NOVEMBER 9, 2000
HIRING LINE
Recruiting Q&A: Marriott's Brendan Keegan | The hospitality chain's hiring chief wants applicants who think big when developing their careers
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Marriott's Brendan Keegan
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| Seventy-three years ago, a small root-beer stand opened on 14th Street in Washington, D.C, that eventually grew into a restaurant chain called Hot Shoppes. That name may be difficult to place, but the name of the husband-and-wife entrepreneurs behind it is well known: Marriott.
Today, the nine-seat beverage stand has morphed into Marriott International, a global hotel business with 1999 revenues of $17.9 billion. The company's 150,000 employees are scattered throughout 59 countries and territories. Although most work in what company executives call lodging, Marriott has a hand in other businesses as well. These include 151 assisted-living communities in the U.S. The company is also a large food distributor and recently launched a sophisticated online-reservation system.
Headed by J. W. Marriott Jr., the founders' son, the business has made its mark on numerous best-company lists because of its programs to boost employment for the disabled, the poor, minorities, and mothers. Recently, Business Week Online's Pamela Mendels met with Brendan M. Keegan, Marriott's executive vice-president for human resources to discuss employment opportunities at the company. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation:
Q: What efforts do you make to recruit and develop people in management-track jobs?
A: We set a goal that 50% of entry-level managers come off college campuses. We constantly review schools -- colleges -- [for] the quality of their graduates, the quality of their faculty. We [also] look at diversity. We have what we call our strategic schools...8 to 10 schools where we pay special attention, special focus.
Q: What colleges are we talking about?
A: Largely hotel-related schools and colleges. But we also hire large numbers of people in, for example, sales, finance, accounting. I'll give you an example. A local school that's very important for us is the University of Maryland. It provides us with great accounting and information-systems
graduates.
Q: What jobs most need filling?
A: Right now, both at corporate headquarters and out in operations, we're focusing on finance. We're growing, and in Marriott, the critical partnership is the general manager of a hotel and his or her controller or financial director. We're taking a hard look at the quality of what we've got, and
because of our growth, we're aggressively looking for people at the entry-level and, indeed, right through the ranks.
Q: What are the job titles [in finance]?
A: When they reach the senior position in a hotel, it would be the controller, [and] at entry level, assistant manager, financial analyst, or something like that.
Q: What are you looking for in job candidates?
A: Early signs of leadership. In other words, we're not just looking for people who can process things, but people who can lead functions. We [also] place great emphasis on collegiality or team building, even at the finance level. [And] we're constantly trying to get an early sign of what we call business-mindedness -- people who can look at a business problem, see it as a business problem, and come up with a variety of solutions to it.
Q: If people are interested in working abroad, how do they initiate that?
A: They would initially work here if they were more junior types. If they were people who had previous international experience and could be significant contributors to our international operators, we'd immediately put them in contact with our international division.
Now, say somebody wanted to work abroad: We would direct them to an operation in whatever country they wanted to work in. But generally speaking, that isn't a good economic deal, either for the individual or for the company. The individual, certainly a junior person, would be paid at the local level, whereas the professional international career executive would get on the expat program.
Q: Can you talk about salary and benefits with the company?
A: Certainly, in the U.S. our compensation is considered more than competitive. We're probably in the 60-something percentile in terms of total comp. By the way, that's competitive in our industry. If you compare us to [another Washington (D.C.)-area company such as] AOL, we believe that we're still competitive.
But at any given moment, anyone could come up with a package that would exceed ours. We just completed an in-depth study of our total compensation numbers. There are things we want to do, but we're quite satisfied where we are.
Q: Can you discuss the things you want to do?
A: I think our approach is going to place greater emphasis on performance, to distinguish different levels of performance and pay accordingly.
Q: Can you describe Marriott's efforts to assist entry-level, hourly workers?
A: We offer a six-week training program to people who otherwise would've been unemployed. We've been doing that for over 10 years. We did it before the [labor] crunch, [and] it came in very handy during the crunch. Rather than just hiring people who never had a job or never held a job for very long, we provide them with support that makes it easier for them to stay with their jobs. In fact, these people enjoy a higher rate of retention than people who have not gone through the program.
Q: I noticed on your Web site a listing of various benefits. One was leave-sharing. Can you discuss that?
A: In Marriott, if one has built up a bank of time off, one can donate that to others who may need it.
Q: What's the biggest mistake you see job applicants making?
A: Let me give you a 57-year-old head of HR's advice. I think the biggest mistake is probably being too limited in what you want. If you get in a good company, [you should] not be as concerned with where you start, but keep your eye on what the end result should be: a satisfying career. Sometimes people disqualify themselves by being too narrow.
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Copyright 2000, Bloomberg L.P.
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