Welcome to the 22nd episode of the Graduate Job Podcast.
With summer just around the corner, this week we have a special episode dedicated to some of the most fun and most exciting jobs you can do over the summer months. I speak with Oxfam Festival Stewards, Stoke Travel, and Xplore Activity Camps, who each share some amazing opportunities you can do whilst the sun is shining. Apart from being brilliant fun, you will also raise money for charity whilst seeing the best bands in the world, take part in the craziest festivals in Europe, and help educate kids from around the worlds, all the while adding exciting content to your CV. So if your exams have just finished and you’re looking for inspiration, or you’re bored with your part-time job and want a summer to remember then this episode is for you.
You can download the podcast to your computer or listen to it here on the blog. Additionally, you can subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, or Stitcher radio.
MORE SPECIFICALLY IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:
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- How you can get into Glastonbury music festival for free!
- How you can spend your summer working all the best music festivals (Reading, Leeds, Isle of Wight etc.) while volunteering and helping a great cause
- What you need to do to be accepted by Oxfam Stewarding
- How to get a job with Stoke Travel, and spend the summer having the time of your life at crazy festivals across Europe, such as the Tomatina, Pamplona, Munich Beer Festival to name just a few
- Exactly what you need to do impress Stoke Travel with your application
- How to impress Xplore Summer Camps when you apply
- Check out the ‘How to Get a Graduate Job’ step-by-step online course at https://howtogetagraduatejob.com/
- Don’t even think about applying for graduate jobs until you’ve read my free guide, ‘The 5 steps you must take before applying for graduate jobs’. Click here NOW. It will completely change the way you apply for jobs!
- Would you like a free 30-minute video coaching call? Simply select a time that works here https://calendly.com/gradjob/ We can go over your CV, application, or anything that you are struggling with.
- Assessment Day – One of the top providers of psychometric tests. Click HERE and support the show
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- Job Test Prep – One of the top providers of psychometric tests. Click HERE and support the show
Transcript – Episode 22 – Fun and exciting jobs for the summer
James: Welcome back everyone to the Graduate Job Podcast, with your host James Curran. The Graduate Job Podcast is your weekly home for all things related to helping you on your journey to finding that amazing job. Each week I bring together the best minds in the industry, speaking to leading authors, entrepreneurs, coaches and bloggers who bring decades of experience into a byte size weekly 30 minute show. Put simply, this is the show I wish I had a decade ago when I graduated.
With summer just around the corner, this week we have a special episode dedicated to some of the funnest and most exciting jobs you can do over the summer months. I speak with not 1, not 2, but 3 guests who each share some amazing opportunities you can do whilst the sun is shining, which apart from being brilliant fun, will allow you to raise money for charity whilst seeing the best bands in the world, take part in the craziest festivals in Europe, and help educate kids from around the worlds, all the while adding exciting content to your CV. So if your exams have just finished and you’re looking for inspiration, or your bored with your part time job and want a summer to remember then this episode is for you. As a reminder, links to everything we discuss can be found on the website at www.graduatejobpodcast.com/summer. But, first kick back and enjoy episode 22 as we start with how you can spend the summer volunteering as an Oxfam steward, raise money for a great cause, and have a blast at music festivals in the process.
James: Warm welcome today to Clare Williamson, marketing exec for stewarding at Oxfam. Hello, Clare. How are you doing?
Clare: Hi, James. Thanks for having me on.
James: Today we’re going to talk around the summer opportunities that graduates and students can have stewarding at Oxfam Festivals. So Clare, for those who are not aware, what are Oxfam Festival stewards and what do they do?
Clare: Well, right. Okay. Well, Oxfam stewarding is volunteers who give their time, donate their time, if you’d like, to Oxfam to work, basically roles around the festival which includes things like wrist banding, ticket checking, campsite arena patrols, information points, that sorts of things; being useful. Not being security but being useful stewards onsite at some of the UK’s best music festivals. In exchange for volunteering their time, they get to come to the festival, essentially, for free. They’re giving their time in exchange for their ticket, if you’d like, but the way it works is that the festivals have a requirement, legal requirement to have stewards and they pay Oxfam for providing that service. Because all our stewards are volunteers, that money, less our overheads for looking after our volunteers is all money that is fundraising for Oxfam and we raise in the vicinity of a million pounds every summer just from being at music festivals. So, everybody wins. It’s a win/win/win. The festival has, hopefully, happy to be there engaged stewards welcoming the public to their event. The stewards themselves get to go to the festival and have a great time in between their shifts where they’re totally free to enjoy the festival, and Oxfam makes a great deal of money from it in a really fun way. So, it’s a really positive way for the public to see an international charity and to interact with us. Does that answer your question?
