Trainee Hotel Manager - The Terrace

The Terrace Rooms & Wine is an award-winning hotel, wine bar & wine shop by the sea in Ventnor Isle of Wight. Good Hotel Guide say we are the UK's best B&B, we are no 42 on the UK's Best 50 Boutique Hotels list, and Star Wine List say we have the best lists of Rose & New Zealand Wine in the whole of the UK.

Every year thousands of guests stay in our rooms or come to our outdoor terrace to try some of our 1000 wines & enjoy beautiful views with the highest standards of food and service. We are also growing our wholesale & retail wine trade.

We have a small team of four, all of us helping out everywhere from cleaning rooms to serving and selling wine to making simple food items to serving guests and answering emails. It is a warm, fun little team where we all get on, work hard and enjoy ourselves while putting customers at the heart of what we do. We also run The Terrace in Yarmouth where our average length of staff service is over three years.

We are looking for a new, full-time team member to join us in Ventnor. Because the team is small, all roles are flexible around the person we hire, but the ultimate goal is to employ a full-time member of staff to run the hotel or at least to assist the owners in doing so.

The role will definitely include learning every aspect of the business from the smallest to the biggest tasks - standards in rooms, managing bookings, service and welcoming guests, restocking and checking wine, fulfilling wine orders, preparing food, assisting with basic sales and generally just getting a feel for the systems and standards that are in place.

Every day we host wine tastings for guests, we sell wine to local restaurants, we greet customers in our shop and drinkers in our bar, all of whom may want purchasing guidance and to see a passion for wine as part of their experience. This could certainly form part of the role for anyone with an interest in learning about wine.

We are not looking for the finished article or a hands-off manager. The role is about learning our business and standards then applying them to all aspects of running the hotel, assisting colleagues and making guests delighted and wishing to return.

1. You will enjoy learning and want to get better and better at what you do, including showing an ability to gain good marks in whatever qualifications you have pursued.
2. You will have some experience in hospitality. The role you performed is not important, but an understanding of working in the sector really is.
3. You will find coherent, well-written emails and administration easy and have experience using business email and other software packages. We cannot employ anyone who is not IT literate.
4. You must be a strong natural communicator who is comfortable speaking politely and warmly with members of the public, asking questions and focusing on guest experience.
5. You will have a proactive nature and be confident about taking on new tasks, new responsibilities and asking questions in order to learn.
6. You must be respectful, helpful and able to work at weekends as well as the odd evening. Typical hours are either 8-5 or 11-7pm.
7. You must be over 18 as you will need to sell alcohol unsupervised.
8. You should at least be open-minded about wine. If you love wine and already have a real interest in it, so much the better.

This job will come with lots of learning - be it about attention to detail, service standards, stock management, wine and wine sales, cooking, writing, ordering, staff management, emails, social media etc. There is a HUGE amount to learn over a period of years, perhaps including WSET wine qualifications which we will support and finance during your employment if relevant.

Our team work from 35-45 hour weeks depending on their lifestyle. Tips are split equally.

We offer a cost-price discount on all our wine to team members and the chance to attend industry-leading wine tastings in London multiple times a year.