Formal education may not always be enough to give you an edge over other competitors who are aiming at the same job spot. Nowadays, employers demand a wide range of personal traits and skills that cannot be simply taught in school – many of these are obtained over years of experience interacting with different people or facing unpredictable situations and conditions. You may be surprised to hear that people who travel and socialize a lot, often tend to have better-developed skills and qualities that may help them impress potential employers. If you are wondering what the top skills and qualities you develop while traveling around the world are, then keep on reading to find our opinion on this topic. We have compiled a shortlist of some of the most helpful traits and skills you can develop on your trips.
Learning to be Responsible and Owning Up to Your Actions
There is no better way to check your ability to be independent and responsible by going on a solo vacation to an unknown destination. This is a true test that will help you determine whether you have what it takes to deal with stressful and unexpected situations, as well as to face the consequences of your mistakes. Facing real-life challenges and obstacles is a great way to develop your critical thinking, and prepare you for the challenges your future employer may have in store for you. On top of all this, you will learn to accept the mistakes you do and work towards making sure that they will not happen again.
Enhancing Your Teamwork and Communication Abilities
Even if you are not traveling in a group, you are bound to end up socializing with either the locals or other travelers. In fact, you may even end up finding your own travel group around the way – this might sound just like a fun socializing experience, but it can actually help you build a neat set of skills that are highly valued in the corporate world. By having to work with other people, you will learn to listen to different opinions, adapt to different personalities, and hopefully realize that working together is the key to success.
Adapting to Different Situations and Environments
Adaptability is a skill that is highly sought after. Just like in real life, you cannot expect everything in your job to happen as expected – often, unforeseen circumstances might cause trouble, and you will need to adapt to different situations and environments to make sure that you will be able to overcome any obstacle. The reason the traveling improves your adaptability so much is that it gets you out of your comfort zone and your routine – every day will be full of surprises, and no amount of planning can ensure that you will not face issues on your trips.
Adaptability is not always related to problem-solving – it can also teach you how to adapt to different cultures, and this can help you build relationships with foreign colleagues and contractors in the future.
Developing your Leadership and Followership Skills
Even if you are not a natural-born leader, this does not mean that you cannot develop your leadership skills, and increase your odds of taking a leading position in your current or future company. This skill is best developed while traveling with a group – by co-operating with them, and making decisions together, you will develop all qualities that leaders have:
- Analyzing situations and working with your peers to come up with a solution on how to proceed.
- Listening to different inputs and determining which ones should have more weight than others.
- Motivating peers to express their voice and opinion, and partake in the group’s decisions.
- Learn to be flexible and to experiment with different approaches proposed by the group’s members.
- Last but not least, identifying the strengths of your party and taking the best out of everyone.
While these are typical leadership skills, they can also help you become a better follower, since you will learn how group work is supposed to be like.
Managing Your Time and Making Proper Plans
The last entry on the list, and probably the most important one. Traveling alone or in a group teaches us how to manage our time and resources, as well as how to plan ahead. Most trips start with a lot of research – you need to find accommodation, identify transport options, work out the necessary documents, determine what luggage to bring, and more, and more. But ‘research’ is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to traveling – you will need to plan out not just your entire trip, but also each individual day. This will require impeccable time management, which can ensure that you will get to partake in all activities that you want to experience on any given day.
Needless to say, the ability to research, plan ahead, and manage your time and resources in an essential skill that every employer will appreciate.