Developing your career is one of the most important things you can do in your life.

Choosing a particular career and knowing how to be successful in it is not a one-time decision, it’s a series of decisions, that you need to correctly make as you go through different stages of your life, experience and responsibility.

Each and every job you take is a step on the career ladder, which means that each one can have a significant impact on your future career prospects.

Why is it then, that many people get stuck in their careers, chronically bogged down in jobs they either hate or that provide them with no advancement despite their best efforts?

Because knowing what not to do in developing your career is just as important as knowing what to do.

And while making mistakes is part of how we master new skills, there are eight career mistakes you should avoid at all costs. Mistakes so harmful I like to call them the “Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Career Destroyers.”

Unfortunately, these eight mistakes aren’t common knowledge but rather commonly made, but once you learn to identify and stop doing them, you’ll be able to stop sabotaging your own job search efforts and start focusing on how to really fast-track your travel, tourism and hospitality career.

After all, sometimes the best way to start doing something right is to stop doing something wrong.

Mistake #1: Underestimating the negative side effects of settling.

In today’s economy most of us are conditioned to just “take what I can get.” We either stay at a job where we are not happy because we think that’s the best we can do, or worse, we leave our current jobs where we are unhappy for another job. This new job may pay more but is nowhere near what we really want to do. In the end, we eventually become unhappy at the new job and this vicious cycle starts all over again.

How to Stop: Deep dive into the industry.

Find your best career path by learning all you can about the current status of the travel, tourism and hospitality industry from a broad level. The winning formula in developing a career strategy is to research before you engage in a job search.

Use the Internet to recognize what trends are happening in the overall industry, what the major issues or challenges are the industry faces and look for pockets of opportunities where a problem could be solved or a need could be addressed.

Based on your findings, identify those companies that match your interests then formulate a strategy that will enable you to learn all about those companies, their advertised and hidden job opportunities, how to get your foot in the door to get an interview and eventually get hired.

Not only will you become and stay excited about your work you will also be in a position to enhance your current skill set along with developing new skills, versus them stagnating over time.

Mistake #2: Disqualifying yourself.

Have you been guilty of making assumptions about how you are or will be perceived by potential travel, tourism and hospitality hiring managers?

For example you think to yourself:

“I have found companies and positions that match the career path I want to follow but it’s a waste of time because…”

“I don’t have the skills needed.”

Or

“I don’t have a degree.”

Or

“I’m a career changer.”

Or

“I’m a recent grad.”

How to Stop: Don’t shortchange yourself.

Prove to yourself that you can be successful in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry by challenging yourself to contact an industry executive who you admire and ask for their opinion. Or be bold enough to apply for that position you saw.

You can sell yourself on other criteria to get the job once you get your foot in the door and then acquire those core skills once you are on the job.

While qualifications and experience are ranked high as far as hiring criteria, employers hire people for all kinds of reasons. More importantly, employers seek people who are basically likable and that can fit in and get along with their superiors, co-workers and clients.

You must be able to communicate and prove to employers that you are such a person and more. You must overcome employers’ objections to any lack of experience or qualifications. The best-qualified person is the one who knows how to get the job and convinces employers that they are the most desirable.

If you can determine what transferable skill set you will bring to the table that will add value and tailor them to meet employers’ needs, what happens next may pleasantly surprise you.

Mistake #3: Relying on personality tests to be the magic pill.

When it comes to pursuing a career, we have been brainwashed into thinking that if we just take a personality test or self-assessment, it will reveal employment leads worth pursuing.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to learn about yourself but the problem is that these tests or assessments rarely provide the results you seek because they are completely general and broad, oftentimes not even accurate in the description of you and worse of all not actionable.

I view personality tests or self-assessments as just another form of procrastination. Just ask yourself, has all these tests done anything for you as far as actually getting you employed within your desired travel, tourism and hospitality career?

How to Stop: Do your homework.

You will have to do the work of knowing what type of position you specifically want, then researching what positions exists, reviewing and learning companies and then evaluating if they are the right fit for you to proceed before approaching or applying.

One way to do this is by seeking out people who did or are currently doing the type of job you are interested in. These people can provide tremendous insight into the pros and cons of a particular position that you may not have considered.

Mistake #4: Wasting time being a master of study.

You spend countless hours reading general career advice books. You obsess over your LinkedIn profile and getting it just right. You revise your resume for the thousandth time and send it out to yet another job website.

You are doing so many tactics and everything that you are doing is not working. You become overwhelmed and frustrated. Because you’re not investing your time in doing the right things and doing useless activities that aren’t getting you a job, you fall victim to being paralyzed by over analyzing and just give up.

How to Stop: Fine-tune your strategy.

Instead of wondering why you are not getting interviews or job offers, stop looking everywhere and anywhere for the answer. Don’t be afraid to seek help from people in the position to help you.

Once you have determined your career goals and researched and identified positions and respective companies and find yourself stuck on how to proceed next, find the appropriate people who can give you advice and answer questions.

Successful executives love to talk about their background, career path and how they overcame pitfalls in developing their travel, tourism and hospitality career.

Mistake #5: Not Being Specific

Ever have trouble talking to companies about what you want to do and why they should hire you? Employers will not hire someone who will “take anything.” They want someone who is qualified, but also they want someone who truly wants the particular vacancy they are trying to fill, not someone who lacks a clear career goal. Remember, if you don’t know what you want, you’ll probably never get it.

How to Stop: Develop laser focus.

