Is your business at the stage where you’re wondering how to recruit tour guides that are reliable, remarkable and consistently amazing?
Well the good news is you’re in the right place. If you are a small tourism business entrepreneur who leads fantastic tours, there is a good chance that your business is growing – or will grow if you keep up the great work. If and when that happens, you will need to hire some more guides to help lead tours and keep that momentum going.
There are obviously lots of ways to tackle this challenge, but I’m going to give you 5 shortcuts that are used by the pros in the industry when recruiting fantastic tour guides, tour operators or tour managers.
1) Create a job description / profile on your website – that is permanent.
This area of the site should be aimed at people who may want to work for you and include the following information:
◉ A job description (with as much detail as possible)
◉ What interests/passions should a person have if they are considering applying?
◉ What responsibilities they will have in the role?
◉ How the application process works and what they need to do to apply?
◉ Build and develop a FAQ section – and add to it as you get asked questions! (e.g. do i need a second language to apply? How does scheduling work? How much work can i expect? Will the job be seasonal? etc.)
Here are some examples to get you inspired:
GAP Adventures:
https://www.gadventures.com/careers/tour-guide/job-description/
Backroads Tours:
http://www.backroads.com/leaders/
Collette Tours:
http://www.gocollette.com/about-collette/careers
2) Post your job online through an online job search site.
There is simply overwhelming evidence that people are using online job searching tools more and more. Sites like job monkey, monster and even linkedin are leading the charge with hundreds of thousands of employees, employers and businesses using their services everyday.With a little research, you should be able to find which sites are most popular in your part of the world.
What type of research should you do?
Well for starters, pretend that you are your ideal client. Start with google and do a mock job search for the exact job you are advertising. What results come up first in searches? Where are there similar job postings to your position? You should also consider signing up for niche job sites that operate in your field. For example: Need employees with experience guiding and working in the outdoors, consider signing up with http://wildernessjobs.ca While you may pay a small amount for a yearly membership, you are much more likely to find your ideal candidate – plus most of these sites will allow you to actively peruse resumes and C.V.’s from potential hires.
3) Google Adwords and Facebook advertising.
If you are new to the advertising possibilities of Google and Facebook, you will definitely want to get an introduction to their respective Adwords and Ad Solutions services. Not only can you create job ads that target people who use specific search terms, but you can also advertise on particular websites where you think your candidates may hang out. You could even advertise your job opening only to people from a particular place, with particular interests or particular backgrounds. Ultimately, you create the ad for your job posting, you set the budget, and you measure the results.
If you want to try it out, with a little research you will be able to find $100 starter vouchers for google adwords all over the web. The same goes for Facebook ads.
Here is the introduction to see if these strategies might work for you:
Google Adwords intro: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1704410?hl=en&ref_topic=3121763
Facebook Ads intro: https://www.facebook.com/advertising
Here is an example of a free google adwords coupon for $100: http://startupbros.com/free-stuff/ (Scroll down and you will see that ‘start-up bros’ are affiliates of google, and by joining their newsletter you get $100 of free advertising. You can find many more of these around the internet!)
4) Referrals and Hiring Bonuses
Most companies serious about recruiting great people know that their present staff is one of their greatest resources. If you have partners or employees, consider offering a generous referral bonus to encourage them to do your recruiting for you. If you offer somewhere in the $100 to $300 range for a successful referral, suddenly you will find a number of great candidates coming out of the wood work. Be sure to tie your program to a successful hire, and not just to job applicants.
While this may seem like a great deal of money, remember the power of word of mouth, and also how effective it is to have one of your present employees telling other people how great it would be to work for you. There are many benefits to these kinds of programs, not to mention that your present employees probably have just the type of people you are trying to recruit already in their social circles.
5) Show how amazing it is to work for your company
There are lots of ways to do this, but ideally do it through video, and keep it on your website as a permanent recruitment tool. The video could focus on many different areas, but here are some ideas:
a) Make an ‘Intro to the company’ video which tells your story, the story of your company and showcases the passion you have for your work!
b) Try to capture some of your company culture through video, and showcase some of the great people who work for you.
c) Interview present staff and ask what their favourite part of working for you is? What do they love about the job?
The real key to these videos is to keep them short, punchy and not over-polished. Potential candidates want to know what it will actually be like to work for you, so be yourself and let your true personality shine through. Forced or awkward interviews with your staff are not going to work in your favour. Here is a great example from Backroads again:
Video
http://www.backroads.com/leaders/leader-job-lifestyle.htm
There you have it, some ideas to get you started. Plus, once you’ve got those great folks hired – just send them over to www.beabetterguide.com to make sure they are getting some free world class training!
Have you already been in the situation where you needed to hire more guiding staff? What strategies worked for you? Post a comment below and share your experience with the whole community!
Good luck and happy hunting!
-Kelsey T
Finishing Reading?
Share this if you know someone who is looking to track and down and find some amazing staff! Also, let me know in the comments below what other strategies you would recommend, or have worked for you in the past!