James: It certainly does. What festivals do you support, then, in the UK?
Clare: We have, I think, 20 or 21 this summer. I can run through the list, if you’d like, of what we have.
James: Yeah.
Clare: We’ve had some already. So, we had Bearded Theory Festival at the end of May which is a sort of an old school Indy Festival up near Litchfield. We’ve had stewards at the Hay Festival in Hay-on-Why, the literature, poetry, philosophy festival; so, quite a different thing. Not entirely musical although there was also some music there.
Our next one is the big one. It’s Glastonbury and we will have close two and a half thousand volunteers with us on site at Glastonbury. The Oxfam camping, the Oxfield, at that festival is pretty much a festival within a festival. It’s huge. There’s lots of us and we have a great time. We start enjoying ourselves there before the public get anywhere near to the festival. So, we are on site for 10 days or so.
Then, after Glastonbury will be at 2000 Trees which is at Upcote Farm, near Cheltenham. Then something completely different the same weekend, this is the 8th to 12th of July, starting on the 9th we’ve got the NASS Festival which is just up the road from Glastonbury site at Bath and West Showground and is a BMX and skating hybrid festival with skate legend Tony Hawk is going to be there and bands like Public Enemy. So, it’s a sports and music hybrid.
Mid July we have Latitude Festival. Then later in July we have WOMAD and Somersault, Nozstock and Tramlines. Then moving onto August we have Camp Bestival which this is the sister festival of Bestival, the well known one in the island of White and we do both of those. Bestival is in September, and is the last one at the end of our season, but after Camp Bestival we have Boardmasters in Cornwall, another music/sports hybrid festival which is surfing. It’s a surfing competition and also has an arena and that’s a lovely seaside festival to go to.
Then, Boomtown Fair, massively popular growing festival in the UK. Then Beautiful Days which is the Levellers’ festival. Then, really, at the end of our season we have the big hitters as we have the big bank holiday weekends where we have three different festivals simultaneously. We have crews out at all three. That’s Reading and Leeds, obviously which are two halves of the same big festival, great rock and now some dance music as well festival there, and Shambala which is quite alternative, happens in the same weekend. And then at the end of the season we have Bestival on the Isle of White as I mentioned, which is huge. It’s the second biggest festival after Glastonbury, that we do. And we take, 1300 stewards, I think, to that one as well and that’s a great party being at the end of the season, too.
James: So, how many stewards would that be over, then, the course of the summer?
Clare: I am looking at recruiting festival campaigns teams as well as stewards and in total I think it’s somewhere about, around 8 and a half thousand festival volunteering places that I’m responsible for recruiting this year which is no mean feat. It won’t be that many people because lots of stewards do multiple festivals. So, I’m looking for those eight and a half thousand places to be filled by approximately six thousand people. We encourage people to fill their summer with festivals because they can pay the deposit when they apply and then do lots of festivals. They don’t have to pay again for each one. That one deposit will cover you for the whole summer and we’ve got some people taking the 12 gig challenge this year. They’re actually doing 12 festivals and going from one to the other, to the other throughout their summer holiday which is immense. I think I’d be exhausted if I tried that but people do and we do have folks that do, you know, three or four and spread them out over the summer period. Really do fill your summer with festivals.
James: Wow. That sounds like an amazing opportunity and lots and lots of fun. I think I might need a new liver at the end of the 12 week, rather the 12 festivals challenge.
Clare: Well, or a new back, I think that much camping, airbeds and things would do me in. Some of our stewards are a lot younger and fitter than I am.
James: You mentioned the stewards are free to go see the festival after the end of their shift. What does an average shift look like? How long would it be and how many are there over the course of each festival?
Clare: So, the standard, the average is three 8 hour shifts over the course of the festival. It’s actually in reality eight and a quarter hours because we have a 15 minute handover at the beginning of every shift. But it’s essentially 24 hours worth of work in your week on site and we would normally be on site at the festival from the Wednesday before the music starts through to the Monday after, on the assumption the festival starts and runs Friday, Saturday, Sunday with members of the public arriving on the Thursday. So we’re there a day before and we leave a day after and within that whole period you will have 24 hours worth of work but otherwise are completely free to enjoy yourself. It’s not a massive commitment.
James: And I guess, though, shifts can be spread over, over day and night?
Clare: Yeah. Normally people will find that they have one morning shift that starts quite early and runs through till early afternoon. And then the next one would be the afternoon into evening shift which finishes quite late. And then the overnight shift takes you from late evening through to the following morning. So, you normally end up with one morning, afternoon and night shift, and the overnight shift I think some people find it quite daunting until they do the shift and realize that actually it’s great fun. The night shift can be hilarious sometimes, the revellers that you see and the things that you witness is hilarious; people spotting time.
