Front Desk Representative Interview Preparation Guide

Turnover is often a major challenge for hospitality employers. They don’t want to spend the hotel’s time and resources to train you if you don’t intend to stay for long. You can reiterate your response to the previous question and assure the hiring manager that you see yourself working for Hotel ABC for a long time. However, if there is a reason you may need to leave in the near future—a cross-country move or going back to school for example—be honest. Accepting a position and then disappointing your employer by moving on too soon could be worse for your career in the long run.

Front desk agents and concierges are not the only hotel staff guests turn to for advice. Before any interview, make sure you’re familiar with local attractions and think about those that would best appeal to a variety of travelers.

When you respond, be sure to frame your answer so that it's positive. Let the interviewer know clearly how much and why working for them is very attractive to you so you may say that you want to stay for a long time as long as your presence is beneficial for your hotel and guests as well as mine.
For example you may say:

☛ I would like to pursue my career here for as long as I have the opportunity to.
☛ I would like to remain employed here for as long as my services are needed.
☛ I like new challenges and a chance to grow. As long I keeping getting these, I don't think I'll need to switch over.
☛ This hotel has everything I'm looking for. It provides the type of work I love, the employees are all happy, and the environment is great. I plan on staying a long time."

Basic research of hotels will help you more for answering this question. Basic responsibilities of hotel you can mention in your answer are :

☛ Make guests feel welcome, manage room bookings (also known as reservations)
☛ Dealing with bookings by phone, e-mail, letter, fax or face-to-face
☛ Completing procedures when guests arrive and leave
☛ Dealing with special requests from guests (like booking theatre tickets or storing valuable items)
☛ Dealing with complaints or problems
☛ Choosing rooms and handing out keys
☛ Preparing bills and taking payments
☛ Answering questions about what the hotel offers and the surrounding area.
☛ Show your full knowledge in short that how much you aware about the working of hotel.

As we already discussed above about some unique qualities which can make a receptionist good. These are:

☛ Excellent written and spoken communication skills
☛ Patience and tact
☛ The ability to use computerised technology effectively
☛ Good problem solving skills
☛ The ability to stay calm under pressure and look after several things at once
☛ Strong customer service skills
☛ The ability to adapt to different guests
☛ A friendly and professional telephone manner.

You not only need to mention these qualities but also need to learn these qualities so you will be able to prove yourself good and better then others

Performance appraisal has become a continuous process by which an employee's understanding of a company's goals and his or her progress toward contributing to them are measured. Performance measurement is an ongoing activity for all managers and their subordinates. This is quite straight question, discuss about the key performance indices against which your performance was rated. This also shows your suitability for the position. You may say that the performances can be measure as set of goals that achieve by person in his life. Performances measured by achieving self-satisfaction with our work. So I feel satisfaction is the measure of performance.

Unhappy guest are bad news for any company or hotel, and it only takes one of them to shatter a perfectly good day at work for everyone. Whatever the cause, unhappy customers are still our guests and our hope for future business, and we want them happy again. So you may say that you would :

☛ Listen to the customer, and do not interrupt them.
☛ Thank the guest for bringing the problem to your attention.
☛ Sincerely convey to the guest your apology.
☛ Determine what the guest is seeking as a solution.
☛ Act on the solution with a sense of urgency. Guest will often respond more positively to your focus on helping them immediately versus than on the solution itself.

Interviewers will love to hear good things about their hotel. So share with them the hotel's strong points. Visit the hotel website to know their specialties. After that only you will be able to honestly compliment the most positive things about hotel to impress your interviewer.

Here are some qualities and strengths that you will want to highlight in this section as a receptionist or someone who is working at the front desk office. Employers during this point want to see what you are all about. So make sure to speak about your organizational skills, about maintaining a good and positive attitude. Third, speak about your communication skills, dependability, computer fluency and technology skills. Before you answer this question properly, make sure to touch upon a few topics like professionalism, how good you are at things like multitasking and how customer service oriented are you. These points really matter so don’t forget to mention them.

This receptionist job interview question can help you with polishing some of the qualifications and skills that you have already enlisted inside your interview. You should come up with persuasive answers so that the interviewer is convinced that you can handle the job easily. So when you are answering this question, you have to speak of your friendly nature, your level of confidence, your communication level and patience. You can always add a few strong points and give more evidence regarding your previous experiences and how well you have scored in them. That will make things much easier for you!