“Whatever you do, make sure you do it best.” That’s what Dhananjay “DJ” Kshirsagar’s father told him the day he chose hotel management over an engineering seat he’d already earned. Decades, three continents, and a dishwashing sink later, that sentence still guides him, and today he carries it into his role as Director of Hospitality Programs at Western Community College. We sat down with DJ to talk about how he got here, the setbacks that shaped him along the way, and what he believes it actually takes to build a career in hospitality.
Choosing Hospitality Over Engineering, Twice
DJ’s father is a scientist, and the unspoken plan was for DJ to become an engineer too. He never pushed it, though, and DJ found himself drawn elsewhere: to cooking, to presentation, to the quiet satisfaction of keeping things “nice and tidy.” When his father noticed and suggested hotel management, DJ agreed. But he wanted proof he could have gone the other way, too. He sat the engineering entrance exam, passed it, and showed up on admission day just to confirm he had the option. Then he turned the seat down on the spot, to the disbelief of the admissions staff, who couldn’t understand why someone would refuse a spot others were “dying to get.”
“I just wanted to see whether I have that competency to get the admission or not,” DJ says. His father’s response to the choice became the sentence DJ still carries with him today: whatever you do, make sure you do it best.
He went on to complete his hotel management degree with distinction and was selected as a management trainee at Le Méridien, the French hotel group, one of only 120 candidates chosen at the property. From there, hungry to see more of the industry, he moved to London for a postgraduate diploma in international hotel and business management. It was his first experience abroad, and he made the most of it, working his way from server to food and beverage supervisor to food and beverage manager at recognized brands including Marriott, Renaissance, and The Gleneagles in Scotland, while traveling across the UK along the way.
Teaching as a “Live Performance”
Eventually, DJ returned home to India to teach, first as an instructor, then as an Assistant Professor at AISSMS College of Hotel Management & Catering Technology, the very institution where he had studied as a student himself. Coming back as faculty at his own alma mater was, in his words, a full-circle moment, and one his former teachers and principal welcomed because they had already seen how strong his academic foundation was.
Teaching, DJ says, is every bit as demanding as working the floor of a hotel. He describes both the same way: as live performance. “Your script is ready. Your dialogues are ready. You practiced it many times, you rehearsed it many times… but you never know what’s going to happen at what moment,” he explains. “You have to manage that situation to the best of what you have in yourself, without letting the audience know that something is going right or wrong.” That mindset, staying composed and fully present no matter what the moment demands, is one he now asks every WCC student to carry into their own careers.
His students and colleagues recognized that instinct early. He was named an “effective instructor” by his institution, a title he says he wears more proudly than educator or mentor, because it points to real, measurable impact on students rather than just a role on paper. It’s also where his enduring belief that teaching is a two-way street took root: “Every day when I’m dealing with students, I was also learning a lot of new things,” he says. “That allowed me to academically improve myself, knowledge-wise, and as a person also.”
A Canadian Journey That Began With Rejection
DJ’s move to Canada didn’t start smoothly, and he doesn’t pretend otherwise. In September 2015, he applied for a Canadian study permit and was refused within just eight days. The stated reason stung: he was considered “overqualified and over-experienced.” It was a maddening contradiction: an earlier immigration application had suggested his qualifications and experience weren’t enough, while this one said they were too much. His study permit only came through on the third attempt, after he worked with an immigration consultant and refused to let the earlier refusals be the final word.
Even once he was approved, the road didn’t flatten out. Legal advice suggested that relocating to another province would smooth his path to permanent residency, but it didn’t work out that way either, and DJ eventually taught himself much of the immigration process by studying it directly. He ultimately moved provinces a third time within his first year in Canada, a calculated risk that he says could easily have gone the other way. It paid off: he and his family secured their permanent residency, and later, their Canadian citizenship.
He chose to come to Canada as a student despite already holding a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, and a postgraduate diploma, because he believed there was always more to learn, and because starting fresh, however difficult, still felt like the better opportunity. It wasn’t an easy call. He was bringing a family, including his young daughter, into a country where none of them had built a life yet.
From Dishwasher to Director
The job Canada offered him first wasn’t a classroom or a management office. It was a dishwasher position in the food court at Mohawk College, working for Compass Group Canada.
