Gaylord Hotels Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process was terrible. The recruiter interview was fine, but meeting the hiring team was a joke. One person didn't show up, the director was late, and then she rushed the interview. She seemed to have already made up her mind before the video call. It was a huge waste of time, and the director was rude and uneducated.

Applied online and got a callback from a recruiter the next day. They set up a phone interview and sent a pre-interview assessment for senior management, which involved situations and financials. After that, I was contacted for an interview with the hiring manager, which was a one-hour STAR interview with about 4 STAR questions and some general talk. A week later, I had a third interview with the hiring manager's counterpart. This was also STAR format but much more intense and caught me by surprise. After two weeks without hearing back, I withdrew my application because I accepted another position. It's a long process, but they did mention that upfront during the interviews.

I got contacted for this job about 2-3 weeks after I applied. They were upfront about the pay being $25/hr. The email said to bring my resume and dress professionally. It was a bunch of interviews though. First, I think it was with HR, and it was pretty easy. Then, there was a panel interview with the top 3 managers from IT. Marriott really pushes the STAR method for interviews, and even though this was supposed to be an IT role, the interview process was kind of surprising. The 3 managers kept saying it's really an entry-level job and they train people with no experience, which sounds good. But then the main guy in charge said it's not really about IT at all, but more of a customer service position and just kept talking about customer service. They asked me 5-8 questions and wrote down my answers. One manager was texting the other, trying to be sneaky, but I noticed. At that point, I knew I probably wouldn't get the job because I was nervous and prepared for an IT interview, not this customer service focus. The other 2 managers seemed to just pretend to write things down. I don't know why they didn't just end the interview then. They were all really nice, and the main manager seemed friendly, but it's weird to advertise it as an IT position when they care so much about customer service at that Nashville location. I also noticed not many non-white people were hired in any departments except housekeeping. The whole interview was just really odd. The main manager kept saying I was interviewing them too, and we needed to be comfortable with each other. I don't think he realized I was just nervous meeting new people, especially for a job that turned out to be customer service. I could tell they'd already decided I didn't fit what they wanted. They did mention a background check would be next.

The interview process started with a 30-minute phone call with the recruiter to go over general screening questions and a couple of behavioral questions using the STAR method. Next, I had a 45-minute in-person interview with the hiring manager, focusing on more behavioral STAR questions. The final stage was a 1-hour in-person panel presentation where I presented on a training topic I chose to three HR leaders, including the hiring manager, followed by more behavioral STAR questions.