You would be joining approximately 70 office-based colleagues at our Head Office in York and almost 160 Tour Managers from diverse backgrounds and a wide range of ages and life experience – all of whom gain personal satisfaction from ensuring that Great Rail Journeys customers have a relaxing and memorable holiday.

For office-based opportunities, please send a copy of your CV and reasons why we should interview you to our HR Manager, Linda Northwood. Linda can be reached on 01904 521908. All new opportunities are detailed below and we would encourage you to regularly check this section of our website. Click here for current office-based opportunities.

For Tour Manager opportunities, please email our TM Manager, Jackie Igoe to request an application form. Click here for current Tour Manager opportunities.

Current office-based opportunities:

Graduate Development Programme

A career in the travel industry is the ideal choice for people with a flair for languages and an interest in visiting foreign climes.  The continually evolving nature of the industry means new challenges and fresh experiences are always just around the corner.

At Great Rail Journeys we are devoted to creating holidays which seize our customers' imaginations.  From the untouched splendour of Siberia to the hustle and bustle of downtown Manhattan, we have a range of holidays to suit different tastes.  Each year we expand our programme, offering our customers new destinations and fresh experiences.

At Great Rail Journeys there can be no more a rewarding career than being a member of the team which creates our tours.  If you are a creative, conceptual thinker keen to develop commercial acumen why not take the first step on a career in the travel industry with Great Rail Journeys?

Our two year Graduate Development Programme is not for the faint hearted.  By the end of your first year you'll be firmly established in the business, having agreed an individual development plan to broaden your knowledge and to develop critical business skills, such as effective presentation, solid negotiation and influencing skills.  Ultimately you will be responsible and accountable for specific areas of our travel programme.

From the very start you will be assigned to a mentor and a senior manager who will support, guide and advise you at every turn - though they will not hold your hand!  It's up to you to use your drive and ambition to impress.

The Great Rail Journeys graduate programme is designed to give you early responsibility, so expect to hit the ground running, working on real product development with real team involvement, right from the start.

When it comes to developing your career, how soon do you want to get out there?

Great Rail Journeys is the UK's leading operator of escorted holidays by rail.  Founded over 25 years ago, no one understands rail travel like we do.  We currently organise over 1,100 departures a year on approximately 130 different itineraries.  The majority of the itineraries are within Europe, though every year the range of holiday's increases and now includes tours all over the world including Asia, Australasia, Africa and North America.

Over the last 18 months, we have experienced a period of rapid growth.  2008 is proving to be a record breaking year, as we are on target to post the highest annual turnover in the company's history.  Public desire to switch to a more environmentally friendly form of transport for holiday travel has helped with our phenomenal growth, but it is the variety and quality of our tours which is the real secret of our success.

The Great Rail Journeys workforce has doubled since 2006.  We currently employ around 200 people and this makes us small enough to offer you a fast moving culture, with access to top level management and travel experts.  It makes us big enough to give you the opportunity right from the start to work with us to develop our holiday portfolio across Europe and Worldwide.  It gives us expertise to take you from fresh graduation to experienced travel industry professional in a relatively short space of time.

As part of our sustained drive for competitiveness and superior performance, Great Rail Journeys takes a positive approach to equality and diversity, by tapping into the talent and skills available in all the groups and communities.

We do this by:

• Helping individuals release their potential by ensuring equality of employment opportunity and equal access to development opportunities.
• Fair application of reward policies.
• Using best practice recruitment and selection techniques to ensure fair and objective assessments and enable the choice of the best candidate from a diverse pool.
• Developing company policies to enable individuals to balance their work and personal life styles.
• We take Responsible Tourism very seriously.  All tourism potentially has an environmental, social and economic impact on the destinations involved, we recognise our duty to respect and preserve the culture of the places we visit.  Rail travel is one of the most ecologically-friendly means of transport and using trains as much as possible during our holidays is one of the ways we endeavour to minimise the negative effects of tourism on our environment.

Getting the 2:1 is the easy bit

Your first degree should be, or expected to be, at least a 2:1 or equivalent in a modern language, ideally German, French, Spanish or Italian.

It is also essential that you have real intellectual ability, resilience and high levels of effectiveness, whilst working as part of a team.

Real World Experience

Our two-year graduate programme is individually tailored to your needs and to the specific requirements of the role we assign you to for the path you wish your future to take.

Throughout your two years you have the support of a personal mentor and a senior manager.  The emphasis is on your learning, mainly from a practical mix of hands-on and formal training, but with expert guidance throughout.  You will have the opportunity to use your languages in a professional context.  Overseas travel is an important part of the job and you will have the opportunity to experience different working cultures as you build your understanding of our organisation and industry.