You may not want to hear this but choosing a niche or a sector of the overall industry where you want to work is one of the simplest ways to establish and grow your career. It’s easier to know how to market yourself, where to look and how to use what you have found when you know what you specifically want to do. Do you want to work in travel? Or, do you want to work in tourism? Is a career in hospitality better suited to your interests and goals?

Furthermore, you must be able to also choose a target function to find a job. For example, are you interested in marketing, accounting or product development? The job function is what you will be doing all day long on the job so it’s important to determine what it is.

You must then discover the job title or the type of job you want. In this industry, titles do matter and are important. For instance, there is a big difference between a sales manager and a regional sales manager. If you don’t learn and know the various job titles that are prevalent in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry then you are an outsider. And if you are an outsider you won’t get hired.

As you become more familiar with the industry as you look for jobs you will learn more about your target niche, job function and job title with every contact made. You can start out with a naïve and vague idea such as “I’d like to work in hotel sales“ and by the end of your research you know perfectly well that a sales manager is responsible for selling one property in one location and a regional sales manager is responsible for selling multiple properties across multiple cities and states.

If you want to find your dream job you have to concentrate on a very small list of possible jobs. You can only look effectively for two or three different types of jobs. More than that you are being a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none.

Mistake #6: Not having the right resume.

You have been taught by virtually all general career experts that you need to have a chronological resume that lists your entire life’s work history. Then you are to update it every time you change jobs or do something new.

This is a waste of your time because this type of resume gets thrown in the trash by travel, tourism and hospitality hiring managers 99% of the time.

Just think about it, why should a hiring manager for a hotel care about the work you did five years ago at some random unrelated company? How does that prove valuable to the hiring manager?

How to Stop: Tailor you resume for each opportunity.

Instead of sending out a blanket chronological resume to companies you know nothing about, change your resume to be functional instead of chronological.

Create a travel, tourism and hospitality resume that is based on your specified skill set or range of skills that tells a story that is catered to targeted positions based on your specified career path and respective researched companies. Be sure to quantify everything you have done.

No resume is sent out in response to any open position until you have thoroughly researched the companies, are familiar with their websites and social media presence and you know what their biggest organizational problems are and their associated hiring goals.

Based on this, you then can use key words from the company’s website and from their job descriptions for the position you are interested in applying to, in your functional resume to further tie together your overall story and make it easy for hiring managers to see your value.

Mistake #7: Thinking it’s all about you.

Contrary to general career development experts and books, it’s not all about you as the job seeker.

Travel, tourism and hospitality hiring managers do not care that you want a position where you can work from home or make enough money to travel or that you want to be fulfilled or stimulated in your work environment and responsibilities.

What they do care about is exactly how you can add value to their company on a daily basis and quickly.

How to Stop: Invade the hiring manager’s mind.

Discover what you can offer a company and how you can add quantifiable value. Ask yourself, how can I contribute? What problems can I solve? How can I either make money or save the company time, money or resources?

Get into the mind of the hiring manager or executive you will be working with. What keeps them up at night? What is the hardest part of their job? What would impress them about you?

Based on your company research, using what I like to call the MAD Method, show them how you would make a difference and what you would do if hired in a 30 day, 60 day and 90 day time period. Show and prove that you are the best candidate for the position. Most skills are transferable and you just have to learn how to sell them. When discussing your last role, specify how you improved the business and how taking advantage of your skill set would help the prospective company meet its goals.

For example, if you are looking to work at a public relations firm specializing in hotel development, you show that you are a desired and valuable potential employee not by communicating that you have great organizational skills or attention to detail and are able to work under pressure (which are overused general terms that everyone says) but rather by communicating that through your past roles, regardless of where they were, you have an extensive database of contacts and a demonstrated, proven ability to get press coverage.

In all communication with travel, tourism and hospitality hiring managers or executives be sure to always use the respective words and terminology they use. Talk about the issues that are important to them.

Mistake #8: Not being flexible within your specified career path.

Now I’m sure you will say, “Kimberly, you just told me to be specific and choose a career niche, job function and job title within travel, tourism or hospitality.”

Yes, I want you to be as specific as possible but at the same time do not put all of your eggs in one basket. Do not have your heart set on ONE position in ONE company in ONE area of focus within the travel, tourism or hospitality industry.

The travel, tourism and hospitality industry is the type of industry where there is a high degree of mutual dependence and cooperation. Individuals working in this industry can advance their careers by moving from one player to another with relative ease.

Don’t think that advancing upward in your career is the only prize. Look for those positions where you are able to gain new wisdom and new experience and where you are not only learning about the company but also about this great industry.

How To Stop: Think long-term.

Spread your interests across multiple areas in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry based on your skill set. For example, someone with a marketing skill set can develop a successful tourism career across various positions within museums, retail, attractions and destination marketing organizations, versus just in museums.

Gone are the days where you are guaranteed long-term employment and career enhancement by joining and remaining employed at one company. The key is to remain flexible with the type of company but still be focused on the particular niche or sector of the larger industry where you want to work.

This is important because it allows you to think about what success looks like and means to you long-term and develop your career accordingly that will thrive on a long-term basis, instead of just thinking about your next job.

Mobility among different companies within sectors of the overall industry leads to interesting and challenging position changes and work environments. It can enable you to advance your career in ways that you never thought possible.

Navigating your career can be tricky. We all make mistakes, but while some are just mild hiccups we can learn from, others can lead to a devastating drop back down the career ladder steps. Think of each job as a step toward your bigger career goals and aim to get it right. It only gets better from here.

Which mistakes do you realize you’ve made as you develop your career? What will you do today to get yourself back on track?