James: After having been to Glastonbury a couple of times, I can guess that’s true.
Clare: Yes, Yes, especially at Glastonbury. One of my favourite memories from stewarding myself years ago was a conversation with a member of the public who was trying to blag his way into the car park and get out of the gate. He was quite determined that he was going to chat us up to get into the car park and I think he was attracted by the lights. I have no idea what’s he’d taken but he entertained us for hours and wandered off into the car park and did his little dance and collapsed in a heat on the floor and we just let him sleep it off, I think.
James: Probably a wise one.
Clare: Yeah.
James: What sort of skills are you looking for from a steward?
Clare: Okay. So, we want people to be honest and respectful. Obviously, it’s nice if they were already an Oxfam supporter, but though, you don’t have to be involved with the charity in any other way but they need to be prepared to do that eight hour shift and be polite and courteous, be comfortable talking to members of the public because so often we are public facing. That’s really it. I mean, just to do what they applied for and committed to and turn up and do their shift. So, that Oxfam can honour their contract with the festival organizers and be responsible and attend the briefing and take on board the information they’re given in the briefings. We don’t expect people to come knowing exactly how to do it and we do provide full training and every steward is asked to attend a three hour training session before they go to the festival and those are held all over the UK. It’s part of the application that you register for the session that’s nearest to you. And then on site as well we have briefings for people to listen to information that’s specific to that festival. But apart from attending those and turning up and doing the work, just to be decent human beings really, that’s the only prerequisite; and a minimum age of 18, I should add.
James: And we talked before we started recording about Glastonbury and how popular it is. What are the top tips that you give listeners so that their application is successful, not only at Glastonbury but also for the big festivals more generally?
Clare: Well, the best way to make sure that you can secure your place at the festival that you really want to go to and especially Glastonbury which fills in minutes when we open our applications on launch day, is to start stewarding at other events first with us. So, if you do two festivals with Oxfam this summer, that will get you onto a priority application list next year and you’d have a chance to apply early before we open applications to the public and that means then that you do have a chance to sign up for Glastonbury at your leisure without having to sit by your screen manically hitting refresh as so happens on public launch day. You can relax and apply at your leisure. There’s usually a week or ten day window for priority applications before we open them up and yes, by doing two festivals this year is the sure fire way to make sure you can go to Glastonbury next year. If you don’t, I mean, try applying next year. Then you’ll be up against a few hundred thousand other people trying to do the same for a limited number of places. So, it’s first come first served. It really is luck of the draw on the day and being there in the first 10 minutes and very quick at filling out forms.
James: And you talked earlier around having a dedicated campsite at Glastonbury. Is that the same for all of the festivals? Or will you be pitching a tent with the general public?
Clare: Usually not with the general public. That’s pretty much consistent. At Glastonbury we very much have a secure area that is unique to us and at most of the bigger festivals that is the case. We have a separate Oxfam area and we have ID cards and you need your ID for Oxfam to enter that field. So, it’s a little bit more secure than public camping. But depending on the event, we might be in with other. We don’t always have a fenced off Oxfam bits. We might be in crew camping and separates, with our own marque. Oxfam will always have its own marque and provides catering. We provide meal tickets equivalent to your number of shifts. So, if you have three shifts, you have three meal tickets. We will always make sure there’s access to showers. The toilets in crew areas tend to be a lot nicer than in the public camping because it’s just us using them. We also provide in our marque urns for hot water which free tea and coffee. So, there’s an endless stream of tea and coffee happening; occasionally hot chocolate if you’re lucky, and phone charging as well. We put in power banks so that our stewards can charge their mobile phones which I know the public would be very eager to have in the rest of the festival. But the reason that we do that mainly is so that we can make sure we can contact our volunteers if we need to throughout the festival and so they don’t run out to charge and then go off radar completely.
James: Finally Clare, what would you say is the best thing about being a volunteer at the festival with Oxfam?
Clare: The best thing is the people, really. It’s so much fun. I actually personally, I started volunteering as a steward way back in 1995 when I was a student. So, I’m a very good example of someone who’s done it for 18 years and I liked it so much I left the corporate world and started working for Oxfam and now I do this for a living. So, I like it that much but along the way I’ve met some absolutely wonderful people and we really do have a tight knit community of volunteers and people who make friends who come back year after year and it’s essentially a camping holiday with your friends all supporting Oxfam. But also, we have some couples. We have people who’ve got married. We have some festival babies and we have whole generations of families that steward together. I think the most I’ve seen is three generations of one family who will work at an event together. So, it’s a really family feeling, that’s people of all ages and they are, for the most part, absolutely lovely and it’s great fun and you will meet great people. Lots of people volunteer on their own and are not on their own for more than five minutes before they’ve met some people and made friends.