We intend to give you as many broad and varied experiences as we can, so that you swiftly become a well-rounded member of our team.

Our graduate programme won't spoon-feed you or wrap you in cotton wool, nor will it expose you to situations that over-stretch you.  It is very much a real world experience.

Early Responsibility

The best way to learn our business is to play an active role in it, which means engaging in exciting work almost as soon as you start.  This will include product research and development, taking an active involvement in brochure and web page development.

Training and Development

You can expect to receive expert coaching and develop your skills on specialist courses, but most of your programme is real world based.  As well as learning all aspects of the Product Team, you will have involvement with all aspects of the business with time spent shadowing and working in key departments.

What would you rather have, two more years of theory or early practical experience and responsibility?

Overall Package

Your competitive starting salary is complemented with excellent benefits:

  - Contributory pension scheme
  - Profitability bonus
  - 20 days' annual holiday plus Bank Holidays
  - Opportunities to travel
  - Travel related concessions

How to Apply

1. You must have (or expect) at least a 2:1 or equivalent.
2. You must be willing to travel overseas

Email your CV and covering letter explaining why you want to work for us to:
graduate-recruitment@greatrail.com

For further information, either please contact our Human Resource Manager, Linda Northwood on telephone 01904 521908 or email graduate-recruitment@greatrail.com

Current Tour Manager opportunities:

Tour Manager recruitment for 2009

We have now ceased active recruitment for our autumn selection days but if you are interested in becoming a Tour Manager for Great Rail Journeys, we would still like to hear from you. If you think you meet the criteria listed below, please send a BRIEF summary of your experience (not necessarily previous Tour Manager experience) and where you heard about us (from a Tour Manager, our website, advert, speculative interest etc), and we will send you an electronic application form. Please note that we will only send forms to applicants with e-mail addresses as most of our correspondence with Tour Managers is now done electronically.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The role of the Tour Manager:
You could be a suitable candidate for the Tour Manager Role if you meet the following criteria: have excellent leadership and organisational abilities, can quickly and efficiently solve diverse problems, are diplomatic and friendly, can demonstrate a good understanding of European and Worldwide rail travel, are well-travelled, are available to work an average of 80 days per year, are proficient in a European language in addition to English, and have a thoroughly professional approach.

A view from one of our Tour Managers:
"For those who are outgoing and well-organised, have genuine leadership skills, are tactful and discreet, like and are interested in people, appreciate beautiful scenery and wonderful city sights and can impart enthusiasm to others, are unflappable, and enjoy travelling by train, there are few jobs more enjoyable and fulfilling than to be a Tour Manager for Great Rail Journeys.

"But it’s hard work too.  It’s crucial that you prepare carefully for each trip.  As soon as you receive your allocation of tours, it’s sensible to start reading up on where you are going and what you are likely to see.  You don’t need to be a walking Beidecker on each city you visit, but it’s as well to learn in advance a bit of the country’s history, its system of government, familiarise yourself with local customs and laws.  In most places GRJ offers a superb local guide who knows more about the attractions of their city than you will ever learn from a guidebook – rely on them to provide the local colour and knowledge.

"You should aim to be that sort of dinner guest who can chat intelligently to strangers about interesting things without boring them rigid with too much detail and trivia.  Be willing to listen as well.  You’ll find some really interesting people take part in GRJ holidays – doctors, lawyers, police officers, civil servants, teachers, priests, captains of industry.  Sometimes they want to remain incognito – even if they tell you their secrets, they may not want others to know, so be sure you respect confidences. You will enjoy their company: do your best to get to know every one of them individually during the course of the holiday.

"It’s vital that you plan each day with great care.  Make sure you know where you are supposed to be meeting your passengers and when.  Check out in advance which platform your train is leaving from, and where in the train your reserved seats are.  Be willing to be firm (but courteous) if others are sitting in your allocated seats.  Watch out for pickpockets everywhere, especially on busy stations where you have only a short time to connect trains.  Think through where and when your passengers will be able to get some refreshments, and don’t forget to plan loo stops!!

"The service you get from the GRJ office in York is superb.  Not only are they very, very nice people, they’re efficient as well, and there to help you.  Don’t bother them with trivia, but don’t be afraid to ask if there’s something about your holiday you don’t understand.  Above all, read the tour manager’s notes sent to you by the York office several times, and follow the instructions to the letter."

Richard Faulkner, Tour Manager for Great Rail Journeys