“I’m sorry but you were not put forward for the job as you don’t have the right experience”. Everyone’s heard this at least one time in their career. It’s the classic vicious circle… how can you get experience if no-one will give you a chance to get experience!
It can be very frustrating for any job seeker to be told this again and again. The key is to overcome a lack of experience with alternative content on a CV (resume). This is where travel training can really help boost your CV.
The key thing to remember is that your CV needs to catch the eye of who ever is reading it. That doesn’t mean crazy colours, bizarre layouts or a photo of yourself sunbathing (yes, we’ve seen everything over the years!). The 3 most important things are content, content and, yes you guess it, content.
If you lack experience then show your prospective employer that you mean business. Show them that you have taken the time to undertake whatever travel training you can get your hands on. Just think, if an employer has two similar CVs in front on them, but one of the CVs also lists several training courses who do you think the employer will think is the keener, more proactive employee? A common mistake made by travel graduates is to stop learning as soon final exams are over. It’s important to remember to keep learning and undertake travel training whenever you can. Believe me, employers really value this.
There are many ways to take travel training thanks to the internet. I found over 50 free travel training courses just by using a search engine one afternoon. There is some really great training out there from the likes of Switzerland Travel, Abu Dhabi Tourism, Disney, Silverjet & Royal Caribbean Cruises. All the courses are free and many of the actually give you a certificate and free gift if you complete them. These courses are provider by national tourism board and travel companies as they want travel agents to be aware of their products so that they can sell them to the general public. They are also keen for travel students to take the travel training courses as they recognise that they are the agents of the future.
Another great way to get noticed is take some CRS training (Computer Reservations System). Every travel company has some kind of reservations system. The four most popular systems are Galileo, Sabre, Amadeus & Worldspan. There are over 200,000 travel agencies in the world using one of these systems, with a combined revenue of just under 10 billion pounds. CRS is big business! Unfortunately this type of travel training is not free but you can often find a good deal online where you can take some Galileo training for around 200 pounds. You’ll be increasing your chances of getting an interview if you have taken the time to learn a CRS on your own. Again, employers would love to see this in someone, it shows keenness & a real desire to work in the travel industry.
It’s true, when its comes to finding a job in travel you can’t beat experience. But don’t let a lack of experience beat you take as much travel training as you can find and boost your CV in every other way possible.