The Marbella Job Fair offers 4,000 jobs for various sectors and the Army

The Adolfo Suárez Conference and Exhibition Center hosted this Thursday the VIII Job Fair, an event that brought together more than 120 companies and offered 4,000 job positions, 2,000 of them in various sectors mainly focused on services and another 2,000 in the Army. The "attitude" of the candidates is the quality most valued by companies when recruiting staff, followed by languages in a tourist destination like Marbella, according to consulted sources.

The mayor, Ángeles Muñoz, was in charge of inaugurating the fair, where she highlighted based on the experience of previous years that the event "not only allows vacancies to be filled, but also guides many people to find their vocation here or to have more stability".

The mayor emphasized "the magnitude of the opportunities offered in this edition, which again includes the presence of the Army offering about 4,000 public jobs" and the forecast of having about 5,000 attendees.

Thus, companies of recognized prestige linked to the service sector such as hotels and restaurants participated in the fair to recruit staff, like the Dani García Group. The brand's talent coordinator, César Luengo, highlighted that this year they are looking for a "reinforcement" for the opening of the beach club La Cabane and for the three restaurants, offering at the Job Fair "more than 50 positions", with "all kinds of profiles" such as bar assistants, waiter assistants, or kitchen assistants, cooks, and logistics staff.

The Human Resources Director of the hospitality group, Sandra López, emphasized that the most important thing when recruiting staff is the "attitude": "We are seeing very interesting people, very eager and perhaps not with the experience but at Dani García Group we don't mind that, we look above all at the quality of the person and their ethical principles, the rest can be learned." She added that the company offers the possibility of "growing professionally" internationally, with openings planned for this year in Ibiza and Mallorca and the management of restaurants in Dubai and Miami.

The most valued quality is "attitude"

The five-star luxury hotel Puente Romano will offer up to 200 job positions by the summer, where the most valued quality is the "good attitude, eagerness to contribute, or that hospitality in the person that then transfers to each profession," stated María Ramos, selection manager, emphasizing that for positions requiring more knowledge, "languages and some experience" are requested. The resort is looking for "reception teams, cleaning teams, or restaurant staff" for the summer season, in addition to the permanent staff, also offering "an opportunity for people with more junior profiles who are studying and want to work in the summer or start in the world of hospitality but do not have much experience".

The hotel Meet Estepona-Marbella offers at the fair "several open vacancies" ahead of its opening next March 27, as well as has created a special one for the event, with the aim that "anyone who wants to work tells us about a position that might not now match their profile, which can broaden their resume, and when there is a vacancy we can contact them," commented Silvia Calderón, People & Culture from the Human Resources Department.

Recruitment is aimed at finding "people who have customer orientation because in a luxury hotel you have to have that service vocation, personalize the experience and anticipate needs." They also request "languages, especially English," if the staff is in contact with the public. As a main problem, Calderón pointed to the issue of access to housing, which "greatly complicates that a person can come to work on the Costa del Sol. Among the job offers of the brand for the season, she highlighted positions such as floor waiter, kitchen, waiters, runners, head waiters, administrative, reservations, receptionist, housekeeper, hostess, finance, executive chef, head chef, sushi man, and skewer cook, among others.

The brand Vacation club, from Marriott, is looking for profiles at its Estepona and Marbella locations for "hotel operations, restaurant, reception, housekeeping, and sales and marketing", according to Cristina Ruiz, Human Resources administrator in Marbella. Also, "sales executives with languages to join the team," pointed out Lara Cuadrado, recruiter for Marriot in Europe and the Middle East. Cuadrado emphasized that the most valued in candidates is that "they have languages, willingness to work and a background in sales", highlighting that the Job Fair facilitates the recruitment of workers and "networking with other professionals, both from this industry and others", attended by "all kinds of people", from those who "just graduated from university between 20 and 25 years old, another older in their 50s who continues to seek from what they have experience, people with many languages or from abroad who just moved".

Job Search in Hotels and Hospitality

Santiago Niño is a 29-year-old Colombian who has been living in Marbella for six years. Speaking "English" has allowed him to maintain and establish himself in the city, he recounted, who attended the Job Fair this Thursday to look for a job in hotels after working for more than a decade in "service". "I have twelve years in hospitality, this year I want to make a turn in my professional career and my focus is, above all, on hotels". "I am looking for a place that allows me to test if I am good in service but also tests me in others. That's what I want, to experiment with my possibilities is the only thing I'm looking for", he emphasized.

"I have a resume with which I believe I can defend myself, that I can really achieve what I want", he remarked, highlighting that the Job Fair is "a very good opportunity, especially for young people looking to experiment, open their careers and increase their possibilities in the professional world". "The lifestyle in Marbella is not cheap, you have to maintain yourself sadly and it is not easy but with motivation and effort everything can be achieved", he pointed out regarding the difficulty of establishing himself in the city, alluding to the high price of rentals and the "gender discrimination" that men suffer in this sense when renting, for example, a room.

Yanira Rodríguez is a second-year Tourism Degree student who is looking to put her knowledge into "practice" this summer, so she attended the event to look for work as a "receptionist" or "waitress". "It's harder to look for work online, here it seems they are more interested in meeting you", she related, highlighting the difficulty of finding a job in Marbella during the high season, as it "depends a lot on the languages or availability you have".

Juan Romero is a 32-year-old man looking for employment in hotels, where he comments that he has worked "all his life", mainly in "reception". "I studied Tourism and Hotel Administration, at 18 I started my internships and there began my career, ending in a hotel in Medellín (Colombia)". "The Job Fair seems very interesting to me, it's 100% an opportunity, hopefully it's real", he remarked, highlighting that "there is work, what there is not is people".

Íñigo Gómez is a 31-year-old man from Zaragoza who has been in Marbella for three years working in the hotel sector, and attended the event to look for a job as a “receptionist or reservations”. “I come from finance but decided to make a sector change and the Costa del Sol is more focused on tourism and services”, he noted, adding given the temporality in hiring that he seeks a job for a “long season”. “There are many hotels, employers are quite kind and give us a view of the offers that are coming out, we hope that some will materialize”, he elaborated.

Lucía is a 27-year-old woman looking for work as a hotel receptionist, accumulating seven years of experience in hospitality. “I would love to find other types of things but there is nothing creative nor trades, so in hotels is what I can work in, there is little variety”, she emphasized. Thus, she valued that the fair can be an opportunity for people who “have not started working or who want the same, in Marbella what moves is hospitality and they will give you work focused on hotels”.