If you're getting ready to graduate from college or graduate school, the next five years are the most critical period of your whole career. You need to make the initial transition from college to the workplace, establish yourself in a new and completely unfamiliar company environment, and begin to build the professional credentials necessary to achieve your career goals.
If that strikes you as a pretty tall order, well, it is. Unless you've narrowly prepared yourself for a specific profession, you're probably most ill-prepared for any real job. Instead, you've (hopefully) learned some basic principles research and analytical skills that are necessary for success at almost any level-and, more or less, how to think.
It's tough to face, but face it you must No matter what your college, major, or degree, all you represent right now is potential. How you package that potential and what you eventually make of it is completely up to you. It's an unfortunate fact that many companies will take a professional with barely a year or two experiences over any newcomer, no matter how promising. Smaller firms, especially, can rarely afford to hire someone who can't begin contributing immediately.
So you have to be prepared to take your comparatively modest skills and experience and package them in a way that will get you interviewed and hired, quite a challenge.
There are a number of different ways to approach such a task. If you find yourself confused or unable to list such goals, you might want to check a few books in your local library that have more time to spend on the topic of goal-oriented planning.
But Is this Industry Right for You?
Presuming you now have a much better idea of yourself and where you'd like to be, let's make sure some of your basic assumptions are right. We presume you purchased this Career Directory because you're considering a career in some area of the travel and hospitality industries. Are you sure? Do you know enough about the industry as a whole and the particular part you're heading for to decide whether it's right for you? Probably not, so start your research now-learn as much about your potential career field as you now know about yourself.
Start with the essays in the Advice from the Pro's section-these will give you an excellent overview of a number of the specific types of companies-hotels, cruise lines, travel agencies, etc.-some very specialized (and growing) areas, and some things to keep in mind as you start on your career search. They will also give you a relatively simplified, though very necessary, understanding of just what people who work in all these areas of financial services actually do.
Other sources you should consider consulting to learn more about this business are listed in the Career Resources.
In that section, we've listed trade associations and publications associated with the travel and hospitality industries (together with many other resources that will help your job search. Consult the Career Resources section in the front of this directory for a complete description). Where possible in the association entries, we've included details on educational information they make available, but you should certainly consider writing each of the pertinent associations, letting them know you're interested in a career in their area of specialization and would appreciate whatever help and advice they're willing to impart You'll find many sponsor seminars and conferences throughout the country, some of which you may be able to attend.
The trade publications are dedicated to the highly specific interests of the various areas of the travel and hospitality community. These magazines are generally not available at newsstands, but you may be able to obtain back issues at your local library (most major libraries have extensive collections of such journals) or by writing to the magazines' circulation/subscription departments. We've also included regional and local magazines.
You may also try writing to the publishers and/or editors of these publications. State in your cover letter what area of the travel industry you're considering and ask them for whatever help and advice they can offer. But be specific. These are busy professionals and they do not have the time or the inclination to simply tell me everything you can about the hotel business.
If you can afford it now, we strongly suggest subscribing to whichever trade magazines are applicable to the specialty you're considering. If you can't subscribe to all of them, make it a point to regularly read the copies that arrive at your local public or college library.
These publications may well provide the most imaginative and far reaching information for your job search. Even a quick perusal of an issue or two will give you an excellent feel for the industry. After reading only a few articles, you'll already get a handle on what's happening in the field and some of the industry's peculiar and particular jargon. Later, more detailed study will aid you in your search for a specific job.
Authors of the articles themselves may well turn out to be important resources. If an article is directly related to your chosen specialty, why not call the author and ask some questions? You'd be amazed how willing many of these professionals will be to talk to you and answer your questions, and the worst they can do is say no. But do use common sense authors will not always respond graciously to your invitation to chat about the business. And don't be too aggressive here.
You'll find such research to be a double-edged sword. In addition to helping you get a handle on whether the area you've chosen is really right for you, you'll slowly learn enough about particular specialties, companies, the industry, etc., to actually sound like you know what you're talking about when you hit the pavement looking for your first job. And nothing is better than sounding like a pro-except.
Travel Is It Now What?
After all this research, we're going to assume you've reached that final decision you really do want a career in some aspect of the travel and hospitality industries. It is with this vague certainty that all too many of you will race off, hunting for any firm willing to give you a job. You'll manage to get interviews at a couple and, smiling brightly, tell everyone you meet, "I want a career in the hotel business." The interviewers, unfortunately, will all ask the same awkward question "What exactly do you want to do at our company?" and that will be the end of that.
It is simply not enough to narrow your job search to a specific industry. And so far, that's all you've done. You must now establish a specific career objective-the job you want to start, the career you want to pursue. Just knowing that you want to get into the travel industry doesn't mean anything to anybody. If that's all you can tell an interviewer, it demonstrates a lack of research into the industry itself and your failure to think ahead.
Interviewers will not welcome you with open arms if you're still vague about your career goals. If you've managed to get an informational interview with an executive whose company currently has no job openings, what is he or she supposed to do with your resume after you leave? Who should he or she send it to for future consideration? Since you don't seem to know exactly what you want to do, how's he or she going to figure it out? Worse, that person will probably resent you're asking him or her to function as your personal career counselor.
Remember, the more specific your career objective, the better your chances of finding a job. It's that simple and that important. Naturally, before you declare your objective to the world, check once again to make sure your specific job target matches the skills and interests you defined in your self-evaluation. Eventually, you may want to state such an objective on your resume, and to obtain an entry-level position as a salesperson at a major hotel chain is quite a bit better than "I want a career in travel." Do not consider this step final until you can summarize your job/career objective in a single, short, accurate sentence.