James: Excellent. And how is the best way for people to find out more about stewarding with Oxfam?
Clare: The single thing that they need to do is go the website and all the information is there including which festivals we’re at, how much space is left and which ones are closed and which ones are still recruiting and so on. And the website’s address is oxfam.org.uk\stewarding. If that is a little bit much to remember, the quick way to get around it is somebody who’s got their phone and text the word “steward”, s-t-e-w-a-r-d, to the number 70066. They will get a free backback text with the link to the website in it. So, if remembering the url is not going to work, just text “steward” to 70066 and you’ll get a text back which will give you the link.
James: Excellent. That’s great and all the links and everything we discussed will be in the show notes.
Clare: Wonderful. Thank you ever so much.
James: Clare, thank you very much for your time today.
Clare: Thank you, James.
James: Thank you to Clare. This episode is going live on Summer Solstice and as we speak the Oxfam Glastonbury Festival stewards will already be there gearing up for a crazy time. Having failed to get tickets this year, I have to say I’m very jealous.
Next up we’re sticking with festivals of various kinds but it’s time moving on to the continent as we speak with the gang over at Stoke Travel.
Welcome Jim Elton from Stoke Travel who describedhimself as party travel for open minded individuals, running trips and camps at 23 of Europe’s best festivals and parties from La Tomatina, Oktoberfest, King’s Day, Benicassim through to the Running of the Bulls.
Jim, welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast.
Jim: Thank you for inviting me. I’m sitting here with Jamie. She’s our head intern hirer, our job hirer. We’re here with Bloomy. We’re sitting here with Elise. She’s from the States. We’re sitting here with Mullet. He’s from the States as well. We’re from, we’re international here at the moment.
Mullet: We’re everywhere.
Jim: And so we’re willing to talk and we’re willing to hear.
James: Excellent. That sounds good. So, before we jump in and talk about the jobs available, could you tell us a little bit more about Stoke Travel and what your tours involve?
Jim: Stoke Travel started off as a little bit of a surf company with a couple of guys who just basically packed up a surf board into a van and drove around Europe and made a bunch of mess behind them. Since then we’ve grown very hugely. We’re now like the absolute largest company that works in Oktoberfest. I think we’re the only surf travel company in all of Europe. We set up festivals. We make our own fun. So, every Stoke festival is a festival in itself in that when you come, you generally get a tent already set up for you.; all of your booze is provided; you get breakfast; you get dinner; you get guided and then every night we have entertainment. We have DJs. We have plays. We have theatre. We have a fun house that we build ourselves. We build everything up ourselves.
James: It does look amazing and researching before the interview, I was getting very jealous. I’ve been to a few of the places you go to but definitely not all of them and it was certainly giving me wonderlust.
So, I know your staff are known as Stokies. What sort of jobs do you have available for people?
Jamie: It’s Jamie here. Not Jim any more. We have a couple of jobs available throughout the summer. They do fill up pretty quickly. Like you said, we’re a really big travel company and we have thousands of applications coming through weekly, but we have jobs—
Jim: Which is a bitch for you.
Jamie: Yeah, very much so. We have jobs everything from festival crew. We actually run products in three major cities; Ibiza, San Sebastian and Barcelona where we hire events and promotional team. Then we have our full timers and creative interns here in the office.
James: Excellent. And what sort of particular skills are you looking for from your staff?
Jim: Well, there’s a lot of— Basically anybody who’s funny and creative and willing to wake up with a hangover, that’s all we really need at Stoke Travel because as I say, the booze is provided everywhere. And so yeah, we’ll give you a day off if you’re sick but we will not give you a day off if you’re hungover. So, you need to be able to get out there, speak about yourself, speak about the place. The different types of jobs at the festivals apart from what Jamie just said which is the city specific ones, are things like, you know, setting up the tents; making sure that everyone is welcomed and gets a beer on arrival; making sure that everyone is—
Jamie: Entertained–
Jim: –constantly entertained
Jamie: –throughout the day.
Jim: We do radio shows. Make sure that everyone knows about the history of the place. We don’t want to just be drunk dickheads. We also want to tell people where they are and what they’re doing and give them a little bit of a language class.
Jamie: So, we need, really, creative people that can hold their own and yet, that can handle their drink on top of everything.
Jim: That’s the main thing, really, for sure.
