Students get an insight into a range of hotel careers at industry day

A group of students from a mix of courses enjoyed an industry insight day at Macdonald Manchester Hotel and Spa.

30 students from construction and engineering; hair, beauty and retail; hospitality and catering; and travel, tourism and aviation courses were invited to attend the professional event and learn about the vast range of careers available in the hotel industry.

The students came dressed in business wear and jumped in at the deep end with a fun icebreaker activity. They then had a tour of the maintenance areas of the hotel before the head of each department in the hotel gave them a talk about their part of the industry. The talks gave the students a good idea of just how many different career paths there are in the hotel industry.

The students had a valuable opportunity to take part in a team building assessment. The hotel uses this activity when recruiting staff so the students had a real taste of how they might be selected as employees. The hotel team took them through a real application to the company and were so impressed that every student was offered an interview, two-week placement and the potential for contract work in the future.

We were all very impressed by the students

This is the first time the industry insight day has taken place. It represents a unique partnership between The Manchester College, with different courses working together and 16-18-year-old and adult students taking part in shared opportunities.

Karen Wright, Careers and Welfare Manager at The Manchester College said: ‘The students had a great day and it’s brought home to them that there’s more than one route into the hotel industry. It’s not just tourism and hotel management roles – there are great careers in catering, hospitality, hair, beauty, retail, engineering, maintenance and more.’

Simone Mclevey, People and Quality Development Manager North West at Macdonald Manchester Hotel and Spa, said: ‘We were all very impressed by the students: their enthusiasm to get stuck into the assessment activity, the time they took to fill in application forms and eagerness for a showround of the hotel.’