The world of hotels is a fickle business to say the least and that was before this nasty little turn in the economy. Most mid-level managers make it a few years before moving up or out (the out is a 50/50 mix of voluntary and involuntary) so the world of hospitality job boards/web sites should be huge. But atlas they are not. I will go thru a couple of the top ones here and give you the plusses and minuses to their sites

The first and my favorite is Hcareers.com . Hcareers has probably the most professional and user friendly website in the world of hospitality - it is along the lines of a Career Builder or Monster. It is easy to refine your searches, the application process is fairly easy and the database is fairly large. The drawback to Hcareers is that it does not show jobs from the major hotel companies like Marriot, Hilton or Starwood. So, what you get here is a bunch of franchises and independents.

That brings us to Starwood's careers site. Starwood is one of the largest hotel companies in the world. Westin, St. Regis, Sheraton, W, Luxury Collection, Aloft, Element, Meridien and Four Points all fall under the Starwood flag. So, you would think they would have an awesome website for job listings - you would be wrong. It starts out ok with their main career page but by the time you get to the job listing - it’s a mess.

You can not view the page as a whole so you have to do that scroll bar within a scroll bar thing that can be aggravating. Then the listings are bad. The color is blue on blue and they give very little information on the job other than the location. Once you click on a job it will give you the responsibilities and requirements. If you then want to apply for it, you have to go thru the registration process that can be tedious at best. A lot of work for one job but, it is Starwood so it may be worth it.

Next is Marriott. Marriott is huge and includes such brands as Ritz Carlton, Renaissance, Fairfield Inns, Courtyards, Residence Inns, Towneplace Suites, Springhill Suites and, of course, Marriotts. Again you would think they would have a great website - not the case. It is extremely hard to navigate and you have to register before you can even see the listings. And of course the registration process can be tiresome especially when they may not have any jobs you are interested in. And, again, it is Marriott so bare with it and do it.

Last on my little list here is Hilton . Hilton includes Hiltons, Conrads, Doubletrees, Embassy Suites, Waldorf-Astorias and Hampton Inns. Yeah, they are kind of big as well. And out of the three hotel owned websites this one is the best. Relatively easy to get around but they have that long registration process as well but you can at least look at the jobs before you spend 15 minutes filling out the necessary information.

The good thing about all the sites here is that once you have signed up you are in their databases forever so you don't have to keep re-registering every time you get canned. Also, Starwood and Hcareers will email you jobs that may interest you if you so desire.

Well, that's it. Good luck job hunting!

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