James: So, extraverts who can speak a foreign language?
Jim: No, you don’t even need to speak a foreign language as long as you can say thank you and please. That’s all we ask.
Jamie: Just manners.
James: That’s good because, you know, the language skills of us Brits don’t tend to be great.
Jim: It doesn’t matter. We’ll teach you that.
James: So, what would the average day look like working on a festival, if you’re working there?
Jamie: It can, it’s all different. We’ve got about—
Jim: There is no such thing.
Jamie: Yeah. There’s not an average day.
Jim: James, there is no average day at a festival.
Jamie: There’s about eight different roles within the festival. You could be stuck in a camp doing accounting and doing the fun jobs of the festival or then there’s everything to handling the bars.
Jim: All the boring stuff like running the bar and making sure that people do nudey runs and making sure that people do beer bongs.
Jamie: We’ve got a famous Wheel of Fortune that comes along to each of our festivals. So, there’s someone rosted on to manning a big wheel and it’s their job to make sure the wheel keeps spinning. People keep swapping their shirts, kissing each other, downing their drinks and having a whole lot of fun and winning trips.
Jim: We’re probably getting off track.
Jamie: Yeah.
Jim: I guess the actual day of the festival would say, okay, at 7:00 a.m. we play a song called War of the Worlds by Jeff Wayne. That wakes everybody up to get them up early, even if they’re hung-over. Then someone needs to be at the bar and the breakfast will be served, which is generally bacon and eggs but it can be anything. We change it up depending on where we are but it’s always a hot breakfast. Then you’re going to be listening to a radio show that’s performed live in front of you. Then you’re going to move to the actual festival itself which you’ll be guided into or if you are a guide you will be leading people in, telling them about what’s going on. Then you’re going to go to the festival. Say, I don’t know, six hours later you come back and then — as a customer, anyway — you come back and you handle the guru tent which is selling our merchandise, or you go and work in the Tentertainment, which is our theatre area or you just pass out in your tent, or you go out and get cultural with, and you get biblically knowledgeable with someone.
James: It sounds good. It sounds good. I’m going to have to leave my job and come and join you. How many days before and after the festival would people be required to be there?
Jamie: Normally we start setup around two weeks before a festival because as James was saying before, we create a festival outside a festival. So, it’s not just the accommodation but we set up our own bar, our own kitchen, our own entertainment areas, our guru tent and again, we hire carpenters. So, it’s all handmade. Every festival is different from the next.
Jim: And we move a container.
Jamie: Yeah, 20 foot container from each of our locations.
Jim: So we have to wait to transport, you know, 2,000 tents. So, we have to set them up. So, that’s takes— We have to build our own bar. We build the funhouse. We build the theatre stage, the DJ stage.
Jamie: So, two weeks before and around two weeks after for pack down.
James: And would the Stokie be expected to stay the entire length of that period?
Jamie: No. It’s optional. You can either stay the entire length which most people do but then we understand that some people can’t take, I guess, a month out of their real job and their real life. So, sometimes you do half stints. We just always make sure that they’re there for set up or they’re there for pack down because I guess that’s the hardest yards of it.
Mullet: So, at least one or the other.
Jamie: Yes, one or the other.
Jim: But ideally, of course, and many people choose to be there for pack up, for setup and then they stay for the three weeks after that because they just, you meet the best friends of your life and you have the time of your life and you get to eat and drink and sleep for free. And it’s the best way to keep your European adventure going.
James: I can imagine. And how many staff would you have working there?
Jamie: Oh, it depends what festival. We’ve got our first festival coming up which is San Vino and then Running of the Bulls straight after. So, we have on our top night an average of around 70 staff and then we head over to La Tomatina where we have around 35 staff and then after that we have Oktoberfest which is our biggest festival where we host around 2,000 people a night and we have around 100 staff.
James: That’s certainly a lot of people. So, you’re going to be busy doing lots of recruiting there.
Jamie: Yeah.
Jim: We’ve barely got time for you, James.
James: And I thank you for your time now. And what does the application process look like, if I was to apply?
Jamie: So, first step is, I guess, getting in contact with us. So, it’s either we’re get in contact with you by universities or school or then some people contact us directly via–
Jim: Word of mouth.
Jamie: — email, word of mouth or through our online job form and from there we pick the top applicants and go to, send them a form and from there, and once they send us the form we pick the top from that and then we have a Skype interview.
James: And what top tips would you give to make people’s applications stand out and to get your attention?
