This is for anyone in hotels, restaurants, bars, venues or events who wants a marketing job and has been told they don't have the experience. By the end you'll have a CV that reads as marketing, one proof project, and a shortlist of employers who'll take your background seriously. A hospitality to marketing career change is more realistic than most people assume, because you've already spent years doing the part marketers find hardest to learn: working out what real customers want and watching what happens when you get it wrong.
1. Find the marketing you're already doing
Open your last appraisal and your last three rotas. Now list every moment you influenced who walked through the door: a Tuesday promotion, a menu rewrite, a reply to a one-star review, a tasting evening you promoted, a upsell script you trained the team on.
That list is your raw material. Most operations people have far more of it than they think, and almost none of them have written it down.
How you'll know it worked: you've got at least six items, each with a result you can describe, even loosely ("covers on quiet nights went up", "we stopped getting the same complaint").
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2. Translate it into marketing language
This is where hospitality CVs fall over. "Managed a team of 22" tells a marketing recruiter nothing. Try something closer to this:
Rewrote the weekday lunch offer after reading guest feedback and sales data, then promoted it through Instagram and local email; midweek covers rose within two months.
Only write what's true, and keep the numbers honest. If you don't have figures, say what changed and who noticed. The transferable skills hospitality gives you (customer insight, working to a budget, handling complaints in public, selling under pressure) are real, but they only count once they're phrased the way the job advert phrases them.
How you'll know it worked: a friend in marketing can read your top five bullets and tell you which job they'd suit.
3. Build one piece of proof
Pick your venue, or one you know well, and produce a single small thing: a month of social posts, a two-email campaign for a seasonal menu, a one-page brief for a launch. Use free tools such as Canva for design and a basic spreadsheet to track what you'd measure.
If you're a graduate or early in your career, make it your portfolio centrepiece. If you're a senior manager switching careers, keep it short and let your track record carry the weight. Either way, one finished project beats a certificate you're still halfway through.
How you'll know it worked: you can send it as a link, and it takes under two minutes to read.
4. Make yourself visible to the right people
Rewrite your LinkedIn headline so it states where you're going, not just where you've been: "Hospitality operations lead moving into marketing" is plain and searchable. Post your proof project and explain your thinking. Then message a few marketers who've made a similar move, asking one specific question each. You can read more on how marketers cross into hospitality leadership to see what the other direction looks like, and browse marketing jobs on OHUB to see which titles accept a non-traditional route.
When you apply, a short line in your email helps: "I've spent eight years running venues, and I want to put what I know about guests into marketing."
How you'll know it worked: someone you didn't know replies, or a recruiter views your profile and mentions your project.
5. Aim at employers who value the background
Hotel groups, restaurant brands, drinks companies, venue operators and travel businesses often prefer marketers who've actually worked a floor. Look for titles like marketing executive, CRM executive, social media executive or events marketing coordinator. OHUB's Hubfluencer programme is one route for building a visible profile while you apply.
How you'll know it worked: you're getting interviews, even if not offers yet. That's your CV doing its job.
When a step goes wrong
If there are no replies after a month, your CV is probably still reading as operations. Show it to someone in marketing and ask what they'd cut.
If interviewers ask why you've no marketing experience, answer with a specific example from step one, not an apology.
If you're only getting offers at entry level with a pay drop, that's common, and sometimes worth it for a year. The ONS publishes earnings data by occupation so you can check what you'd be giving up before deciding.
If you're stuck on step three, shrink the project. One email counts.
This week, do step one only: write that list of six.
