Linchi Kwok, Ph.D.

The unemployment rate is low. Our industry still faces an ongoing labor shortage challenge. Many restaurants and hotels struggle to fill vacant positions.     Then, will restaurants and hotels hire just anyone applying for the job? If that is the case, why some of us have never heard any follow-up calls?   Maybe we were unlucky by applying for a “ghost job” --- jobs employers do not want to fill. Alternatively, it was because we did not submit the “right” resume or failed to set up an appealing LinkedIn profile. It is time to review the resume-writing (this post) and LinkedIn (Part II or the next post) tips.     Make Sure Your Resume Passes AI Screening and the 6-second Test    Everyone wants to get a good job. A vacancy in most desirable companies will receive hundreds or even thousands of resumes.     To streamline the hiring process, many companies have already used AI to help their hiring managers screen resumes. Afterward, resumes piling up on a hiring manager’s desk (or folder) w

  "Traveling thousands of miles is better than reading thousands of books." --- a Chinese proverb While many of the world’s renowned hospitality and culinary schools are located right here in the U.S., studying abroad for a culinary arts program can also be very beneficial. On April 25, we compared the options of studying in hospitality, culinary arts, or a graduate program. Today, we will discuss the options of studying in the U.S. vs. abroad for a culinary arts program.  Imagine that if one wants to be a master chef in Italian cuisine, will it be better to study culinary arts in Italy or a different country? Nothing can beat the immersive learning experience in the home country that originates the heritage and culture of the ethnic foods. Most of all, living in a foreign country could be the most rewarding experience in people’s life. They can Experience a whole new world: Living in the culture that gave birth to the ethnic cuisine, they get to taste its culture, the p

When COVID hit, who would expect that our industry must deal with the toughest labor shortage ever in just a few months? By far, we have seen older staff want an early retirement; younger ones refuse to settle for what is offered. Just like the title of “ Everything Everywhere All at Once ,” “Great Retirement,” “Great Resignation,” “Great Refusal,” and “Great Relocation,” you name it, everything is happening now in the workplace ( McGowan and Shipley, 2023 ). Here comes the “Great Reset” The workplace needs a reset when people are now reassessing the purposes of their work and lives. Since the start of the pandemic, many people have switched jobs and even professions. Some also decided to go back to school to recharge and reskill. It is not a bad idea to gain additional training or a new degree because continuous education can often fuel career growth. The challenge is how to pick the right program that helps us accelerate our potential.  Culinary Arts vs. Hospitality  Culinary a

Forget about the old days of “people serving people.” More restaurants and hotels are now using robotic cooks, delivery robots, self-serving kiosks, Chatbots, and other AI-empowered machines in service operations.   Some businesses must rely on machines to address the labor shortage issue. Others count on machines to deliver faster and more consistent service. Moreover, many consumers have become used to automatic self-services during the pandemic. It is not surprising to see robots taking over more service jobs.      What is the latest robotic “thing” that deems to take over even more human jobs?     That is ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer), the popular chatbot from OpenAI. Launched in November 2022, ChatGPT is designed to answer user requests with AI-generated articles, essays, jokes, and even poetry. By January 2023, ChatGPT was already set to reach 100 million monthly active users ( Hu, 2023 ). On average, about 13 million unique visitors used ChatGPT every day in

The U.S. Department of The Treasury spent trillions of dollars during COVID to help people and businesses in need. Without those emergency funds from the government, many hospitality businesses would not have survived the pandemic. Now, our world is finally getting away from the pandemic. However, many crises facing the hospitality industry are not over yet. We still need help to address the supply chain issues, labor shortage, record-high inflation, and looming concerns of the economy. Should the government continue its support?      Natural gas may be one of the urgent issues needing the government’s help right now.     There is a spike in natural gas prices in Southern California. For example, a family-owned BBQ and seafood restaurant in L.A.’s Chinatown found its natural gas bill went from a typical $5,000 - $6,000 to nearly $14,000 in February 2023 ( Quednow & Cheng, 2023 ).     The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has urged the Federal Regulatory Commission, which regula

The positive effects of employees’ trust in their supervisors have been widely documented, such as job engagement, performance, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Given supervisors’ authority in the workplace, we suspect supervisors would bear a critical role in initiating trusting supervisor-employee relationships. As suggested in the social exchange theory, employees may perceive supervisor trust in them as a kind act by the supervisor and feel obligated to return such a kind act with their trust in supervisor.     The Research     To examine the relationships among (supervisor) trust in employee, (employee) felt trust, and (employee) trust in supervisor with empirical data, I worked with Drs.   Yung-Kuei Huang   at National Ilan University in Taiwan and   Ning-Kuang Chuang   at Kent State University on a project. Our purpose is two-fold.      1.       To examine the mediating relationships among trust in employee, felt trust, and trust in supervisor with two-dimensional measu

As many of us have left the pandemic behind in 2022 and begun traveling again, airlines started   It may seem that everything is finally moving into a brighter future in 2023, but the truth is: the   permanent impacts of the pandemic   and the uncertainty of the market have pushed many industry leaders to further streamline their operations. Considering the existing challenges facing the hospitality and tourism industries, I expect 2023 will be the year for significant changes. Food prices are unlikely to fall General month-to-month inflation is easing, but   not for most essential food items , especially when year-to-year inflation is concerned. On average, consumers were paying $4.25 for a carton of Grade A large eggs in December 2022, a jump from $1.79 a year ago. An outbreak of bird flu, high inflation, and cage-free-egg laws imposed by some states might be the reasons. Average butter prices went from $3.47 a pound a year ago to $4.81. Margarine, usually used as a substitute for bu

While inflation is finally cooling a little bit, nothing seems to stop the soaring food prices. Prices of margarine and butter in December 2022 increased 44% and 31%, respectively, from a year ago. Egg prices had even gone up by 60% ( Brooks, 2023 )   Inflation is just one factor driving up the food prices   Inflation and the recent bird flu outbreak might have just created a perfect storm to jack up egg prices. Plus, it also happened that more states began transitioning to cage-free eggs around the same time. Effective in 2023, all eggs sold in California must be laid by hens living in cage-free or better conditions. Likewise, a similar bill is now under review by the Senate Agriculture Committee in New York. Leave the war in Ukraine aside; prices for eggs and other essential food items (e.g., baked goods) are unlikely to drop soon.    Food banks are struggling       As a result of soaring food prices, food banks only afford to buy fewer items with the funds they raise ( Yang, 2022 ).