Jim: Well, you’ve got to be funny because one of the best things is, and one of the things that people remember about Stoke trips is, that they meet the Stoke staff and the Stoke staff are funny, knowledgeable, personable and basically great to be around. So, that needs to come out in your application. If— We don’t care if you send us a written application or if you send us a questionnaire or if you interview yourself, or whatever. We just want to know what skills you have. You know, there are some people out there, they’re not actors. Some people out there, they’re not accountants but if you can be funny and you can be personable. that’s all we need.
Mullet: Yeah, that’s why when I was sending my one through I was thinking, God, have I really just misjudged this, like have I gone too far here and then it was accepted which was great.
Jim: Sure.
Mullet: You kind of have a little bit of fun with it.
Jim: This is perhaps where Elise and Mullet can cue in because they’ve both applied and won the internship.
Elise: Yeah. I think the more creative you are the better because you’re talking about standing out kind of in a crowd of millions of people that want to work for Stoke and you get two minutes of fame and glory or you just actually know someone.
James: So, what did you do to make your applications creative and different?
Elise: Oh, gosh. I invested a lot in a friendship with someone, you know, brought him coffee and asked him how his day was and met his mom and I was lucky that he actually had worked for Stoke for two summers and he sent me along directly.
Jim: So, that’s the word of mouth way. What did you do?
Mullet: Well, mine was through another company as well, Global Hobo, who worked in partnership with Stoke and they basically said, they don’t want any boring CVs. They don’t want any kind of, you know, everything that you’ve done in the past. They want to know what you will do and what you can contribute to Stoke. So, I kind of just put forward, you know—
Jim: A funny fucking application.
Mullet: Basically, yeah. I said, I like to get drunk and I’m often hung-over but I will work through that which seems to have gone down well and I do occasionally work.
Jim: Many things go down well with you.
Mullet: Exactly. And yeah, I just kind of, I tried to make it really funny and then before I sent it off I had a moment of doubt and I was thinking, God, this is never going to work and then I sent it through and it did. So, more is better, I think, and go for the funny comedy end.
Jim: Mullet used to be a customer. He liked us so much that he applied for a job.
James: And do you have to have been previously on a Stoke trip to apply to work for yourselves?
Jim: Most certainly not. And in fact, we’re emphasizing the funny and the creative aspect because that’s what we really like but really, if you’re a, as I say, if you’re a hard worker who can rock up hung-over and you like meeting people, you can still be a receptionist. You don’t have to be the funniest fucker in the world.
Mullet: I think it does you more if you’re, like if, you know, if you’re good to work with, good to get along with. You know, you can kind of tell even through like Skype interviews and stuff like that, if you’re going to be able to get along with the person.
Jim: Yeah. You don’t have to be the funniest fucker in the world. I feel like we put unnecessary pressure on people.
James: And do you still have roles available this summer for your trips?
Jamie: I guess we do have some roles available; not too many. Like I said, we get thousands of applications in, but we’re searching through the final applications and we’ve got about, say, maybe around 10 to 20 for each festival left.
James: So, listeners need to be quick and get in touch quickly with Stoke Travel to bag a spot this summer.
Jamie: Yes.
Jim: Most definitely.
James: As I mentioned, I’ve been looking through the trips. I’ve been to a few. They all look brilliant. What is your favourite trip of the 23 that you do?
Jim: I like, I really like Running for Bulls, not necessarily because of the bull run but because of the party that goes on the night before and the way that it rolls and the way that all of Pamplona just explodes for eight days and just goes crazy. That’s my favourite festival and I like our set up. It’s beautiful. We’re just next to sort of, the surf camp sort of thing, so we can go surfing. It’s just— Yeah, I like being able to have all those options at me.
Jamie: The Bull festival is a really good one because it’s not only the Running of the Bulls. We have others on at one time. We also have BBK music festival. Running on in Bilbao.
Jim: Which Black Keys, Alt-J.
Jamie: Yeah, it’s a really good line up and then we do have our surf camp running. So, all the customers and staff get to choose. I guess they can surf, run with the bulls and go to a music festival within a couple of days.
Jim: Elise, what’s your favourite festival?
Elise: I have to say I’m most excited about the wine fight. I think it just sounds like every little girl’s dream to just douse a whole village in wine.
Jim: Every little girl’s dream.
Elise: Yeah, even grown up girls’ dream. I can’t wait.
Jim: I just can’t wait to meet the five year old who just wants to throw wine.
Elise: Yep, you’ve met her, Jim.
Mullet: I think I quite enjoy the San Sebastian Surf camp. I mean, I’m terrible at surfing but it doesn’t matter. They’ll take you out and they teach you and I’ve actually gotten much better since, from going there; but it’s such a relax. You know, you can just chill out and chilling out is my kind of thing. So, it’s a nice place to hang out for a few days.
