Creating the Perfect CV For Travel Recruitment

The travel industry can be extremely competitive and therefore creating the perfect CV is an ideal way to set yourself apart from the competition when applying for online travel jobs. Here are a few tips on how to create a CV that travel recruitment companies will love:

The Basics

A CV should be a basic summary of your career-to-date and should ideally be kept to just two pages. If this is not possible then three pages will suffice but in reality travel recruitment companies rarely spend longer than two minutes looking at each individual CV and too much information will simply overwhelm them.

When applying for online travel jobs, it can be tempting to list every university module that you have studied and your achievements as far back as the Girl Guides. This really isn't relevant and too many trivial achievements will only serve to dilute the larger achievements that you have gained throughout your career. When writing a CV that is tailored towards online travel jobs it is advisable to focus just on your career highlights and achievements. Above all, a CV tailored towards online travel recruitment should be short, attractive and easy to read.

Personal Details

The personal details section of a CV is pretty straightforward and should just include your name, address, email address and contact telephone numbers. Unless the online travel job that you've applied for requires you to be a certain age, many tour guides need to be at least 25, you should never include your date of birth in this section. Placing your age, or date or birth on your CV gives prospective employers the chance to discriminate against you based on your age, even if the experience that you've gained far outweighs someone of more advanced years. Likewise, placing a photograph on your CV really isn't relevant, a travel job isn't a modelling assignment and no prospective employer is going to give you a travel job based on how you look. If you have a driving licence this should also be noted in this section and, even if you were born in England, it is important to state that you are eligible to work in the UK. Online Travel jobs often require travelling across many continents, so if you're eligible to work in any other countries these should also be included in this section.

Personal Profile

A personal profile should appear at the top of your CV and this should be a brief summary of your key attributes, skills and preferences. This profile should be no more than four lines long and, as it will often be the first part of a CV read by your prospective employer, it should be eye-catching, whilst at the same time exuding professionalism.

Career

When applying for online travel jobs it really isn't necessary to tell future employers about the summer that you spent working in McDonalds when you were sixteen. Keep your career experience relevant and always start with the most recent. In keeping with the basic format of your CV all you need to list is the name of your company, your job title and the dates that you worked there. If the company is not well-known you should also include a brief one-line statement on the nature of the company. You may also want to add your key responsibilities and most importantly your achievements.

Education

Do you really want travel recruitment companies knowing about the E in French that you managed to scrape at GCSE Level? Thought not. The rule when writing about education is to concentrate only on the highest level of education that you've achieved, for example if you've got a 2.1 honours degree in Tourism Management employers don't need to know your A-Level results. Likewise if your highest travel qualification is a BTEC in Travel Operations then future employers don't need to know your GCSE results. These should still be included on your CV but only in summary. It is better to write 7 GCSE passes than to list the individual grades that you achieved. The education section should also include the place and year that you studied.

References

When applying for online travel jobs it really isn't relevant to include references on your CV. These take up far too much room and aren't needed at this stage of the travel recruitment process. Instead sign your CV off with the line references available on request. Ending your CV this way is a lot more professional than signing off with your ex-university lecturer's postcode and this, when combined with our other CV tips, should help you be more successful when applying for travel jobs.

Gail Kenny is the managing director of Puregenie, an online travel jobs website. The site deals with recruitment in the ever-growing travel sector and offers a wide selection of online travel jobs, as well as other roles involved in maintaining a presence online. Although the site is mainly travel focused, it also displays vacancies in the hospitality and leisure industries.