Your CV acts as your first impression in the hospitality recruitment process, so it’s essential to stand out from the competition.
A balance between compelling content and a well-defined structure is key to grabbing recruiters’ attention, and enticing them to select you for interview stage.
This guide contains 7 hospitality CV examples for a range of jobs and career-stages, plus plenty of tips to support you in producing an eye-catching CV.
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Waiter CV example
Hotel manager CV example
Restaurant manager CV example
Hotel receptionist CV example
Chef CV example
Sommelier CV example
Bartender CV example
The CV examples above demonstrate how to format your CV to accentuate your experience in the hospitality field, and highlight your marketable skills.
As this guide continues, I will teach you how to write a CV that displays why you’re the ideal candidate for hospitality roles.
Hospitality CV structure & format
Correctly structuring your CV is vital to emphasising your relevant experience and skills, enabling recruiters to quickly pinpoint key elements of your CV.
A clear, professional CV structure will enable recruiters to navigate your details, facilitating ease of reading by breaking up information into separate sections.
This infographic gives you the basics on how to write a CV, what sections to include and handy tips to help structure your experience.
Formatting Tips
- Avoid adding company logos or headshots, these take up space without adding value to your CV
- Keep to a clear, simple and professional CV design, overwhelming colours and difficult to read fonts will result in essential information being missed
- Bullet points, bold headers and defined sections should be used to aid ease of reading
- Your CV should be a maximum of 2 sides of A4, sufficient length to sell yourself without it becoming tedious to read
Structuring your CV
Use clear sections within your CV, enabling recruiters to easily navigate your details.
- Contact details – ensure you’re easily reachable by making your contact details stand out at the top of the page
- Profile – an opening paragraph that reflects why you’re the ideal candidate for hospitality roles at first glance, drawing recruiters’ attention
- Work experience / Career history – detailing your work experience, working backwards through your roles
- Education – document any qualifications obtained, particularly those needed for hospitality roles
- Interest and hobbies – this section isn’t mandatory but can be used to verify your transferrable skills
I’ll now walk you through what to include within each of these sections.
CV Contact Details
At the top of your CV, document your contact details, only looking to include vital information.
- Phone number (ideally a mobile number)
- Email address (add a professional email address)
- Location
- If you have one, add a link to your LinkedIn profile.
Quick Tip: Avoid adding details that aren’t required in the decision making process such as marital status, date of birth, headshots or your full home address as the city you live within is enough information.
Hospitality CV Profile
Your CV profile is an opening paragraph between 5-10 lines, which summarises your CV at first glance, allowing recruiters to identify your suitability for roles.
Include your hospitality skills, experience and any sector specific qualifications, enticing recruiters to read further into your CV.
These tips will help you in producing your CV profile:
- Details such as your objectives or what you’re looking for in an employer should be kept for your cover letter
- Customise your profile to fit the hospitality industry, researching the sector and including keywords and sector specific skills
- Attract recruiters’ attention by selling your skills and avoid adding cliche phrases that make you blend into the crowd
- Keep this section concise, 5-10 lines is enough to showcase your relevancy without boring the reader
What to include in your hospitality CV profile?
- Types of areas you have worked in – have you worked in event management, catering or worked as a hotel receptionist
- Hospitality qualifications – whether you’ve NVQ’s in Hospitality, event management degrees or vocational courses in customer service
- Technical skills – the ability to provide excellent customer service, organisational skills and the capacity to work in a fast paced environment
- Level of your experience – have you recently began your career, are you experienced in the sector or even have management experience
Core skills section
Underneath your CV profile, include a core skills section made up of two to three columns of bullet points.
Allowing recruiters to access your core skills without having to dig through your CV, demonstrating your applicableness to the industry.
Tailor these skills to the hospitality sector, using your research as guidance or reviewing the vital skills section below for inspiration.
Work experience/Career history
Record your career history in reverse chronological order, starting with your most recent or relevant positions.
Shorten your role descriptions as you work backwards through your experience, include internships, voluntary work as well as part time or full time employment.
See also: Restaurant manager CV
Structuring your roles
Break your role descriptions into three distinctive sections, allowing recruiters to clearly see the impact you had within each of your previous posts.
Outline
Provide context of your previous roles to recruiters, detailing the company you worked within, the department you were part of and the role you assumed.
E.g.
“Working as a hotel manager, promoting customer satisfaction, ensuring all customers had a great stay.”
Key responsibilities
Record your key duties in the format of bullet points, adding any core relationships built.
E.g.
- Check-in guests at the front desk, ensuring guests have everything they need for a pleasant stay
- Supporting housekeeping to clean and get rooms ready for new guests
Key achievements
Display the value you had within previous organisations, using numbers to boost and verify your achievements.
E.g.
- Being able to process 200 new guests quickly and efficiently who were checked in to attend a wedding onsite
Education
This section should first document the qualifications obtained that are related to the industry you’re applying to.
Look to add courses such as NVQs in hospitality or professional food and beverage services, or qualifications in similar fields such as customer service.
If you have room, look to also include GCSE’s, A Levels, additional degrees or any other vocational training.
Interests and hobbies
Unlike other sections, this is an optional section that can be included to add value, showcasing the transferable skills your interests helped you acquire.
Interests such as charity involvement or being part of a sporting team can demonstrate your organisational skills and ability to work in a team and build rapport.
Avoid adding generic hobbies such as socialising, instead look to tailor your interests to the industry you’re pursuing.
Essential skills for your hospitality CV
Although each company will ask for slightly different skills, below are the core strengths you should be displaying in your CV.
Food and Beverage preparation – supporting with preparing meals and drinks to customer requirements
Marketing skills – being able to market services or events taking place at the catering organisation or hotel you work at
Commercial awareness – looking to upsell items, understanding how to maximise profits
Hotel Operations – insight into the inner workings of a hotel and how each function needs to work together
Writing your hospitality CV
When searching for new roles, you need a CV that highlights your marketable skills and sector specific experience.
A strong structure is key to bringing forward key aspects of your experience, drawing recruiters’ attention.
By following this comprehensive guide, you will be able to produce a CV that gets you one step closer to landing your dream career.
Good luck with your job search.