For years as a hotel operator, Frank Speranza, the Principal and Founder of Hospitality Talent Scouts, contracted with executive search firms to find talent for the hotel operations that he was responsible for across the country. What he found was that most of these firms were sending unqualified candidates that did not meet the specifications for the position he had contracted them to provide.
After continuously asking recruiters why they were sending candidates that did not meet his specifications, Frank began an investigative process on the background of the recruiters that were servicing his open position orders. What he found was that many hospitality recruiters had never even held an Executive Committee position in a hotel, let alone a General Manager or senior level corporate position with a quality organization for any significant period of time. Frank quickly concluded that the reason most recruiters could not meet the needs of their clients is that they had never done the jobs they were recruiting for or held a significant senior management position overseeing the types of jobs they were recruiting for. Thus, they did not truly understand what they were looking for to effectively deliver. Frank saw this as a major deficit in the process that prevented quality service to their clients. As a result, he decided to fill this gap with a vision of an executive search company that provided the complete solution. Frank eventually launched Hospitality Talent Scouts on September 12, 2005.
As an employer, you need to ask yourself this question: Would you rather have a recruiter on the phone trying to attract top talent for you who has done nothing but recruiting for the past 5, 10, or 20 years? Or do you want a hospitality professional who has been a General Manager and VP of Operations speaking to the talent you want to recruit? Do you think the recruiter can really drill down and qualify a candidate as well as hospitality professional who for 30 years had their skin on the line every day to deliver GOP, GSS, AOS, and market share on a star report? Who do you think will be able to better relate to the candidates and be able to best qualify and handicap the candidates, deliver the best qualified candidates, and thus not waste your valuable time looking at resumes that don't meet the specifications? Who would you want to hire, the recruiter or the seasoned operator with an excellent track record of recruiting and developing talent during their career? Or what if you could have both? Because that's what HTS brings you.
We are amazed at how many recruiters boast of how much experience they have in the hospitality industry. When they list their credentials, they are quick to name drop great hotels and brands they have worked for. But they often fail to leave out the specifics, such as exactly what operations they worked at, how long they worked at them, and what positions they held. The bottom line is that if you drill down on many recruiters, they are recruiting because they could not make it in the business themselves. That is not true about the staff of Hospitality Talent Scouts. We are successful hoteliers that use our expertise to bring to you the best available talent at a value price point.
During the 2008 recession, we are often asked by employers that come to us why they should hire us. After all, there is a lot of good talent out there in need of work. Or was there?
Our response to that question, particularly for sales positions, was, “How many of your 'A' sales players did you lay off during the 2008 recession?” Nobody has yet to answer that question with a number! While granted we have recently seen more than any other time the proverbial baby getting thrown out with the bath water, during the time, the reality of the facts reveal that there were still more positions available than there were qualified talented applicants to fill them. During the 2008/2009 Recession Smith Travel Research information showed that while supply had increased, demand has decreased. The same holds true today. This is just another reason during such times to have the best talent on your team!
We at Hospitality Talent Scouts find that usually, not always but usually, the best talented individuals are currently employed. We also find that good, conscientious, dedicated, and loyal players are sometimes unwilling to pull their heads out of the sand and explore job opportunities for fear of word getting back to their current employers. So often, if they get a call from a recruiter that they do not know or trust for an opportunity, they will say that they are not interested. After all, they don't know who that person on the other end of the phone might be. Hospitality Talent Scouts, because of our industry reputation and relationships as well as our Guarantee of Confidentiality, has overcome this obstacle. First, our Guarantee of Confidentiality states that we will never release a candidate's resume without their written permission to do so. This HTS hallmark is just one reason we have become a premier trusted source for great talent to register their resumes with. We initiated this practice as a founding principle, as we believe that it is the pillar of our trust with our candidates and clients. It has become our unique strength in our industry and is unmatched by our competitors. To our knowledge, there is not another hospitality executive search firm that requires a written release from their candidates before they will speak their name or share their resume. We were the first and still are the only hospitality executive search Firm to employ this practice since our inception in 2005, and we publicly post it on our website, making it legally binding. This highly confidentiality practice gives candidates the ability to look at opportunities anonymously and then decide if they would like to explore the opportunity further by signing a release allowing us to share their resume with a particular client. The trust factor that we have built with this, along with our reputation in the industry, has allowed us to assemble one of the most powerful hospitality talent banks in the industry, all available to our clients but only if a candidate signs a release.