The ideal candidates for the hotel industry vacancies: a conjoint analysis of managers’ preferences

Abstract

Which characteristics do the hotel managers value the most when they recruit a graduate for a job in their hotel facilities? This paper is consistent with the targets of determining hotel managers’ preferences when they recruit. Hotel managers’ preferences were determined in relation with the hypothetical profiles of candidates for five job positions in the administration, commercial, front office, human resources and marketing areas of hotels. For this purpose, we carried out a survey on 87 hotels operating in the metropolitan area of Naples, in Campania region, Italy. Data have been collected using a conjoint experiment, aimed to obtain the characteristics of the graduates who could employ each one of the five job positions. For each position, the interviewees were asked to choose among four randomly selected profiles of possible candidates characterised by six attributes. Findings highlight which characteristics are given positive (or negative) value by managers in choosing candidate profiles.