Interview with Selim Soliman: Paving the Way for Gen Z in Hospitality

Selim Soliman: One of the most inspiring things that I realized early on and that comes to my mind when I think about what helped me to push through difficult shifts and situations is that in this industry you work with a lot of mentors.

The biggest inspiration in the hospitality industry is the number of people that look out for you. People that want to see you progress in your career.

Every mentor brings a lot of wisdom to their role and your role. As a young person, you tend to grow in these opportunities. Being exposed to many mentors gives you the chance to understand what type of leader you are gravitating to. All of this helps you shape the way you want to manage people.

Selim Soliman: Every position has its perks. I can’t pinpoint just one that shaped me into the person I am today. But I can talk about turning points.

One of the most important factors that will determine the speed of your career progression in the hospitality industry is your willingness to learn and adapt.

The biggest learning opportunity in my career presented itself when I transitioned from being a food and beverage manager to a room manager.

I had to learn everything from night audits to reservations, finance, and accounting. You never stop learning in the hospitality industry. Another huge learning opportunity was becoming a General Manager.

As a General Manager, you will learn everything, from food and beverage, sales & marketing to revenue management. This position will allow you to understand the entire hotel operation. You will learn from each department head. Your communication skills will be tested in this role. What helped me succeed was Lean Six Sigma training, and if you are planning to progress to a General Manager role, get your hands on it.

Getting into a regional role was very interesting because I learned to deal directly with ownership groups. So, I thrived in that and enjoyed that because I got to be the liaison between the operating team on the property and the ownership group.

Selim Soliman: The hospitality industry is a people’s business. We manage people who take care of other people.

The most important thing when hiring is to select the right attitude and personality. We also have to take appearance and professionalism into consideration.

Other than the qualifications you need for that particular position you need to search for people who are friendly, outgoing, and have high energy. I always search for people who are willing to take on new tasks, and opportunities and are willing to learn.

I would like to use this space to share a piece of advice for all feature leaders.

The most important thing as a leader is to allow people to make mistakes. You can recognize a true leader by their reaction to someone’s mistake.

Making mistakes is a part of learning. As a leader you need to adapt to different learning styles and allow people to make mistakes, teaching them how to rectify the mistake and prevent it from happening.

PRO TIP: When hiring always ask a lot of situational questions. This will tell you if the person is passionate about their job, or if they are in it just for the money. The way they handle a difficult customer and turn them into a satisfied customer is all that you need to know.

Selim Soliman: The most important thing for any Gen Z, that’s going through school or thinking about this industry is to work as an intern or take summer jobs.

Take evening or overnight jobs as night auditors, security, dishwasher, busser, or any position while you are progressing on your educational path.  Take as many jobs as possible! Work for different establishments, small and big. Experience all of it!

They need to experience as much as possible because it all comes down to finding true passion. Finding the passion early on will make you progress on your career path like no degree or certification can.

The way to find your passion is to do as many jobs in the hospitality business as possible. You need to know there are not enough people in the industry. The more you learn the more you can progress.

Selim Soliman:  The way I describe it is, that every hotel is different & unique. But within each hotel, some people have the same title. Let’s take a sales coordinator as an example.

In a small hotel, the Sales Coordinator acts as an extension of the sales department. On occasion, they will be involved with booking the business. They will also take care of the administrative side of things, and track information. In small establishments, they will take on various duties because there is a limited number of people in the establishment.

In a big hotel, the person in the same position does a lot less. They’re focused on specific tasks and other people on the sales team handle other tasks.

I always ask the people in each property to write down their job descriptions. They describe all their duties & responsibilities in detail. I can bet that once they do this you will find out things you didn’t know they were doing.

So how does this help with turnover?

When the next person comes for an interview, they will get a set of clear expectations and they will be clear about their responsibilities from moment zero. This will help train the next person properly. In return, people don’t complain about unexpected tasks, since they get a hold of everything from the first day of training. They get good at their job fast, and they don’t leave the establishment.

The faster they become comfortable in making decisions without asking a manager the better the outcome.

Selim Soliman: When it comes to work-life balance, the secret is not in what you do and how you do it, the secret is what people you hire for your team.

The first thing you have to do is surround yourself with the right people. Then you have to coach and mentor them. This will help you delegate responsibilities to them.

When you have a well-functioning team that will manage the property while you are out and pass the information to you when you come back, your work-life balance will be immaculate. Knowing that you can completely rely on your team members will give you the peace of mind that you need to enjoy your free time.

Selim Soliman: It’s interesting because when you start you don’t know the potential. You can’t see where your career can take you.

When you are younger you are taking it day by day. You are looking as far as tomorrow. You just want to make enough tips so that you can pay your electric bill. You don’t think about growing your career in the industry until somebody brings it up to you.

So, the one thing I wish we did in this industry is to sit with the people who join and talk to them about their career progression opportunities. We need to start saying to young people, this is where you start, this is where you can come in a six-month time frame, and this is how much you will earn.

We need to start presenting the industry with its infinite career progression opportunities from the start. This is something I want every young person to understand.

There is no other industry where you can explore so many different roles like the hospitality industry.

The more people understand the potential of our industry, the more they will be intrigued to go in that direction.