The hospitality industry has been hit hard by the current pandemic, leaving thousands of people looking for new career opportunities.
The World Travel & Tourism Council has recently warned the COVID-19 pandemic could lead to more than 50 million hospitality jobs lost worldwide.
The good news? The experience and skills learnt working in hospitality are transferable to many jobs that are in huge demand today.
Hospitality workers are very well positioned to find new job opportunities.
Luckily, one of the most natural transitions for hospitality professionals is also one of the most in-demand roles available in the tech industry today: sales.
Whether you were already considering changing careers from hospitality, or have been forced to by the pandemic, here are 5 reasons why tech sales is a great career choice for hospitality workers.
1. It's a fun, exciting career path
Think of sales as the typical sleazy, pushy used-car salesperson that tricks people into buying stuff they don't need? Think again! Today, tech sales is all about connecting with customers and helping them solve their problems. Many people reconsider their career in the hospitality industry because they don't feel challenged and excited. Tech sales offers a fulfilling role, with interesting challenges and huge room for growth. Oh, and usually much better working hours.
2. There’s huge demand and growth opportunities
CEDEFOP estimates there will be 9.2 Million sales jobs available by 2030.
Once you enter the tech industry, it's unlikely you'll have to worry about your job anytime soon. As the tech industry grows, companies need more and more customer-facing roles that liaise with customers and translate their products into revenue.
In fact, tech companies identify access to qualified sales talent as their number 1 blocker to scale. Career progression and options are promising too. Sales professionals usually go on to become managers, individual contributors in charge of big accounts or even launching their own venture.
3. Transferrable skills
Hospitality workers thrive in sales jobs. The reason? Working in hospitality teaches you many valuable skills that are transferrable to tech sales. Here are the most important ones:
- Empathy: Hospitality professionals are constantly dealing with customers. You have to understand what your guests want and need – sometimes even before they know it, and provide solutions they appreciate. This is a core skill to be successful in sales: empathising with your customer, understanding their problems and tailoring the solution to their needs.
- Determination: Succeeding in a hospitality job takes a huge deal of determination and drive. Especially at the start, you work long hours in admittedly not the most rewarding roles. This is an essential attribute of great salespeople, allowing them to succeed where others fail. Determination allows a salesperson to persist in their efforts to acquire new clients and to succeed in delivering the outcomes they have promised.
- Communication skills: Regular contact with new people from diverse backgrounds and with diverse ways of expressing their needs, wants, instructions and opinions means constantly adapting your communication style – a skill that will come in very handy in sales.
- Resilience: Hospitality and sales professionals must have thick skin to be successful. The amount of rejection and disappointment they go through on a daily basis can be discouraging to say the least. Dealing with problematic clients and situations is extremely common in the hospitality industry, and can be helpful when dealing with the rejection natural to the sales profession.
4. You don't need a degree or experience
Good salespeople come from diverse backgrounds, and companies know it. Rather than a degree, companies look for soft skills such as resilience, a continuous learning mindset and passion and drive to succeed. It will be fairly easy to defend in a job interview how the experience you've gained in hospitality makes you a good candidate for a sales role.
5. The pay is great
Tech sales is one of the most financially lucrative career paths in tech, especially because of the high commissions paid if you hit your quotas. Salaries vary greatly depending on your city and company. Here's an overview of salaries for Sales Development Representatives (Entry-level role) and Account Executives (1-2 years experience) in some of the major tech hubs in Europe and US according to LinkedIn Salaries.
Where to begin?
Even if you already have the soft skills required to be successful, making the transition to a sales role with no previous experience on your own can be hard. Getting the job can be a months-long, exhausting process, and once you do the first six months in the role are usually hectic as you get to know the dynamics of the industry and your new role.
Our program is designed precisely to make that transition easier. We select people with no previous experience, place them at top tech companies and train them on-the-job.
Ready to land your dream job? Apply here.
