Mayur Lad - Graduate Scheme Case Study

2023 International Tourism Management graduate Mayur Lad tells us about securing a place on the New to Travel Programme as a Travel Consultant for Hays Travel. 

What will your job or graduate scheme involve?

I will receive intensive virtual classroom training; where I will learn all about the systems, products, and destinations, before joining a Hays Travel branch.

The New to Travel Programme is a six-month intensive training schedule for anyone already in a retail or target-driven sales-based role. Upon successful completion of this training, I will transition into a permanent Travel Consultant role in one of the retail branches.

My first twelve weeks will be spent in a virtual classroom training environment with other New to Travel colleagues. During this time, the Learning and Development team will show you the ‘Hays Way’ on service ethos, top techniques in sales, how to use the systems, and provide a knowledge foundation about the various products on offer.

The New to Travel Programme will equip me with excellent knowledge, insights, and tips to become a successful Travel Consultant within the Hays Travel family.

My learning journey will continue alongside the Travel Consultants in a branch, the Regional Sales Manager, and the Learning and Development team to refine my skills. At the end of the six-month programme, I will take the final assessment. Upon successful completion, I will begin my career as a Travel Consultant with Hays Travel.

Three things you like about your job or are looking forward to about your job:

• Looking forward to meeting the team at Hays Travel that I will be working with.
• Really excited to receive the travel consultant training with Hays Travel.
• I can’t wait to be able to plan holidays for new and existing Hays Travel customers

What did the application or selection process involve, and how did you prepare for each stage?

The first stage involved uploading a video of yourself selling a holiday to meet the following practice customer scenario brief:

A family of two adults and two children (both under 12 years old) would like to go on a summer holiday, during the school holidays in August. They haven’t been on holiday for a few years and are very excited! They would like a destination with a variety of child-friendly activities, a swimming pool, and a nearby beach. Ideally, they would prefer the flight to last no longer than five hours. Their budget is approximately £4,500.”

To prepare for this stage, I jotted down the customers’ requirements and then I used a variety of travel sites to find suitable package holidays that would fulfil these requirements. The sites I used included Jet 2, on the beach.com, Expedia etc. I searched for short direct flights to European destinations and used Expedia to filter child friendly accommodation with children’s facilities such as kids’ clubs, hotels and resorts with swimming pools etc. I found several options to meet the video brief and, in the end, chose a package holiday to Salou as I felt this best met the brief as I found a hotel with several children’s facilities and the destination had plenty of activities to appeal to young families such as theme and water parks, a resort close to the beach and also nearby activities and amusement centre. After deciding on this holiday option, I then wrote a draft speech which I rehearsed several times before undertaking a zoom video recording of myself selling this holiday option specifically how it met the customers brief.

I was recently considered again for this programme as I had an interview with Hays Travel for a foreign exchange consultant position and this was because I demonstrated my passion for travel explaining about my degree and sales experience which I now have compared to last year. In terms of my interview, I prepared for this by researching Hays Travel and printing off the job description to understand fully what the role entails. I practiced common interview questions such as tell me about yourself, what do you know about our company, why have you applied for this role and what skills can you bring? Etc. By practising these questions, I was able to demonstrate my confidence during the interview as well as answering the questions to the best of my ability.

What help and support did you access in the Careers Zones or from the Student Futures team?

When I first applied for this programme last year, I contacted Student Futures to ask for their opinion on how to approach this video brief. I have also made use of Student Futures in undertaking mock interviews for a recent travel consultant interview.

What relevant work experience / skills / volunteering / Student Union activities did you use during the selection process?

I had previous customer service work experience from my 2 work placements at the Broughton Marriott Hotel and Barton Grange Hotel where I developed organisation, time management, rapport and customer service skills so I highlighted this on my CV when applying for this position.

What advice would you give to other students to improve their employability?

If you want to work in the travel and tourism industry, then I would suggest applying for part time customer service/retail jobs to get customer service and sales experience. I know that Hays prefer candidates with target-based sales so if you can get a job in an environment where you are working towards targets this is beneficial. I previously worked as a food and drink kiosk operator at PNE and here I worked towards some sales targets. This helped me be considered for this new to Travel Programme with Hays Travel.

Another option to improve employability would be to seek work experience in the field you want to pursue a career in.

Would you do anything differently if you were a first-year student again?

I would maybe apply for a part time job with Unitemps to develop skills and seek work experience with travel agencies and tour operators in Liverpool.

What aspects of your degree were particularly useful in the selection process?

I believe the trips and site visits to tourism businesses both in Liverpool and on university residential trips were particularly useful in deciding my career options for after university. I also enjoyed a group module in my second year which involved running a tour operator business and negotiating key strategic decisions like target market, the type of holidays we promoted, where and how we marketed the holidays etc. This module helped me understand the key strategies that tour operators consider and apply to gain success and the importance of minimising financial risks and overhead costs to generate profit.

What advice would you give to students starting a degree now (or who are due to graduate in the next year or 2) about how to succeed with an economic downturn potentially on the horizon?

For those starting a degree now, there will always be employers looking for individuals with a degree background in certain roles despite a foreseeable economic downturn so don’t let this put you off starting a degree. LJMU provides financial help to students experiencing financial difficulty, so support is available. For students who are due to graduate, there are plenty of graduate roles and graduate schemes in a variety of sectors so always consult Student Futures for help and advice on how to apply for these opportunities. There are always lots of training courses on sites like LinkedIn for example so if an economic downturn does occur and you are struggling to get a job, you can always build up your skillset in this way.

Which of the LJMU core skills and which of the mind-set traits do you find most important in your day-to-day role? How did you use them in practice?

I will be using these skills and mindset in practice when I start my new job at Hays Travel for instance, I know that teamwork and collaboration is essential to the success of Hays Travel. All staff work together to support one another to help individuals realise their potential in providing the very best service they can to customers. I will aim to be a team player in this role to support my team whenever possible.

Regarding the mindset, I selected value led and ethical as one of my options and this is because I know Hays has been successful due to the company smile values (support, innovation, motivation, loyalty and excellency). I will aim to incorporate these values when I work in the Hays Travel branch so that I can develop positive rapport with both customers and colleagues and also ensure further success for the business.

Support from the Student Futures team 

If you want to talk about potential careers options with your degree, need help finding opportunities or want support with your CV, application forms or preparing for an interview, you can get advice and guidance by booking a 30-minute 1-2-1 careers meeting with a Careers and Employability Adviser from the LJMU Student Futures Team.  You can also come along to a Careers drop-in or CV Café which take place weekly at the Careers Zones for quick careers queries.

If you are thinking about starting a business, freelancing, pursuing a side-hustle or have an idea that you want to explore further, email the Start-up Hub and a member of the team will be back in touch, or visit the Start-up Hub website.

For help finding part-time, temporary or casual you can fit around your studies, email the Unitemps team or visit their website.