James: Well, you’ve given all of the listeners, certainly, a wonderlist for trips to go on this summer. So, guys, what is the best way to get in touch with Stoke Travel and to find out about the jobs and offer?
Jim: You need to either hit us up on our Facebook, which is obviously Stoke Travel on Facebook or email jobs@stoketravel.com. We don’t care. Tweet us a funny thing and we’ll go yep, that’s the person we want to hire. If you send us a funny Facebook message or you know, you look to be a good guy, or if you send a funny video and jobs@stoketravel.com and you are the funniest girl that we’ve ever seen, we’ll hire you.
James: There you go, listeners. Get creative. Everyone, thank you very much for your time today. All the links and everything we’ve discussed today will be in the show notes. But, you know, thank you for your time and for being on the Graduate Job Podcast.
Jim: Thank you, James, for listening.
James: Thank you to Jim and the crew at Stoke Travel. Work with Stoke Travel and I’m sure you will definitely have a summer to remember.
Jason Stewart
James: Now, sticking with the theme of working away from home but this time with a less hedonistic focus, we catch up with Jason over to Xplore.
Hello, and we’re pleased to be speaking today to Jason Stewart, Centre Manager for Xplore. Xplore is a travel company who specializes in activity and language camps for kids around the world.
Jason, welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast.
Jason: Thank you.
James: Could you tell us a little bit more about Xplore and the sort of trips that you offer?
Jason: Yeah. We’re a company that does a lot of work with teaching English as a foreign language and then coinciding with adventurous activities as well as excursions. We’ve got centres in the UK, Europe and China at the moment. We also do different things around the US as well with sort of single family choices. Yeah, and we take kids in from all over on week holidays, both schools and individuals.
James: Excellent. And what sort of roles are you currently recruiting for? I saw that you had house parents and activity instructors and camp leaders?
Jason: Yeah. Well, well, because it’s coming up to the summer and obviously the whole point of the podcast is quite a busy time for everybody at the minute, we’re recruiting for everything from, we’ve have centre managers, office managers and daily coordinators, chief instructors, our lead teachers, activity instructors, teachers and then your camp leaders. We also take on volunteers for students who need to do for either degrees or courses and then obviously the support staff. So, like our chefs, maintenance and our cleaners.
James: Lots of different roles there. What does the work tend to involve?
Jason: Well, it depends what side you’re looking at it from. From an instructor or sort of camp leader point of view, and you’re looking, the vast majority of your day is spent with the children looking after them and also leading them in activities, and also in a bit of free time. So, play and learning side of it as well. Doing everything from air rifles to climbing, just to even singing sort of repeat-after-me songs and filler games.
James: What age do the children range from?
Jason: We go from eight years, or six years – sorry – upwards.
James: Oh, wow. So, it’s a nice broad range then.
Jason: Yeah.
James: And where would the listeners be based then, if they were working and volunteering with yourselves?
Jason: And so we do residential positions and also living outside. And our residential positions, they live on the campus where they’re working or the centre with all of the other staff, or you’d be in different areas. In the UK we have places in Saint Felix, Woodbridge, Store Market, over down to sort of Gloucestershire, Reading and also opened in Nottinghamshire as well.
James: And what are the key skills that you’re looking for from your workers?
Jason: I think that one of the major things you look for is enthusiasm motivation and just that kind of relaxed and yet, hardworking individual. You know, somebody who can take a lot of stuff in their stride and have a lot of energy that they can put into the job.
James: And what training do you provide either on the job or before people would get to the camp?
Jason: For the summer positions we have a week training course which is held at one of our biggest centres and that is where you will learn all of the core skills to become an instructor, teacher, leader. But you know, we do courses for all the different roles and that covers everything from your child protection to your activity instructing itself, what you need to do with the children in between activities and teaching. Also, it goes through the safeguard side of it as well and they actually come away with some really good knowledge in that area. We also have extended seasonal staff who get the chance to go on and do more qualifications in canoeing and climbing which are industry recognized throughout the whole of the outdoor industry.
James: You mentioned over the summer, so when would that be from and to?
Jason: This month, actually, is the sort of the kickoff point for the whole summer for us, and we go through till about August.
James: And so nice, you fill up the whole summer with lots of cool activities with the kids then. And how important are language skills?
Jason: Very important. You’re dealing with children from literally throughout the world, all coming from different backgrounds and different levels of English in themselves. You just need to be very clear and precise with the children but also you have to bear in mind that a lot of the children we have, who come to us are there to learn English and there’s nothing better to learn English than listening to all the different accents of people living on the site and you know, the kids actually go away learning intricacies of the language, which is quite nice.
