International Travel College

Stay up to date

Check out the ITC Blog
Follow us on:

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 127 other subscribers

Like ITC on Facebook

Work experience leads to tourism jobs for many ITC students

Posted on 11/12/2018 by

ITC arranges work experience opportunities for students at tourism businesses such as SkyJump (pictured).

When an ITC student goes on work experience, they could be meeting their future employer for the first time.

Many students who participate in work experience end up working for that employer later down the track – sometimes as soon as one week later.

For example, Brookglenn Olsen recently started a job at InterCity after doing work experience there in late November. She got a call one week after her work experience offering her a job. She’s now working part-time in the afternoons and will go full-time in January once she’s finished her qualification.

Brookglenn believes she got offered a job because she “let her happy can-do personality shine” throughout the work experience week.

“I went into work experience with an open mind, a good attitude, and a great smile. I gave anything a go and I think they [InterCity] could see I was enjoying my time there,” says Brookglenn.

Many ITC students have a similar story to Brookglenn – of being offered employment after work experience.

Here are some more work experience success stories:

  • EJ (Earvin Jay) Gonzales did work experience at I-Site in late November and was offered a job in the same week. He starts in January 2019. 
  •  

  • Keeanu Cookson did work experience at Sky Jump in September. The team at Sky Jump connected with Keeanu immediately and invited him to join their social netball team. Keeanu finished at ITC on 30 November and started working at Sky Jump on 3 December. 
  •  

  • Sueni Lambert did work experience at AJ Hackett in September. AJ Hackett contacted Sarndra Stephens (an Employment Consultant at ITC) afterwards in the hope Sueni would apply for a job there. She finished studying on 30 November and started working at AJ Hackett in the first week of December.

These are just a handful of examples: there are dozens more stories like this from 2018 alone (and hundreds from ITC’s 20+ year history).

“And these are only the stories we know about,” says Carla Sutton, ITC Head of Academic Services.

“No doubt there are many students who forget to tell us they got jobs through work experience. It happens all the time and is so beneficial to both our students and the tourism employers,” Carla adds.

What’s work experience through ITC like?

Students often report that work experience is one of their favourite parts about studying at ITC. They love the chance to meet employers, gain experience in the industry, and put their skills to the test in a real-life environment.

“We work with lots of amazing tourism businesses that have created specific work experience programmes for ITC students,” says ITC Project Manager Ceri Jenkins.

“Students get to see as many aspects of the tourism industry as possible. For example, they might spend time in each department or shadowing different people within the business.”

How can students get involved in work experience?

ITC runs several work experience programmes throughout the year, and there is a formal work experience programme as part of the New Zealand Certificate in Tourism Level 4.

To be eligible for work experience, students need to have a high attendance rate (90% or above) and be up-to-date with their coursework.

“I’m so proud of all the students who go on work experience,” says ITC Employment Consultant Sarndra Stephens.

“Seeing students get jobs from work experience is so rewarding. The look on their faces – the joy, the pride, the excitement to start working in the tourism industry: ultimately, that’s why we do what we do at ITC.”

Are you inspired by these stories? Study at ITC and Get a Real Job – we are enrolling now for January 2019 and you could be eligible to study for your first year FREE. Get in touch today to find out more. 

Posted in News, Student success, Study inspiration | Tagged , , | Leave a reply

Leave a Reply