Preparing for Employment in Travel and Tourism

In the last session, work was focused on how recruitment and selection is used in organisations to attract effective people into jobs in the travel and tourism sector. Building on an understanding of how people in the real world make progress through their careers in the sector, you will have learned from completing work on a series of tasks:

Higher grades were available if you started an action plan for getting the job you want in the industry.

In this session, you're going to start looking at the skills you will need to develop in order to promote yourself in a positive fashion during a job selection process. That means analysing someone's interview performance and then showing that you could do better by using self-selling skills.

If you've made it through the initial pre-selection stage to be invited for an interview, you know you stand a chance of getting the job if you perform well at interview.

Some people complain that interviews are too highly pressured situations for them to show themselves in the best possible light. But in truth, good interviewing skills are very rarely natural - they have to be learned and then sharpened by experience. Let's see how one individual handled a particular interview.

Can you help your career take off in the right way? Copyright: Neil Gould, from stock.xchng.

A Dream Job and a Nightmare Interview

Tarjani felt nervous. She had been looking at the email she had received from the airline, saying she'd got through to an interview for her dream job: member of cabin crew on the London to Singapore long-haul service. But she hadn't found out much about the airline or the country she would be visiting regularly.

Her friend Murali had warned her that she had better be well prepared for the interview, as he knew that the company were pretty hot on getting the right people in as cabin crew. But Murali had gone off with his mates for the evening and Tarjani didn't really know where to start.

Unfortunately, the interview was the next day and she still hadn't done much preparation, expect for re-reading the job advert. She hadn't kept a copy of her application, or the documents the company had sent through - the job whatsit and person thingy - as she had been in too much of a rush to get the application sent.

She was still going through her wardrobe, deciding what to wear for the big day tomorrow, when it occurred to her that she would have to catch the bus to the place where the interviews were being held. Murali wouldn't be able to give her a lift - he wouldn't be back at his place until well after she had to leave to get to the interview.

Suddenly, she remembered that she didn't have any credit on her mobile, so couldn't check the bus times or order a taxi if she needed one. That phone box down the road was still out of order, so she'd have to spend all her time this evening going through the timetables online. That took ages, because she always forgot to favouritise the right Web site.

She was in a right state and had to stay up really late, as there was no way she could sleep with all the stuff she hadn't done on her mind.

The next day was one that Tarjani would like to forget, but didn't think she would be able to for a while. Later, when she talked to Murali, the sorry tale emerged:

She'd overslept and missed the bus that would have got her to the office where the interviews were happening.
Although in the end she was just in time, she was so flustered that she barged into the wrong office, interrupting another interview that was going on. So embarrassing!
She'd thrown on some clothes which would have been OK if they weren't so creased they looked like she was on her way back from a festival.
The first question in her interview asked her to say what she knew about the company: doodly squit, as it turned out. She couldn't even get the name of the airline right.
The other questions weren't much better. She hadn't realised that they would be so in-depth. "What would you do if a passenger was rude to you because for safety reasons you wouldn't allow him to see the flight deck?" She hadn't seen that one coming.
She thought she was on firmer ground with her answer about her qualifications. But she'd forgotten the name of a couple of modules on her college course. Well, it was nearly a year ago. And surely they'd got it all on her application? That didn't go down too well.
To cap it all, she caught her heels in the hem of her skirt as she got up at the end of the interview and nearly fell over. She felt such an idiot and the four interviewers all had a good laugh about that. She'd just scowled at them as she left.
As she left the offices, it started to rain. Disappointed and soaked, she eventually got home after missing another bus.

Murali agreed with Tarjani's analysis: she wouldn't be hearing from them again. "Next time you'll be better prepared," he said. She couldn't help feeling angry with him for deserting her just before her big moment. I mean, if you can't count on your best friend to help you through that, who can you rely on?

Task

Using the experience of Tarjani, who quite clearly blew her big chance at the job of her dreams, write a script for an interview that goes somewhat better. Base the interview on your own choice of job, selected in an earlier session, or one that you have only recently identified.

Track the progress of how you would prepare for the interview, making sure you cover the following important aspects of promoting yourself positively.

About the organisation

How is it structured?
Where are the teams of staff located?
How is the organisation presented in the media?
Why do you want to work for them?

Practical points for the day

Have as normal an evening as possible before the interview day.
Don't stay up late the night before. If you've prepared well, you've got nothing to fear.
Eat a meal before leaving for the interview.
How will you get yourself ready for the interview?
Prepare clean, ironed and appropriate clothes to wear.
Plan your journey to and from the interview.
Make sure you get to the interview with plenty of time to compose yourself.

Close-up of bus stop, with bus driving away in the background

It's your big day - don't miss the bus! Copyright: Nick Cowie, from stock.xchng.

Revise your application

Read through what you said about yourself in your application.
This means always keeping copies of everything you sent.
Interviewers only have this information about you, so make sure you know what you said.

Anticipate questions

Think about the likely questions you are going to be asked.
How will you answer them?
Ask someone beforehand to think up some really tricky questions and work out what you might say in response.

Practice what you will say

Practice your interview technique by writing a script of things you might want to say.
Read these through (in private or with someone you trust!) and listen to how you come across.
Make sure that you can make your key points fluently, by concentrating on practicing them out loud.

Use the opportunity

Remember that an interview is not just about an organisation finding out about you.
It's also an opportunity for you to find out if you'd like to work for an organisation.
Think up some really good questions, which will show that you've really thought about the job and where it could lead you.
Practice asking these out loud before the interview itself.

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