The resume was perfect. It listed a decade of experience across three of the most revered fivestar hotels in the world. Every technical skill, from sommelier certification to mastering three different property management systems, was checked off. On paper, he was the best frontofhouse manager we could have ever hoped for. Three months later, I had to let him go. It was one of the hardest lessons of my career. The problem wasn’t his competence; he was brilliant. The problem was the empty space where his warmth should have been. Guests felt like transactions, and the team felt his impatience. He executed tasks flawlessly but failed at the one thing that can’t be taught from a manual: making people feel seen.

The Deception of a Flawless Resume

In the world of luxury, we are conditioned to chase perfection. We look for pristine resumes, prestigious past employers, and a long list of qualifications. We assume that a history of working in elite environments automatically translates into an elite service mindset. But that’s a dangerous assumption. A resume tells you what a person has done, but it tells you almost nothing about who they are. I once had a junior concierge, barely a year out of school, who had none of the “right” experience. Her resume was sparse. But during her interview, she told me a story about helping a lost tourist find their way, not because it was her job, but because she couldn’t stand the thought of someone feeling alone in a new city. That was it. That was the spark. That seemingly small detail revealed more about her potential to create genuine guest experiences than any certificate ever could. She understood, instinctively, that luxury isn’t about rigid perfection; it’s about profound, personal connection.

You Can Teach a Skill, But You Can’t Teach a Heart

The mechanics of our industry are trainable. I can teach a new hire how to use our reservation software in a week. I can train them on the 27 steps of fivestar dinner service in a month. These are skills, and skills are simply knowledge put into practice. They are repeatable, logical, and finite. But how do you teach someone to have genuine curiosity? How do you train them to notice the slight downturn of a guest’s mouth and ask if everything is alright? How do you instill the proactive empathy required to send up a cup of tea to a room just because you overheard a guest mention they had a long flight? You can’t. These are not skills; they are expressions of character. This is attitude. The flawless manager I let go could execute a command perfectly, but the junior concierge could anticipate a need before it was ever spoken. One was an efficient robot; the other was an invaluable human being.

Attitude is the Immune System of Your Culture

Hiring for attitude over skill isn’t just about guest satisfaction; it’s about building a resilient and selfsustaining team culture. One person with a negative, cynical, or transactional attitude can poison the well, no matter how talented they are. Their negativity is contagious, breeding resentment and slowly eroding the service standards you’ve worked so hard to build. Conversely, one person with an infectious, positive, and collaborative attitude becomes a cultural multiplier. They lift others up, solve problems with a “we’ll figure it out” mindset, and remind everyone why they fell in love with this demanding industry in the first place. They become the gravitational center of your team’s spirit. When you prioritize attitude in hiring, you are no longer just filling a position. You are intentionally curating an environment where excellence and empathy can thrive organically. You are building a team that polices its own standards because they are all aligned on a deeper mission: to care for people. I learned the hard way that a resume is just a ghost of past performance. It’s the person in front of you, their energy, their empathy, their innate desire to serve, that predicts future success. Skills can be acquired, but a generous spirit is a gift. Today, my most important interview question is simple: “Tell me about a time you helped someone when you didn’t have to.” The answer tells me everything I need to know. What do you look for beyond the resume?

3 Key Takeaways

• Technical skills are trainable and can be acquired on the job, but core character traits like empathy and curiosity are much harder to teach.
• A candidate’s attitude is a predictor of their cultural impact; a positive attitude multiplies team morale, while a negative one can be corrosive.
• Look beyond the resume during the hiring process by asking behavioral questions that reveal a person’s inherent desire to serve and connect with others.

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