New cruise line opportunity for ITC students

New cruise line opportunity for ITC students

International Travel College of New Zealand has formed a strong new alliance with Renaissance Tours, which will see many of its students gain experience in the cruise ship industry.

Renaissance Tours made contact with ITC’s Account Manager Ceri Jenkins to offer its students the opportunity to fulfill some passenger check in roles for their work with cruise ship company Celebrity Cruise Lines.

Initially Renaissance Tours was looking for approximately 20 staff and was hopeful ITC could go some way to supplying that number.

“Through our work with other travel and tourism companies looking for casual staff, I was very confident that we could easily provide more than 30 students for the first round of interviews,” says Ceri.

A job outline was sent to ITC and the college informed all its students throughout both campuses and its distance learning programme of the vacancy.

The level of interest was extremely high, as many students saw the opportunity to gain some valuable work experience and enhance their employability when they graduated.

ITC provided all interested students with guidance on how to prepare and present themselves for the group interview, with a key focus on making very positive first impressions.

The students were invited to ITC’s city campus for three-hour group interviews, which included a presentation about the companies involved, role outlines and company expectations. A question and answer session was then followed by a test of the students’ reservation booking skills using the check in training programme.

“The outcome of the interviews was beyond even our expectation,” says Ceri. “All 32 students were offered employment!”

The feedback from the interviewers was glowing.

“Your students were the best prepared we have interviewed, they asked a range of insightful questions,” said one.

“There was a very professional feel about the students and the college as a whole”

“The students were very well presented and all had made a very big effort with their standard of dress and presentation in general,” said another interviewer.

“One of the company staff commented that the students were able to present their individual personalities on the day with a number of them being very humorous but professional – just what they were looking for,” says Ceri.

“That is just fantastic feedback. Alongside the hard work, travel and tourism is such a lot of fun, and we really encourage our students to take advantage of the vibrant nature of the industry.”

At the end of the busy day of interviews, the company said: “We are so impressed with the high standard of students we have met today we are very keen to forge a strong relationship between Renaissance Tours and ITC for future cruise ship seasons.”

The students are now looking forward to the start of the busy cruise ship season and ITC looks forward to another strong industry relationship that will benefit its current and future students.

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