How To Be A Ski Instructor - Job Hunting

For those who have followed my occasional posts on 'How To Be A Ski Instructor', now is the time to start looking for work for next winter (in the Northern Hemisphere at least). If you are a newly qualified instructor it can be daunting to get that first job and get on the instructor ladder - like many professions there is something of a Catch 22 where you need experience to get a job and a job to get experience.

My advice is to apply for a lot of positions. Hopefully you will have some contacts from courses or from resorts you have visited. Use these but do not rely on them exclusively. It is always good to have a backup plan if a job falls through. By all means apply to the big name resorts - they will employ a lot of instructors but there will still be a lot of demand for positions. Do your research and find all the ski schools in a resort, not just the biggest or best marketed. Do not be disheartened though if you are not offered your dream job on a plate. Look at other options, including less glamourous options. In Europe you obviously have the Alps, but also Andorra, Spain, Eastern Europe and Scotland. In the US the East Coast resorts may be easier to find work at. In Canada there are many smaller areas beyond the obvious Whistler and Banff resorts. There are also advantages to working in a small area, as part of a smaller team. It is often friendlier with more opportunities for training and progression. Above all, don't give up - something will turn up if you keep looking.

How To Be A Ski Instructor. Part 4 - Networking

If you haven't been following this occasional series on becoming a ski instructor, you can catch up by reading Part 1 - The Gap Course, Part 2 - Individual Courses and Part 3 - Finding A Job.

The last part covered finding work in the UK and finding part time (e.g. peak season) work abroad. This was partly because it is very late to be looking for jobs abroad for this winter, and partly because jobs abroad can be hard to come by without experience. If you have found a job abroad as a newly qualified ski instructor, congratulations. If not, don't give up but don't be too disappointed if you do not find one this winter.

If you are a newly qualified or soon-to-be-qualified instructor, the best thing you can do is network (obviously this is important for experienced instructors too, but they should already know that). Talk to everybody. Get to know the staff at your local slope, many of them will have contacts in ski schools abroad. When you are on holiday, or on courses, talk to as many instructors as you can. Ask the ski schools about work (although this is difficult in France). Find out about recruitment processes and timescales. Collect email addresses and leave CVs. People are much more likely to give you a chance if they have met you and can put a face to the CV.

At the end of the winter you probably will not have a job offer yet, unless you are really lucky. What you will have is a pile of contacts to follow up on. The more the better as many might not materialise. Pay attention to each ski school's timescale for recruitment and apply for as many as you can until you have a firm offer. Even then it might be worth having a backup plan, just in case. This can be a fickle and transient industry after all.

The picture above is from the summer race training camp in Les 2 Alpes showing two happy ski instructors on a powder day.

How To Be A Ski Instructor. Part 3 - Finding A Job

Okay, so you've been on the courses and got yourself qualified as a ski instructor (see Part 1 - The Gap Course and Part 2 - Individual Courses). The next step is to find a job and be an actual ski instructor as well as qualified as one. If you passed last winter you have hopefully found a job for the winter. If you qualified in the summer, or if you hope to pass this autumn, it will be difficult (but not impossible) to find a full time instructor position abroad before the start of the season.

The problem facing newly qualified instructors, just like anyone newly qualified in any other profession, is that most employers are looking for people with experience. The work experience part of some qualifications and gap courses helps with this, but it is inescapable that you will be much more employable once you have some paid work experience on your CV.

If you are applying for jobs abroad, work at it hard and apply for as many as you can find. Look on the web, in the BASI news/course directory. Find contacts for as many ski schools as you can and phone them up. I will revisit overseas job applications in the spring, but for now I am going to look at other options to get the experience you need for your dream job in the Alps.

Firstly, look at the local artificial slopes. There are many indoor and dry ski slopes throughout the country and all of them employ ski instructors. Hours tend to be more evenings and weekends (though not exclusively) so can fit around other work or study. The busiest period runs from around October until March, as people visit before their winter holiday.

The second option is the peak week employer. There are a number of companies which employ instructors for a week or two at a time. These jobs are sometimes misleadingly advertised as part time instructor positions. The best known of these companies is Interski, who run a program of school ski trips in the Aosta Valley in Northern Italy throughout the winter. Interski and other companies offer a package including travel and half board accommodation, with lunches at mountain restaurants - basically a free trip with pay on top and around twenty five hours work. Many regular ski schools also take on extra staff at peak weeks (i.e. school holidays).

