At a basic level, your career is something that you need to make cash, pay for bills, and maintain a certain standard of living. However, if we look a little closer than that, it’s also something that you can carve out for yourself as an individual – using a unique selection of skills and personal experiences.
Travel is one of the best ways to enhance your understanding of yourself and the world around you, while learning lessons that are indispensable in not only improving your appeal in the job market, but also maximizing other areas of your life. In other words, educational travel isn’t just defined by school trips and journeys designed to inspire the kids – it’s also a way that you can improve your resume.
Educational Travel and the Traditional Vacation
Most people consider travel to be the perfect solution when they need to take a break from the commitments and pressures of everyday life – particularly those associated with the nine-to-five grind of the working world. So long as you have your secure money belt handy to keep your vacation stress-free, an educational travel vacation can help you to refresh and unwind, giving you that much-needed new perspective when the typical routine starts to make you a little stir-crazy.
Unfortunately, the fact that travel is so such a fun contrast to the typical world of work, also means that we often regard it as counterproductive to our career path. In fact, when many of us take a break to go travelling, we worry about the effect that it’s going to have on our employability, or our position in current jobs. Explaining the benefits of a vacation to an employer is just one of the reasons why many Americans are reluctant to pursue their next big adventure.
However, the truth is that the increasingly globalized world of work, combined with the highly competitive, and demanding job market, makes educational travel one of the best things you can do to improve your resume, boost your career skills, and develop yourself as a person. After all, excelling in a career doesn’t just involve hard skills and past experience: it also demands personality, life experience, and insight.
Following are just some of the reasons why educational travel or an around-the-world vacation might be just as important as any past job you’ve had when you want to improve your resume.
1. You Learn Time Management
The lessons that you learn from travelling the world aren’t just the obvious things that might come to mind when you think about educational travel. Sure, you’ll quickly discover the best ways to pack your luggage if you’re a frequent flyer, and how a secure money belt can keep your valuables safe, but you’ll also learn how to use time more efficiently, work towards goals, prioritize your aims, and get more done in a specific time period.
Ask any avid jetsetter, and they’ll tell you that one of the most important factors involved in planning and enjoying a vacation is finding ways to use time more efficiently. From catching the right planes and trains, to getting through the airport on time and scheduling the ideal route to see all of the biggest tourist attractions in a matter of days, traveling, just like a job – requires to-do lists, goals, and calculation.
The time management skills you earn through educational travel adventures can be a great way to improve your resume, particularly if it means that you have the skills to plan for success, delegate tasks when necessary, and prioritize certain parts of an important project.
2. You Develop Social, and Communication Skills
Perhaps one of the most valued skills in the job market today, are those that relate to the management of people. The best way to find success and improve your resume, could be to harness the ability to relate to others, negotiate well, and interact with people from different backgrounds. After all, almost every job requires you to write emails, conduct conferences, and even establish a good rapport with your colleagues.
Educational travel experiences aren’t just about following poets on tour, or updating your geographical knowledge, and vacations aren’t just about sight-seeing and finding a way to catch a tan without showing off your secure money belt – they’re also about transporting yourself to a place where the society, culture, and language might be entirely different from what you’re used to. As a conscientious traveler, you can immerse yourself in these different experiences, taking part in new surroundings in a way that will undoubtedly make you more compassionate, better at communicating, and more willing to understand others.
3. You Learn how to Plan, and Organize
The importance of planning and organizational skills in the professional world probably doesn’t require much of an explanation. Poor planning and disorganization is a surefire way to screw up an important project, and even lose your job. However, being detail-oriented, taking precautions, and ensuring that you plan ahead are practices that come as second nature to true professionals, and experienced travelers. After all, in a career, your lack of organization might cost you a job, whereas on a vacation failure to plan ahead can cost you much more. For instance, if you leave your secure money belt behind, you could find yourself without the money or identification you need to get home.
Travel, whether it’s a simple family vacation, a business trip, or a long-haul journey around the world, requires more planning, budgeting, and preparation than you would ever have to deal with in real life, because so many things need to be taken into consideration, including: transportation, money, food, health, safety, and more.
Improve Your Resume with Educational Travel
While a great vacation might not give you any qualifications, it will help you to develop the life skills that you need to truly stand out in the business world. Even if your latest adventure only offers you the anecdotes required to catch the attention of an interviewer in a crucial junction during your career, it may be just the thing you need to set yourself apart from the millions of people who never venture any further than their front doors.