James: Would it be preferential if people could speak different languages, you know, European languages or further afield.
Jason: Not really. We try and encourage for the children to constantly speak English and at the end of the day they are here to learn the English language. You know, when they go on excursions and everything, they’ll be spoken to in English from people around the town and they have to do interviews and things. So, we really try and submerge them as much as possible into our culture and our language.
James: Excellent. What are the rates of pay like and are accommodations and food included? Is it all on the same site?
Jason: Yeah. Yeah. It’s above minimum wage and also, you have a lifestyle package where you have your food and accommodation which is included in that which is three square meals a day, as they would say, plus a room. Well, everything you need to live, really.
James: And what are the top tips that you give listeners so that their applications can stand out from the crown?
Jason: Be yourself. There’s nothing worse than when you come into this industry trying to be something different because you shall realize that’s not happening. So, you just need to basically be yourself and be enthusiastic, I think, are the two main ones.
James: And what are the best bits of spending a summer with Xplore?
Jason: Job satisfaction and the people. You speak to anybody in Xplore anywhere and you will, you know, there’s nothing better than that feeling of progressing a child through an activity all through the language. It really gives you a good feeling. I’ve been doing it for many years now and I still get that feeling today. And the other one is that you meet people who become lifelong friends no matter what happens, no matter where they go and you will make out at Xplore.
James: How can listeners find out more about Xplore and also the opportunities that you have to offer?
Jason: Yeah, the best place for them to go is to our web recruitment website which xplorerecruitment — that’s Xplore without an E — .com and then just go through the currently recruiting tab and that will take you through our application process.
James: Thank you very much for your time today, it’s been much appreciated.
Jason: No worries.
James: Many thanks to all of our guests for their input to the episode today. 3 very different but equally exciting opportunities. Few things struck me from this episode, the first is, and it’s true whether it is a summer job or a permanent job. It’s in your hands. The only thing you have to do to get one of these jobs is to get off your arse and apply. Would you rather have spent a summer moaning that there are no jobs near you, or doing the 12 festival challenge? Or running with the bulls in Pamplona and surfing in San Sebastian, or helping a child to grasp new concepts in English for the first time. These opportunities are there for the taking, you just have to step up, be proactive, and grab them. If you’re suffering for motivation, check out episode 20 with Brad Burton, and read his book Get Off Your Arse.
So having decided that you’re going to apply, I loved Jim from Stoke travels comments about the need to make it your application creative to stand out. Now you might be thinking that it’s alright doing something creative for a small outgoing firm like Stoke travel, but putting creativity into your application works at companies large and small. Listen to Matt Hearnden in episode 19 where he talks about how the company he recruited at which is one of the biggest in the UK used 3D CVs, where candidates had to translate their CV into an item of their choice. By being creative whether in the form of a video or song, or poster or whatever, what it says to the recruiter is I’ve invested time and energy into this application and your company and I want to work for you. It also allows your personality to shine, an easier task on a video than across 2 pages of typed A4.
Finally, although each of these in their own way will be an amazing opportunity, the key for me from a purely career point of view , is not whether you spend a summer with Oxfam, or Xplore, or Stoke, is that you spend a summer doing something. John Lees in episode 15 put it succinctly when he said that the first thing employers are looking for are skills, and the second is the application of those skills with work experience. They want to know that you understand what it’s like to turn up to work and be able to do a job. Listen to episode 18 with Brian Sinclair and episode 19 with Matt Hearnden. 2 graduate recruiters, and they both said how bored they get listening to students trotting out the same competency examples of working in a team from university or playing university sport. Any sort of work experience, paid or otherwise will give you a plethora of experiences and skills which you will be able to talk about. That you might have gained them whilst volunteering at a festival with Oxfam makes you look like a more interesting and rounded candidate, and that you got those skills whilst having the time of your life is just an added bonus.
Ok, episode on the best summer jobs done. Check out www.graduatejobpodcast.com/summer for links to everything we have discussed. Do get in touch with us on Twitter @gradjobpodcast and if you do start working with Oxfam stewards, Xplore or Stoke Travel, do let us know. If you’ve enjoyed the show please leave a review on ITunes or Stitcher radio, as I say every week it’s the best way other than sharing us with your friends to show appreciation for the podcast and it helps massively in the ranking on iTunes. Also if you’ve not already subscribed via your podcast provider of choice you need to sort that out, it’s the easiest way to get each episode delivered to you for free and to make sure that you don’t miss a thing. Join us next week when I speak to networking guru Stefan Thomas as we discuss all aspects of networking. I hope you enjoyed the episode today, but more importantly I hope you use it and apply it. See you next week.