To interview without a CV in hospitality you need to do three things: decide in advance what the person must be able to do, ask every candidate the same questions about situations they've already been through, and score each answer as soon as you finish. Do it that way and about twenty minutes per candidate is enough, with no paperwork to read.
It works because a CV tells you where someone has worked and an interview shows you how they work, which in a hotel or a restaurant is what you really need to know. Further down you'll find what to assess for each role, specific questions for front of house, kitchen, reception and housekeeping, and how to organise the interview by video.
A CV that says "waiter, two years' experience" can be true and still tell you next to nothing. It doesn't tell you about the Saturday a colleague didn't turn up and that person got the service out anyway, or how they speak to an angry customer, or whether they arrive on time.
Anyone who hires in a hotel knows this. Filipe Veiga Alves, General Manager of ibis Styles Madrid Airport, explains it like this in the hotel's story with QIU: "In reception and operations we need people who know how to look after guests, and that doesn't show up on a CV."
The research says so too. A review of studies by Sackett, Zhang, Berry and Lievens (2022) concludes that the structured interview is the best predictor of how someone will perform in the job. Structured means that every candidate answers the same questions and that you rate them against the same criteria, decided in advance. A pleasant chat isn't that, so if you take the CV away you need to think carefully about what you replace it with.
Choose three things per role, not ten, and decide before you start which answer earns top marks. If you decide after the interview, you'll end up scoring how much you liked the candidate.
These are examples and you'll need to adapt them to your business, because an airport hotel and a cocktail bar aren't looking for the same kind of person. And interviewing without a CV doesn't mean skipping the requirements: if the role calls for a language or a qualification, you still check it, even though it's no longer the first thing you look at.
Ask about what the candidate has already done, not what they would do. Ask "how would you deal with a difficult customer?" and you'll get theory. With "tell me about the last time it happened to you", they have to tell you something that really happened.
Pay attention to the detail in each answer. Someone who has lived through the situation tells you what happened, what they did and how it ended. And give the candidate time to explain, because plenty of people do the job well without knowing what to call the things they do.
Twenty minutes isn't long enough to get to know anyone properly, but it is long enough to know whether you want to take things further with that person, and with a vacancy open that's the decision you have to make. You can split the time like this:
Score as soon as each interview ends, not at the end of the afternoon, because after the third one you won't remember clearly what the first candidate said. And interview everyone the same way: if you see one in person and another by video, you're no longer comparing them on equal terms.
Be careful with personal questions too, which tend to come up when the conversation is going well. Spain's Workers' Statute (the Estatuto de los Trabajadores) prohibits discrimination in access to employment on grounds such as marital status, origin or religion, and Law 15/2022 prevents you from asking about a candidate's health. Whatever you need to know can be asked directly and neutrally, for example: "Can you do this shift every week?"
You can do everything above with a notebook and a video call. What takes up your time is what comes before: finding the right candidates and agreeing a time with each one. QIU, the first interview portal, takes care of that part.
On QIU the CV is replaced by the Talent Card, a profile with the candidate's skills, availability and languages that fills out with what happens in every interview they do. You open a room with the role and your free slots, and only candidates whose Talent Card fits the vacancy can book one. You see it before the interview, talk to the candidate for about twenty minutes by video inside QIU, receive a summary and make the decision yourself.
It's quick, too: 95% of companies have their first interview booked less than 5 minutes after opening a room. Hard Rock Hotel Madrid spoke to eight candidates and had already hired two days later. On the attitude they look for in a candidate, Marta Herrero, its HR Director, says: "That doesn't show up on a CV, it shows up when you sit down and talk to someone."
QIU is built for hospitality and retail companies that hire on a regular basis.
Yes, as long as you replace it with an interview with fixed questions and criteria decided in advance. Otherwise all you're doing is swapping the CV for gut feeling.
Ask about what they have done: a placement from catering college, a customer-facing job or a tough season. Look at whether they're organised, how they treat people and how keen they are to learn.
About twenty minutes is enough to know whether you want to take things further with the candidate. If you can't decide between two people, you can have a second conversation with them.
You can start with the free account, which has limits. If you go on to hire more often, you move to the paid version, and we'll help you choose when you open your first room.
Pick one vacancy and write down the three things you're going to assess, four questions and the answer that earns top marks. Then block out three slots this week for interviews. And if you'd like those slots to fill up with candidates who fit, open your interview room on QIU.
