Nikki Beach holds 'talent casting' event in Dubai

Nikki Beach Hotels and Resorts held its first ever ‘talent casting’ event in Dubai last week as part of its recruitment drive for the upcoming Nikki Beach Resort and Spa on The Pearl Qatar.

Hoteliers working at Dubai hotels, including those run by Jumeirah Group and The Address, attended an event at Dubai Marina Yacht Club on December 12 for the first round of ‘auditions’ for a position at the new resort.

The hotel, which is scheduled to open in Q2 2012, will be the first from the group, famed for its Nikki Beach clubs in prime locations worldwide from Marbella to Miami.

Recruiting hotel staff, therefore, is “a learning curve” for the Nikki Beach team, hence the different approach, group director of operations Daniele Vastolo told Hotelier Middle East at the casting.

“This is a learning curve for us, this is the first time we are venturing ourselves in a thing like this. Nanthini [Sathasivam, regional director of talent resources and development] has been in hospitality for 20 years with Emaar, Shangri-La etc, I have the same background, I come from Shangri-La and I have never done recruitment in this way,” revealed Vastolo.

He said people attending the casting, who were invited to take part following application and pre-screening, had been asked to “tell us a bit about themselves”.

“Tonight is a casting, it’s about personality, it’s not about skills,” said Vastolo.

“I like to stress to them that we hire for attitude and we train for skills. It’s very important; anybody can feel and have a dream in life to be something, if you have the right attitude you can achieve it. We can train for skills definitely, we can help them to become restaurant managers, we can help them to become housekeeping managers —they just need the right attitude,” he added.

Sathasivam explained: “We’re hoping to receive 100-150 people tonight. They have been pre-screened based on whatever talents they already have and we’ve looked at CVs…but this is their opportunity to shine.

“They’ve been told by the recruitment agency they’ve got to come out here and do a maximum of three minutes — you can tell a story, sing a song, if you’re a bartender you can flare — it’s really down to personality and what they want to impress us with.

“It is a very out of the box way, very unconventional way of doing interviews I would say,” she added.

Candidates successful at the auditions were invited back for a formal interview with the Nikki Beach team the following day, where the “technicalities” of recruitment would be addressed, said Sathasivam.

Those unsuccessful at this stage get another chance to attend the next talent casting in Dubai.

“Not everyone is ready to take on a show like this,” said Sathasivam “Like we said, we are experimenting, it’s their first time and they’re not used to it so readiness can always be done later – they know what they need to work on, they work on it and when we have the next event we will invite them again.”

The pre-opening team is looking to recruit 130-150 people for the first phase of opening in spring, which will involve the launch of 24 suites and “90% of the F&B”.

The second phase, expected to launch in 2013, will take staff numbers up to 250.

Vastolo said this novel approach to recruitment would continue as the company grows.

Nikki Beach Hotels and Resorts has eight projects planned or under negotiation to open in the next three to four years, including hotels in Croatia, Abu Dhabi, Beirut and Greece.