DJ had every reason to say no. He had fifteen years of industry experience, teaching experience on top of that, and three degrees behind his name. “I had the right to refuse,” he says. “Why dishwasher? I’m so qualified, I’m so passionate about this industry, I don’t want to do this job. What would have happened? Nothing.” Instead, he said yes without hesitation, and when the hiring manager asked why someone so qualified would take the lowest job in the building, DJ’s answer was simple: “No job is small or big for me. I’m happy to work as a dishwasher, because I know I can do that job in the best possible way.”
That answer changed the trajectory of his career. The manager, struck by DJ’s attitude and his resume, immediately asked if he’d consider stepping into an assistant manager role instead, training roughly 80 food court staff members in customer service and drawing on DJ’s teaching background. DJ agreed, delivered a training session that impressed even the general manager, and the rest of his Canadian career built out from there, one earned step at a time.
Over the next several years, while completing further postgraduate studies and earning Dean’s Honour recognition along the way, DJ rose to Director of Hospitality Services at Compass Group Canada, a position he held for five years and describes as a genuinely bigger role, with a bigger scope of responsibility than anything he’d led before.
Coming Home to Teaching, and to WCC
Even while running a hospitality department, DJ’s pull toward the classroom never faded. In January 2019, he took on a part-time instructor role at Western Community College, teaching alongside his full-time responsibilities at Compass Group. For a stretch of time, that meant five days a week leading a hospitality team, and weekends teaching students. It was a demanding schedule, but one he found genuinely fulfilling because it let him combine both halves of his career.
By 2020, WCC needed more than part-time from him. DJ made the decision to resign from his director position at Compass Group Canada and commit to WCC full-time. That was more than seven and a half years ago. Today, as Director of Hospitality Programs, he leads program development, mentors students, and builds the bridges between classroom learning and real industry practice that shaped his own career from the very beginning. It’s a role that draws on every chapter that came before it: the discipline of working a hotel floor, the patience of teaching a classroom, and the humility of having once been the person washing the dishes.
His Advice to Students
Ask DJ what separates students who thrive in hospitality from those who struggle, and he starts with a question of his own: why do you want to join this industry? If the answer is that it seems easier than medicine or engineering, or that friends and family pushed them toward it, he sees a red flag right away. “Hospitality is a glamorous industry from outside, but there’s tremendous hard work in it,” he says. “There’s a lot of commitment required, and the most important part, which I enjoy within myself, is passion for this industry. If you have the passion, then definitely you are the right candidate to survive, sustain, and grow in this industry.”
He’s direct about what’s actually required day to day: showing up fully present for every guest, every time, regardless of what’s happening behind the scenes. “You’re in front of the customers, you’re dealing with their challenges, you’re creating that memorable experience,” he says. “If you are not 100% yourself, how will you be able to create that wonderful experience, exceeding their expectations for your guest?” In his view, that’s the real work of hospitality: not the glamour people see from the outside, but the consistent, disciplined effort it takes to make every guest’s experience feel effortless.
His other piece of advice comes straight out of his own story. Don’t be afraid to start at the bottom. “That shows your commitment, that shows your character, that shows your passion for the industry,” he says. “That’s a temporary phase. You have to grow further.” Even the least glamorous entry-level tasks (cleaning rooms, changing linens, clearing trash) teach the fundamentals that carry through an entire career: following process within a time limit, punctuality, attention to detail, and hygiene practices, all in service of making a guest’s stay genuinely enjoyable. “That same person growing up will become a supervisor, will become a manager, will become the front desk manager, the operations manager, who knows. The growth is there in front of you. But if you say no for the first step, how will you take the second?”
A Career Built on Hard Work, Not Shortcuts
Looking back across engineering exams turned down, a five-star management trainee program, a hard-won UK diploma, a study permit refused twice, a dishwashing sink, and a director’s office, DJ doesn’t describe his career as a straight climb. He describes it as a series of moments where hard work mattered more than the title on offer. That, more than any single job, is what he wants students to take from his story: hospitality rewards people who are willing to put in the effort wherever they’re needed, learn continuously, and treat no task as beneath them. It’s a philosophy he now teaches every day at WCC, to the next generation of hospitality professionals following the same industry he’s spent his life building his life around.
Western Community College is proud to have DJ Kshirsagar leading our hospitality programs, bringing decades of global industry and teaching experience directly into the classroom. To learn more about our hospitality programs, visit wcc.ca.
