommend it.