The final option I would suggest is Scottish skiing. There are five ski areas in Scotland, each with a ski school. My first season as an instructor was at Nevis Range (pictured above). I had a great winter and picked up a thorough grounding in every aspect of teaching skiing at instructor level. I taught private and group lessons of all abilities as well as school groups and adult ski club classes at the weekends. I also ran lifts when needed and helped in ski hire, skied with the patrollers in the mornings before work and had a much fuller experience of the mountain operation than in my subsequent seasons in New Zealand and Andorra.

So if you don't find yourself working in Verbier, Zermatt or St. Anton the winter after you qualify, stay positive. There are plenty of jobs out there and plenty of ways to gain the experience you need.

How To Be A Ski Instructor. Part 2 - Individual Courses

Continuing the series on how to be a ski instructor, I am going to discuss the pros and cons of taking the courses by themselves, rather than as part of a longer gap programme. This is the route I took to being a ski instructor, via the BASI (British) system.

The advantages are cost, and the chance to dip your toes in the water to find out if instructing is for you. You can also combine the courses with working a season in another role. The downside is that it can often take longer, you might not make as many contacts for when you are looking for a job, and you might find it harder to get the needed work experience.

All of the English speaking instructor qualifications follow a similar pattern (at least in the first stages). You take a first level instructor course which is basically a week long introduction, after which (if you pass) you can teach beginners in a controlled environment in the country whose course you have taken. After some work experience you can take the second instructor course which is one to two weeks long. This requires a very competent level of skiing. Some of the criteria include: skiing all pisted runs in control at an appropriate speed, high speed carving on reds (both skis carving cleanly), short radius turns on steeps, controlled turns in bumps, short and long radius off piste in variable conditions, near perfect demonstrations from plough to skidded parallels. All of the above are to be performed with recognised techniques. Your teaching ability will also be assessed, although it is much more common to fail on ski technique than teaching. If you pass the second instructor course you are able to teach in many ski areas around the world.

BASI courses are run in many locations throughout Europe. Canadian courses are obviously run in Canada and also, less obviously, in Andorra. New Zealand and US qualifications are run in their respective countries. Courses are often run in late November, before the season starts, and in April/May after it finishes. These courses may well be an option for those who have other plans during the season proper. There are also courses at this level run in the summer on glaciers, so there are plenty of options.

So to start with, get in touch with BASI, the CSIA, NZSIA etc. and ask for a copy of the course directory (a lot of information may be in the website, but the directory will be more comprehensive and also have useful adverts). Book that first course and get started - you will be likely to improve your skiing, have a good time and most importantly discover whether or not instructing is for you. Personally, taking the BASI Trainee Instructor course (as it was then) was the best thing I ever did.

Why to be a Ski Instructor

Before continuing the series on how to become a ski instructor, I thought I would take a moment to discuss why you might want to, and why you might not. Many people start on the road to ski instructing because they enjoy skiing and think getting paid to ski every day sounds like a pretty good deal. Well, there are days when it is like that, but you can easily spend a week teaching without leaving the beginner slope. This is particularly when you are starting out, but almost all instructors spend a considerable amount of their time teaching beginners.

Bad reasons for becoming a ski instructor then - to ski a lot, or to make money. If these are your sole motivation then you may want to reconsider. Perhaps you could get an evening job in resort (there are always plenty of bars and restaurants), or look for a well paid job in a city near the mountains (Geneva, Milan, Vancouver etc.) and ski at weekends. If you are good enough, especially at freestyle you could try and get sponsored - then you really do get paid to ski, but are also expected to work hard and promote the sponsors properly.

Enjoying skiing and being outdoors are obviously important, but for me the biggest reason for doing the job is the reward of teaching someone else to do the sport I love, especially if they are surprised by their own progress. Those hours on the beginnger slope are well spent if at the end of it the pupil has improved their skiing and their confidence. If you do not get anything out of the teaching side of the job you will not last long as an instructor. Expect to spend a lot of time in a snowplough (or wedge) on the instructor courses, and if you cannot see why this is necessary, again you might want to consider other options.

