We have been taking on interns from our neighbouring False Bay College in Muizenberg for the past few years, these are students who are required to spend 18 months working in the tourism industry in order to complete their qualification.
The challenge we have faced is that students do not necessarily want to work in a tour operating environment, many have other dreams in the industry (becoming a flight attendant being the most common!), they see their internship merely as a means to complete their qualification and accept the first post/opportunity they are able to find.
On the flip side students struggle to find placements and this is the reason they are willing to take positions in fields they don’t necessarily see themselves working in. As a business we would like to take on students who will grow into junior consultant positions and stay on as permanent employees after they complete their training period.
Students should be encouraged to see their internship positions as the start of their careers in the industry and a means to either gain experience in their field of interest or to gain full time employment with the same company.
In 2023 we decided to do things a little differently to previous years in order to meet the above goals for both our business and the students we take on. We therefore had a rigorous intake process whereby we first got students to complete a questionnaire detailing their reasons for wanting to study tourism and their dreams for their tourism careers I the future.
From these we selected students whose goals fitted with working in a tour operating environment and had a face to face interview with each. Following the interview we gave them a short written assessment to complete. After this process we selected a total of 5 students to spend 2 weeks of intense training with us in our board room, every day for 2 full weeks from 08.00 until 17.00.
We also took them on hotel site inspections and ended with a safari experience at Aquila Private Game Reserve.
The final part of the program was a final full day assessment on all of the work which they were taught. We then selected 2 out of the 5 students to join SA360 for their 18 months of internship and the hope is that they will soon progress to being junior consultants and will be employed with us on a full time basis.
We then repeated the same process for our Johannesburg office, selecting 3 students to complete the same internship training program, from which we will identify the most suitable candidate to spend the required 18 months at the SA360 Johannesburg office.
This program also speaks to our commitment to empowering youth and women in tourism.
Site Inspections: Cape Town CBD
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