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Employment Consultants

The International Travel College (ITC) has been helping students find jobs in the airline, travel and tourism industry for over 26 years. ITC takes the success of their students seriously with two dedicated roles to help students find employment.

ITC is active in the sector and supports students and graduates to find employment opportunities. The organisation is known in the sector for producing high- caliber graduates with good skills and attitudes. This makes us a popular choice for new roles being advertised in our industry.

ITC’s Employment Consultants – longstanding and experienced ITC staff members and passionate tourism industry advocates Sarndra Stephens and Ceri Jenkins.

Both Sarndra and Ceri are dedicated to helping ITC students and graduates gain employment in the airline, travel and tourism workforce.

They do this by:

This incredibly helpful service is available to both current ITC students and to ITC graduates.

“We assist students about to graduate as well as students who have graduated in the past who may be looking for their second or third job in the industry – the ITC partnership is ongoing,” says Sarndra.

Both Ceri and Sarndra have considerable experience working in the industry and working in education. They share their experience – in their own words – below.

Sarndra Stephens – Employment Consultant

Meet Sarndra

Sarndra worked in the tourism industry for many years, starting out as a tour guide with Top Deck Travel. She spent about 8 months of every year touring Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, and the Eastern Bloc countries, along with Greece and Turkey, with a bunch of amazing people.

Sarndra felt very lucky to be a tour guide with Contiki Holidays in New Zealand. She loved traipsing people all over New Zealand showing them what an amazing country we have on her own doorstep.

Next, Sarndra worked for Flight Centre in Newmarket, before moving to the Corporate Traveller (up the stairs from Flight Centre) where she became a Million Dollar Consultant.

“My ITC career has spanned nearly 22 years (with a 6-year break in Aussie where I worked with Qantas at both check-in and as a travel agent, and worked as a tutor in several travel colleges). In that time, I have worked in many different areas including tutoring, Study From Home, course advising, and more” say’s Sarndra.

Sarndra ensures that all students who study with ITC knows exactly where to come for advice when applying for that dream role. She strives her very best to ensure the students are fully prepared from application to interview. Because of the support that Sarndra constantly and consistently gives ITC students, they are able to feel fully prepared and confident in gaining employment. This support is even beyond their studies with us at ITC. Many graduates who are looking to change their career reach out to Sarndra and she is always happy to help. Because of the hard work she has succeed in getting so many graduates into their dream roles straight out of graduating. 

Sarndra loves her role as an Employment Consultant and loves being part of the ITC team. Everybody is focused on getting students out there into the world of airline, travel and tourism so that they can start their own exciting adventures.

Meet Kirsten

Kirsten was fortunate to travel a lot with her family when she was growing up, and when she left school she didn’t know what she wanted to do. A friend gave her a prospectus for a polytechnic and she remembers reading through all the courses they offered and they all seemed so academic until she saw the travel and tourism one. She loved the description of the course and knew it would be great for her.  During her studies she worked in a 5 Star hotel and did work experience as a domestic check in agent at the airport which she loved!

When Kirsten graduated she landed an awesome job working as a travel coordinator for a student exchange programme. She worked with high school students sending them on international exchanges, mostly to Japan. Kirsten got to travel there twice for her job which was such a great opportunity. She learnt a huge amount about Japanese culture. Her next role was working for a travel company who specialised in educational travel and group trips overseas for languages, geography, music and sports. In this role she got to escort a French class to New Caledonia! All this experience meant working with high school students, and teachers, something which set her up well for becoming a tutor at ITC. She loved sharing her industry knowledge with students and having fun in the classroom.

Over the years she had lots of involvement in job placement.  Kirsten is excited to be back doing this again. She looks forward to helping students find their dream job in our fabulous industry. It’s also really exciting to be teaching the Business Academy students. This is such a great course for high school students who love to travel. It exposes them to all aspects of the industry which means all the different jobs they can do, and it’s fun to see them learn about them and keep changing their minds about which role they want to do. One week they want to be a flight attendant, next week a tour guide!

Kirsten thinks the most important skills to have in the tourism industry is great communication and people skills. Dealing with travelers is so much fun, and as industry workers we represent our amazing country and we can hugely influence a visitor’s experience by the interaction we have with them. If you love people, and travelling then this is definitely the industry for you.

Now is the absolute best time to get into the industry as it rebuilds after the pandemic. Employers are desperate for good, hard working staff. Pay rates are good and industry benefits mean you get to experience lots of activities yourself. If this is your dream, get a qualification, and take any opportunity that comes your way (work experience, volunteer opportunities etc), get your driver’s license and be prepared to work hard when you get your first industry job to prove how awesome you can be! 

Ceri Jenkins – Key Stakeholder Manager

Meet Ceri

Ceri Jenkins joined the ITC team in August 2007. He has a wealth of sales experience, expertise, and knowledge of the Travel & Tourism Industry and Education Sector. He came to this role from Stray where he was responsible for and successful in sales growth, agency partnerships and training.

His key tasks are to maximise sales and growth of ITC services and products and to market and enhance the College profile within secondary schools and industry networks. This has been one of the reasons for so many opportunities for our students at ITC. Making relationships with our industry partners and the connection from graduation to employment is our priority. 

“I joined ITC and within my first week, we were winning awards!” said Ceri. “I have already made lots of contacts within the industry, who are keen to work with ITC. The response to date from a variety of sectors of the industry has been overwhelming, there is obviously a real desire to engage with premier educators such as ITC. Increased industry engagement will only enhance student employment options when they graduate” he said.

Ceri helps our students represent themselves well in everything they do. First impressions count, from the photos on your social media to the way you answer the phone to the effort you put in at work experience. This industry is small and people talk so if you create a great impression, people will want you to work for them.

Ceri is always there to help current and past ITC students reach their career goals.

ITC is an incredible place to start your airline, travel and tourism journey and gain the tools and experience you need to be a success.  If this is something you would like to find out more about then please do not hesitate to contact us toll free 0800 868747 or email college@itc.co.nz