Here are a few other reasons given by instructors I know (most tongue in cheek):

• Working outdoors, living in the mountains
• Keeping fit walking up and down the beginner slope
• Being paid to talk rubbish all day
• Being second only to God
• Altitude is the best hangover cure*
• Apres-ski drinking is mandatory
• The neck up goggles down tan line
• The oh so flattering uniform and the chance to appear in the photo above...
  

*I have paraphrased this from a long story about getting very drunk in Austria, the hangover melting away in the cable car, the moment of revelation about future career choice - I won't repeat it here as I won't do it justice

How To Be A Ski Instructor. Part 1 - The Gap Course

A question I've been asked several times is how do you actually become a ski instructor? So I thought I'd answer it here. There is quite a lot to be said on the subject though, so I'll deal with it in several parts. Firstly though, I should dispell some myths, in particular the money. I have heard it said that ski instructors can make 25k in a winter, and this may be true for a select few instructors with an outstanding reputation and a client base built up over years. But nobody is in this business for the money, and a newly qualified instructor will do well to break even over a season.

I will begin this series of posts by considering the gap year courses offered by a number of organisations around the world. For those unfamiliar with the term, I am referring to those courses where you spend several months of a winter training to gain a ski (or snowboard) instructor qualification. This isn't the only, nor necessarily the best, route to an instructor qualification, but it is a very popular option. The biggest downside is the cost - around 5000 uk pounds as a rough figure. This gets you a winter's training with accomodation etc. and hopefully an instructor qualification at the end of it. I say hopefully since it is by no means guaranteed - you still have to pass the exam which means hard work. I have heard of several gap course candidates expecting to have a three month holiday and then being surprised to fail the end of course exam. So the moral is: expect to work hard if you want to pass. See this post for an explanation of the qualifications and acronyms mentioned below.

A typical course begins with a foundation level instructor course e.g. BASI Level 1 Instructor (previously Trainee Instructor) or CSIA 1. This will be followed by several weeks training and work experience with a local ski school. The course will finish with an instructor level course e.g. BASI Level 2 Instructor (previously Alpine Ski Instructor) or CSIA 2. Most courses last around ten weeks in total.

When shopping around for a gap course there are several questions you need to ask. You are writing them a sizable cheque after all. It pays to shop around and do your research thoroughly in order to ensure you get your money's worth.

Firstly, ask the company their average pass rate - for the real qualification at the end of the course not the foundation course at the start. Typical pass rates for an instructor course are about 75%, and with ten weeks to get you there, a gap course should have a significantly higher pass rate than this. There are three reasons why it might not however. Firstly, the selection criteria need to be stringent enough. You need to be a competent skier already to reach instructor level in a season, so a course taking on low intermediate skiers to boost the proffits will inevitably have a low pass rate. Secondly, as already mentioned, candidates may turn up expecting a ten week holiday and not put in the work (particularly if their parents are paying). Thirdly, the standard of training needs to be high enough to take you from foundation to instructor level (I'm deliberately using the old terminology for these courses as I find it clearer).

Secondly, ask how much work experience you will get. I would expect a ten week course to provide around 70 hours of ski school shadowing or supervised teaching. To gain the BASI Level 2 Instructor award 70 hours is a minimum (35 for Level 1 + 35 more for Level 2), but other countries may not have the same requirements. Regardless of whether shadowing is needed for your particular examination course, it will help you hugely in passing the teaching part of the exam. It will also be great preparatio for when you come to teach skiing for real.

Thirdly, to aid your budgeting, check exactly what is included and what you might have to pay extra for: food (including lunches), lift pass, transport etc. can all add to the cost, and don't forget to factor in beer money.

Lastly, you may want to look at the target market for the course - some will be filled with 18 - 21 year olds taking a year out before or after university, others with older people seeking a career change. Some will be a diverse mixture. If you don't mind being twice the age of your course mates then go along and enjoy the experience. If you think it could be a problem, look into the course demographics more carefully.

If you have the money, a gap course can be a great way into ski instructing. You will gain experience and contacts that other routes may miss out on, have a good introduction to the lifestyle, and possibly get a job offer from the school you are working with. You may also be able to get qualified in more than one country's sytem, which is an added bonus for your CV.

In the next post of this series I will look at the alternate approach of taking the courses separately. This is how I started, and is a cheaper option than a gap course.