If you’re lucky enough to be jetting off to warmer climes this summer – for a holiday, for an internship, for a summer camp, or just to travel for a few months – then now might be a good time to think about keeping a travel blog. They’re a good way of keeping in touch with family while you’re away, but more than that, they’ll also make you more employable when you graduate. Here’s how:
You’ll learn blogging and content management skills
If you set up a blog to record your travels, using a blogging platform or a content management system, like Medium or WordPress, will provide you with desirable skills that could get you far in any industry. More than that, if you work out how to create interesting content and get yourself a reasonable following, you’ll be able to talk about that on your CV. It’s a huge point in your favour, since most companies are looking to create engaging content just like yours, for their own blogs.
You’ll learn writing skills.
It almost goes without saying, but if you blog about your travels, you’ll also be improving your writing skills, honing your voice and refining the way you express yourself. The more practice you get, the better you’ll be at giving voice to the important things you want to say. Being more expressive will really help you as you enter the job market, not only because great writing is a valuable skill, but also because it’ll help you nail your covering letter.
You’ll impress at interviews
If you’ve travelled extensively, that looks great on your CV, but it looks even better if you can answer questions about it at interview. It won’t help that you spend the summer volunteering with an international environmental group, if you can’t talk about it when the interviewer asks what you learned from the experience. Keeping a travel blog will help you organise your thoughts, and it’ll also provide a handy reference that you can read back through later, to remind yourself of what you achieved on your travels, and what you experienced on the way.
A chance for self-reflection
A summer of travel can often be the perfect time to get inspiration for your career. You might spend the summer travelling around Europe, and discover a passion for architecture, for example, or you might volunteer at a kids’ camp and realise that you want to teach. If you keep a travel blog as you go, then expressing yourself in writing can help you to firm up exactly what you want, and what direction you want to take in the future. It might also work in the opposite direction: you might be surprised to realise that what you thought you wanted from your summer isn’t everything it was cracked up to be, and your travel blog can help you rationalise that and work out what you really want.
At Enterprise, we offer UK and international career opportunities for adventurous, ambitious graduates, so if you think that might appeal to you, have a look at our traineeships and internships today.