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Tour guides accompany visitors and groups to specific attractions or locations, helping them make the most of their visit with interesting stories and local insight. As a key part of tourists’ or visitors’ experience, you need to have a distinct arsenal of key skills, personal qualities and invaluable experience.
Showing that to recruiters is another challenge entirely. That’s where myPerfectCV can help, with tour guide CV samples, how to write a CV guide from recruiters, and even a selection of CV templates that give your application the right layout and structure.
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Tour guide CV templates
Keep recruiters engaged with our top tips for tour guide CVs
As a tour guide, you’ll undoubtedly have a number of secrets to making your tours better than the competition. Here’s how to do the same with your CV…
Use specific examples
Anecdotes can bring any tour to life. The same is true for your CV, where specific locations and attractions can add more weight to your work history and experience for recruiters. You can also highlight specific types of tour such as walking historical tours, museum tours or even ghost walks.
Make sure you hit the keywords
When they’re looking for a tour guide, recruiters will usually have a specific subject matter, attraction, or location in mind. If a potential candidate doesn’t have the right knowledge or background, they won’t want to waste their time. With that in mind, ATS software is often used to filter out applications based on key phrases. Make sure you include any key phrases from the job description, such as ‘history’, ‘cathedrals’, or ‘London’, to pass the first hurdle.
Feature transferable skills and experience
Not all tour guide candidates will have worked exclusively as a tour guide. That’s not a problem. You simply need to make your work history relevant to the duties and responsibilities of a tour guide. Highlight communication skills from an office job, historical knowledge from your History degree, or fine-tuned memory from your time as a waiter, for example.
Guide recruiters through your CV
Some people want to see everything in detail, others want a whistle-stop tour. Recruiters are no different. Make sure your CV can be easily skim-read by using clear subheadings for work history, skills, and education, along with bullet points to keep things concise.
Add some personality
Humour and charm are must-haves for tour guides, who need to keep customers engaged in the chosen sites, attractions, or exhibits. You can show this in your CV by using positive language in your personal statement, with words like ‘confident’, ‘energetic’, and ‘amusing’. A dedicated section for hobbies or interests is another way to set yourself apart from other candidates.
What skills should you include in your tour guide CV?
There are a number of qualities which can complement the basic skills of a tour guide to tick every box for recruiters. Take a look at the must-haves and nice-to-haves below.
Must-have skills for your tour guide CV
- Confidence
- Communication
- Relevant knowledge
- Energy and motivation
- Professionalism
- Friendly and approachable
Nice-to-have skills to help you stand out
- Related education
- Sense of humour
- Acting
- Sales ability
- Calm under pressure
- Multilingual
Write a professional personal statement for your tour guide CV
After you’ve listed your name, contact details and job title, your personal statement will introduce you as a candidate for recruiters. It’s typically 2-3 lines in length, outlining your current role, career goals, and any qualities, qualifications, or skills that set you apart.
As a tour guide, your personal statement should list any specialties, areas of expertise, or languages you speak. Make sure you use some descriptive words to highlight your personality, as recruiters will always be looking for someone friendly, energetic, and engaging.
FAQs about your tour guide CV
What is a tour guide’s job description?
A tour guide’s job description is primarily to guide groups of tourists or visitors around sites, attractions, or locations and provide background information, anecdotes or stories, and helpful advice that will improve their experience. It can include taking visitors to various points on a bus or walking tour, organising excursions from a holiday resort, or simply adding insight at a fixed site or attraction.
What are the duties and responsibilities of a tour guide?
Aside from the obvious, tour guides have a number of duties and responsibilities that make up their role. They include background research, tour planning, leading excursions, transporting tourists, and offering advice.
What qualities does a tour guide need?
Tour guides need to be friendly, approachable, and energetic to make tourists feel at ease. Humour and confidence are also among the requirements to become a tour guide, in order to make tours more engaging and unique. However, one of the most basic skills of a tour guide is an in-depth knowledge of their subject matter, whether that’s a number of local attractions or a location’s history and culture.
How do you put a tour guide role on a CV?
When adding tour guide roles to your CV, be sure to list the location of the tour and its focal point, such as history or sightseeing. Give a general overview of the tours being given, including the average group size, tour length, and the kind of tourists being guided – such as foreign travelers, prospective students, or elderly day-trippers.
How do you introduce yourself as a tour guide?
Tour guides should welcome their tourists with their name, what you will be showing them, and roughly how long the tour will take. You can also touch upon your interest with the city, attraction, or subject matter, and make sure tourists feel comfortable asking questions throughout the tour.
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Build a tour guide CV recruiters won’t forget
A great tour guide CV is like a great tour – relevant, interesting, and packed full of information. At myPerfectCV, we make it quick and easy to build yours with our innovative CV builder. Acting as a CV form for tour guides, you can simply fill in your personal details and work history then choose from pre-written content specifically for tour guide roles. Then download your tour guide CV PDF or Word doc for recruiters.
