CitizenM, the leader in affordable luxury hotels since 2008, offers a simple concept: hotels that combine modernity and refinement, for travellers with a thirst for adventure but also for comfort. Michael Levie, co-founder of the group, spoke at the Young Hospitality Summit 2024 at the EHL Hospitality Business School about CitizenM's “talent acquisition” strategy, stressing in particular the idea that “the technique can be learned, but the drive exists or doesn't”.

For Michael Levie, recruiting an ambassador is above all a question of determination for the candidate and the chemistry between them, the hotel teams and the group's “central support”. A hotel ambassador embodies the group's image: “The people you meet actually represent the whole company, like an ambassador representing a country”, explains Michael Levie.

The visitor to a CitizenM hotel should find a best friend and travelling companion, rather than a receptionist or concierge: the ambassador should be passionate, curious, positive, but above all versatile. The ambassador's personality enables him or her to adapt to the different needs of each hotel guest.

In response to this need to find the future stars of the hotel service industry, the brand has rethought its recruitment. Since the technique can be learned within the CitizenM network itself, candidates have to shine differently, at “casting days”.

No more interviews with recruiters: a job advert is posted on the group's social networks, and receives “hundreds of reactions”. From these, CitizenM's in-house team selects the most motivated profiles that match the company's culture. Depending on the type of vacancy, and whether it involves a hotel opening, between twenty and fifty of the selected candidates are invited to attend a casting : “When you invite 150 people, you're lucky if 75 turn up”, joked Michael Levie.

The first stage of this four-and-a-half-hour casting is a breakfast prepared by the CitizenM teams, where the candidates are free to interact with each other, without the intervention of the recruiters, who remain under observation. After this phase, a manager introduces the group and the role of ambassador, before a series of four workshops, which take up some characteristics of the tasks to be carried out on the job. The aim is to make the potential future recruits forget that they are in the middleof a recruitment process for a prestigious hotel, and thus reveal their behaviour. After these workshops, the candidates share a final meal, before being divided into two groups: the first, who are invited to go home, and the second, made up of the new ambassadors.

They are then asked to solve a giant jigsaw puzzle, the solution to which spells out the words “We're hired”. The aim of the Dutch group is to encourage rapid recruitment, with successful candidates completing their audition by signing their contract.

Once the casting is over, it's time for rehearsals. The new ambassadors are invited to spend three months immersed in the heart of the hotels, as part of a team. It is during this stage that they are taught the techniques required for their role: barista training, mixology, discovery of reservation systems, etc. Michael Levie's aim is to “immerse the ambassadors, who are at the very top of our inverted pyramid of hotel operations, in the company's culture”.

This inverted pyramid places the ambassadors at the heart of CitizenM, assisted by a hotel manager and a 'central support' department. This management entity, although more traditional, is also part of this desire for modernity, from the moment its members are recruited. Candidates for these roles go through a series of interviews, based on qualifications and experience. The selected candidate is then asked to join a department, but not necessarily the one in which he or she holds the position: here again, the aim is to discover the personality of the person recruited: “These interviews are designed to see if the candidate is suitable for us, and if they'renot, they're not taken on, without being seen through the prism of skills", concludes Michael Levie.

Even if the rate of team turnover remains comparable to that of its competitors, CitizenM has opted for a human touch for its hotels, ensuring that those who run them on a daily basis are not just mere employees, but the beating heart of the company's culture.