Choosing right career option for hotel management students
Divya Thakur
Asst Professor
Banarsidas Chandiwala Institute of Hotel Management.
Everyone has a dream of what he/she
wants to be, in the early stages of their life. We might have heard from a lot of kids that
they want to be a doctor as their father is from the same profession. But as
they grow up, they realize the changes in their interest and diversity in
choosing their career path.
To choose the best option for them, one has to face
a great deal of pressure from families, colleagues, education
system and culture. It seems very difficult that one has to pick one career
path and stick with it until he/she retire. They need a right advice to find a
job that does it all: engages the talents, makes plenty of money, opportunity
to grow and maintaining work life balance.
In a country, like
India, where parents celebrate their child's achievements, why do over 60 per
cent of our graduates feel anxious about their future?
In a research conducted on Harvard Business School (HBS), It is found
that even graduates from recognized educational institutions in India face
major gaps, resulting in them being unprepared for their careers.
In
most of the professions, students are not exposed to
internships through-out their college experience and so they are not able
experiment, gain mentorship, and learn practical skills on the job. This makes
the students first job the first time they have ever worked. Whereas in
hospitality, students undergo six months of industrial training and sometimes
vocational training, which helps them to choose their area of interest. They
understand the work pressure, learn professionalism, choose the best department
for them and they can fit themselves to be the master of one stream.
When students join a hotel management Institute,
majorly they want to opt Food production as their career option but it changes
when they join the Industry. There has been seen many cases, where students
have changed and make up their mind during the training in Hotels and choose a
relevant area for them, and of course develop a passion toward it. And also,
majority of students keep Front office, Sales and Marketing and Food and
Beverage Service as their right Choice due to Salary, lively environment and
growth.
Whereas it has also been found that students treat
training and interviews conducted by hotels as the most demotivational factor,
in finding the right career option. The training should be planned in such a
way that students are exposed to all the departments rather than putting them
as per the department?s requirement. Students must be allowed to stand at
reception, take orders in the restaurant, make rooms and work in the kitchen,
so that they can find out the right area of interest.
The gap leads students
unplanned about their future and asked to join another department in the
interviews. Hotels and Hospitality institutes must train the students like
Hoteliers and must provide a platform to learn skills on supervision of a
staff. We must develop the personality of students and make them realize their
goal, which not only suits their personality but help them to become a good
hotelier too.
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