Do you know what’s an awesome thing to do after you graduate? Travel. Do you know what isn’t an awesome thing to tell employers that you’ve been doing since you graduated? Traveling. Think about it from the interviewer’s perspective for a minute. You’ve been in a job for three years, and you just got a promotion. You’re interviewing new grads to fill your old job. You get 10 days of vacation a year (after another promotion you’ll get 15). You use 4 to visit your parents during the holidays. You have to take 3 days for various weddings throughout the year. You use one for a sick day, and that leaves you with 2 glorious days to actually do what you want. Now some spoiled brat is telling you about he or she spent three months on a beach in Thailand after graduation. Most employers won’t be spiteful enough to punish you for taking some time to relax, but telling them about your globetrotting isn’t going to help make them like you more (and being liked is the most important thing that you can do to get hired). Luckily, there are some employers who don’t have a problem with travel. Take NileGuide for example. They’re a San Francisco based startup (with a lot of funding) that “helps travelers discover and connect to the most satisfying and relevant travel experiences.”

Go Where You Want

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t travel after college. I’m just saying that you have to be careful about how you present that experience to employers. I definitely sabotaged myself during the job search process when I told employers about going to Costa Rica to fly fish for sailfish. Had I told the folks at NileGuide about it, they would have encouraged me to share that experience with their readers by doing a writeup on it. NileGuide wants to be the premier online destination for people who are planning trips, so they combine “expansive, curated travel content with sophisticated preference filtering and organizational tools as well as timely advice and insights from local experts.” As far as I can tell, the entire site is free, which means that NileGuide’s business model is built on advertising (travel is a great ad market) and partnerships. This means that they constantly need fresh content to drive more traffic, which is why they seem to always be hiring Local Experts. These are freelance travel writing positions that may not offer the security of a full-time job, but they allow you to make a living (if your writing drives traffic) doing something pretty awesome. The jobs are dependent on your living somewhere travel worthy, since the whole point is that you’re a “Local Expert.” Check out the job posting for all of the details.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

• NileGuide.com
• Jobs at NileGuide
• About NileGuide
• NileGuide’s Team
• NileGuide News
• NileGuide’s Blog

Have you used NileGuide?

We've identified NileGuide as having career opportunities in the following categories:

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• California
• journalism
• travel
• writing

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One response to “NileGuide”

1. Amy says:

   June 30, 2010 at 12:08 pm

   Hi Willy!
   Thank you so much for this writeup, glad you find us compelling! Just wanted to add that we’re often hiring temps and interns if any of your readers are located in the SF Bay Area, please check out the jobs page above.
   Very best,
   Amy Widdowson
   Marketing Manager, NileGuide.com

   Reply