Why Hire a Hospitality Grad? By Joel Feigeheimer Ph.D., Assistant Professor The Chaplin School of Hospitality Florida International University How does one build a high performing team of employees? Well, it certainly helps to have a great pool of applicants to start from and move forward from there. I am from the school of hiring for “attitude versus experience.” Hospitality school graduates are already invested into our industry. While most of our employees work in hospitality on their way to some other career path, hospitality grads have already been working for years in our industry learning how to develop their own hospitality career path. 20
in the Mix Magazine
Hospitality graduates, by their sheer commitment to earning that degree, have shown that they want to be in our industry. They have slogged through at least four years of courses ranging from cooking and accounting to basic management skills. In the better universities, such as Florida international University, they are taught critical thinking skills where they are pushed to make decisions that mimic real life scenarios. In addition, most schools require hundreds of hours of internships where the student is required to work in the hotel or restaurant field. These internships often shake out those students who are not dedicated to the industry. When they realize the commitment required to succeed, those students who are not totally convinced that this is their career path often decide to move elsewhere.
