Tour Guide Resume Sample and Tips from HR Pros

Working as a tour guide can be a fun and fulfilling job. You get to explore and learn about the history of so many places and then share that knowledge with enthusiastic tourists. To do it well, you must be a good communicator, a people person, entertaining, and fun to listen to.

But how do you describe a tour guide on a resume?

Our experts are here to help!

In this post, we share a tour guide resume example and guide you into crafting one yourself. We’ve provided a tour guide resume template to make it even easier.

Tour Guide Job Description

Your main role as a tour guide will be to show visitors or tourists around places of interest while spinning narratives about the sites. That’s why you must have extensive knowledge of the place like the back of your skin.

One of the top skills for tour guides is excellent verbal communication since you’ll spend almost your entire day discussing facts, history, and anecdotes.

Some other responsibilities of a tour guide include:

• Deliver memorized content to tourist groups
• Guide visitors throughout the vicinity
• Tell captivating stories
• Share fascinating history and legends
• Ensure the safety of guests by offering guidelines

Now, you must be wondering, how much does a tour guide make? Well, according to Salary.com, the average income for a tour guide as of August 2022, was $33,494. However, the salary will differ depending on various factors like certifications, education, and skills. Typically, a tour guide’s salary will fall between the $27,551 and $38,520 range.

How to Write a Tour Guide Resume

Here’s a tour guide resume example and a description of how to effectively craft each section.

The tour guide profession requires artistry, storytelling, and creativity. However, your resume must be precise and showcase your work experience and education in an easy-to-understand style.

Generally, your resume will have the following sections:

• Name and contact details
• Summary
• Professional Experience
• Education

You can also include the following sections to impress your employers with your skills and qualities:

• Skills
• License and certifications
• Internships
• Interests
• Languages
• Courses

Let's dig deep into the details on how to craft each of the sections of the resume.

Name and contact info

First things first. Your professional resume must start with your name and contact information. The recruiter wants to know the person they are about to (possibly) meet for an interview.

Plus, the contact details will be required in case they want to reach you for further clarification or discussion about the position.

In the top left corner of your resume, list your:

• Full names (usually your first and last name)
• City and state
• Phone number to facilitate communication
• Email address
• LinkedIn profile

While not mandatory, the LinkedIn profile offers the recruiting manager a reference point to see your employment history. That said, make sure your social media profile is relevant and up to date.

Resume Summary

A resume summary or objective is a crucial part of your resume. It's usually a one to two sentence summary statement that briefly describes your background and how you can benefit the company.

Basically, it gives the recruiting manager a quick glance at your professional experience and achievements. Use this section to detail your goals, skills, and how your expertise makes you a great fit for the role.

Professional Experience

When it comes to your work history, you may think it’s a no-brainer – you simply list where you’ve been working for the last couple of years.

But here’s the thing.

The professional experience section is the most crucial part of a resume. It's what will separate you from the hundreds of other job applicants. It's also what will get you through an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) scan.

A report from Jobscan reveals that over 98 percent of Fortune 500 companies use applicant tracking systems during the hiring process. Likewise, research by Capterra shows that 75 percent of recruiters and talent managers use some type of recruiting and applicant tracking software.

For this reason, you must include keywords and relevant work history. The idea is to make your resume as ATS-friendly as possible to pass the screening process. Craft your resume to be among the top that gets selected for further processing.

Here are some tips to help you optimize your resume for applicant tracking systems:

• Keep your resume simple. While visuals and fancy fonts are appealing to the hiring manager, they won't impress an ATS. Keep the style, fonts, and format simple.
• Stick to plain text. Using charts, graphics, or other visuals will drive the point home. But an ATS may not view it that way.
• Use a bullet list when listing your work experience. This makes it easy to read and interpret.
• If you have certification, make sure to mention that in your resume, including facts and numbers about your achievements.

As we’ve mentioned, tailor your resume to match the job description. To achieve that, you must carefully read the job offer and make sure you include the skills listed in the job description. You want to impress your employers by showing that you can do the job well.

Education

Recruiters have a benchmark that they use when selecting candidates and education level is one of them. A tour guide job requires at least a high school diploma, and anything higher will be advantageous. If you graduated less than three years ago and have a 3.5 GPA or higher, add it as it increases your chances of getting selected.

In other cases, the job description may specifically require the applicant to hold a bachelor’s degree in hospitality, communication, and/or business administration.

Since we are using the reverse chronological order, start by listing your highest education first, followed by the rest. In our case, it's a Bachelor's Degree in Arts, majoring in communication.

As you can see, we’ve listed:

• The degree
• School name
• Location
• Graduation year

If you’re still in school, list the expected year of graduation. If you find your education lacking, consider indicating information like relevant coursework, extracurricular activities, and academic achievements. You can list your schools in one paragraph to save space. Just remember to bold the school names for easy reading.

Additional sections

Depending on your professional level and work experience, you may have additional details that you feel are relevant to the job position. The additional information section allows you to shine further.

Some of the additional details you may want to add include:

Skills

As a tour guide, it’d be wise to let the recruiting manager know how skilled you are for the job position. The skills section lets you do exactly that. Some of the top skills for tour guides include:

• Adaptability
• Storytelling
• Collaboration
• Geology
• Ecology
• Climbing
• Trekking
• Communication
• Time management
• Critical thinking
• Problem-solving

Remember to include soft skills and hard skills, as well as technical skills, if any.

License and certifications

In some states, you must have a license to operate as a tour guide. Don’t forget to add the license here to show that you're a qualified and fully registered tour guide.

Interests

Likewise, you may want to show the recruiter that you're capable of doing more than just offering tours. The hobbies and interests section gives you an opportunity to introduce the other side of your life.

Some of your hobbies may include:

• Cycling
• Scuba diving
• Waterskiing
• Cooking
• Paragliding
• Hang-gliding

Languages

Can you speak other languages proficiently? List them here. The ability to communicate in different languages can be an added advantage for a tour guide since you’ll be attending to tourists from various backgrounds.

Bonus Tips

There are a few things you can do to ensure your resume is eye-catching:

• Keep your resume to one page. Studies show that recruiters skim resumes in about 7.4 seconds.
• Use clear fonts.
• Give a resume summary or objective at the top of the page to highlight your work experience, goals, and qualities.
• Use clear, simple layouts with clearly marked sections and title headers. You want to direct the focus of the recruiter to the most relevant parts of your resume.
• Most importantly, use relevant keywords and craft your resume to be ATS-friendly.
• After you’ve finished creating your resume, proofread it several times to correct any grammar and spelling mistakes. Try reading the resume out loud or have a friend read it out loud so you can listen to how it flows and make the necessary corrections.
• Accompany your tour guide resume with a well-crafted tour guide cover letter. The cover letter introduces your professional background, giving more information on the details you’ve highlighted on your resume. Try to answer the most common interview questions in your cover letter.

We hope you find this tour guide resume writing guide helpful. Happy job hunting!