About the job

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Travel Agent

Plan and sell transportation and accommodations for customers. Determine destination, modes of transportation, travel dates, costs, and accommodations required. May also describe, plan, and arrange itineraries and sell tour packages. May assist in resolving clients' travel problems.

Top activities and tasks for this job:

• Interacting With Computers - use computers to enter, access or retrieve data
• Collect payment for transportation and accommodations from customer.
• Plan, describe, arrange, and sell itinerary tour packages and promotional travel incentives offered by various travel carriers.
• Converse with customer to determine destination, mode of transportation, travel dates, financial considerations, and accommodations required.
• Compute cost of travel and accommodations, using calculator, computer, carrier tariff books, and hotel rate books, or quote package tour's costs.
• Getting Information - read travel rate schedule
• Record and maintain information on clients, vendors, and travel packages.
• Book transportation and hotel reservations, using computer or telephone.

The HR Avatar Travel Agent Pre-Employment Assessment was designed to help you hire staff in this role. The test provides a whole-person evaluation by measuring job-relevant cognitive ability, personality, knowledge, skills, and relevant behavioral history. Each component provides important data for hiring decisions. Cognitive ability has been linked to overall job performance in most jobs and correlates with a candidate's ability to learn new skills and to solve complex problems. Personality characteristics determine how well the candidate will fit-in with a corporate culture. Knowledge and skills indicate how much training will be needed before a new employee becomes productive. Finally, relevant behavioral history detects counter-productive behaviors that can impact job performance.

The Travel Agent test includes an animated work simulation in which candidates meet customers, colleagues and supervisors in a job-related context. Post-test surveys indicate the majority of candidates react favorably to these simulations. This test also contains an automatically-scored essay component. Writing is a key skill for many jobs and also demonstrates the ability to generate, organize, and communicate relevant ideas effectively.

The specific attributes measured include:

Following completion, the test produces a Candidate Selection Report that includes an overall score and detailed scores for each attribute. The overall score weighs each of the factors based on research and analysis from the U.S. Government's Occupational Information Network (O*Net). O*Net represents over a decade of dedicated research evaluating the relative importance of various factors that lead to success in almost 1,000 different job roles.

The Candidate Selection Report also provides expert interview questions that help you probe critical or low-scoring areas, along with a guide for noting your evaluation of the candidate's responses. Consistent use of an interview guide is an important part of gaining better candidate insights and making better hiring decisions.