How to Turn Hospitality Work Into a Proper Career Path

Right now in the UK, there are over 170,000 businesses operating within the hospitality sector, with the sector as a whole contributing significantly to the economy. There are around 2.6 million people within the sector, which provides a unique and diverse service to all aspects of the population, from the small local pubs nestled in communities to high end luxury dining experiences. There’s a venue and a hospitality service to cover a great many needs.

But what exactly is classed as hospitality, and why should you be considering making a career in this sector?

For business purposes, hospitality is usually hotels or premises providing accommodation, food and beverage, business entertainment and recreation services, catering services and those within the travel and tourism sector.

As you can see, there’s no singular avenue for you to choose from within hospitality, and for the most part, there will be numerous skills that are transferable across many of these.

But if you really want to move forward in this sector, what exactly do you need to do?

Understand What Progression Looks Like To You

Here’s the thing: with so many different parts of hospitality and so many different roles, there isn’t one single path to progression.

This means you need to not only understand how you want your career to progress and what your final stopping point is, if you have one, but also how you need to get there.

Let’s take a large hotel chain as an example. There’s a defined structure and roles you’ll move through as you gain the relevant experiences and knowledge in each role. It might look like front of house supervisor, to duty manager, to operations manager and then general manager. Internal promotions happen when you’re visible in your role and performing to a high standard as per company guidelines.

But in an independent restaurant, the path of progression might look different, with no structure, meaning that as your specific talents are noticed, you will move into roles where these skills benefit you and the restaurant.

The trick is knowing how it works, what your employer is looking for and committing to delivering what they need from you.

Getting Qualifications

Not all roles need formal qualifications, but it helps. If you’re working within the food and beverage sector, then you might find a Level 2 Food Safety and Hygiene Certificate beneficial if your employer does not offer training towards this. It takes a day to complete, and it is something all employees will either train you for or would like you to have.

From here, the type of qualification will again vary depending on your role and preferred progression path.

If you’re working in a bar or you one day want to run a pub or a venue serving alcohol now is a good time to look at things that can put you in the right position such as getting an alcohol service certification or a Personal License (APL) for which you need to be at least 18 years of age and have passed the APLH course. You will be DBS checked, and there’s a fee to pay too. From here, qualifications like an Award in Professional Bartending, which is something to consider too.

Choose Environments Deliberately

Basically, this means understanding where you choose to work, as these experiences will shape you and give you different types of experiences. And aligning them with your goals can be extremely beneficial here.

Working in fast-paced environments like a busy city centre bar, a stadium or a parts event arena, or a large hotel food and drink operations will give you an insight into working fast, how to handle pressure and managing a high number of covers. A fine dining environment, however, will teach you about precision, product knowledge and the level of guest interaction that makes or breaks the enquire dining experience.

Not all environments will be beneficial to your career in the same way, but you’ll be able to learn different things by exposing yourself to the right scenarios and working environments to further your career.

Build a Network

When you’re in your working role, you’ll notice that many roles don’t get advertised externally. They’re usually filled via connections, via reputation and people knowing who you are and what you can do.

If you’ve worked well and someone has noticed or rated you, this can go a long way, much further than some well-chosen buzz words on a CV.

The trick here is to stay professional to those above you and know who is in charge of hiring in different places. Ideally, you will want to make yourself known for the right reasons and get to know the people you need to, so that when a position you’re looking at becomes available, they already know you’re there and waiting to fill it.

A good place to start is trade bodies like the Institute of Hospitality, as this will help increase your visibility in the sector.

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Treat Every Interaction as Development

This cannot be stressed enough, but every interaction you have should be treated as a learning experience. Pay attention, and you never know what you might learn.

For a regular guest at your restaurant who always sends something back could be a sign that the dish isn’t working. If this happens with others, then it’s an issue with the dish specifically or the cooking method or ingredients. A colleague who can handle a complaint quickly and effectively without it escalating is all worth studying, and a manager who runs a pre-service briefing well is showing you how to hold a team’s attention.

The same goes for things that don’t go well, too. Learn from every poor example or every time something goes wrong as a lesson in what not to do, and so you can be the person to look for help and advice, and to learn things from, not as a warning of what not to do in the workplace.