The secret is to not push too close to the wire when near your next rank. It is really common for people to take more risks when they are close to a new rank, so you need to discipline yourself.

Generally though, I wouldn't worry about an exp hole. They always seem harder to overcome than they actually are. If you get a good group it'll only take about 20mins to an hour to get out of that hole. As someone who mostly solo ranked a high xp build that is not suited to ranking, I had a few exp holes myself when close to advancing. It really isn't as big a set back as it seems. Worst case scenario is spending a while at your current rank. Is that really bad? Debatable.