Careers advice for young skiers!

A snowHead

I'm planning next year's main ski trip and for the first time I'm trying to get a large group together. Sadly, my good friend who first introduced me to skiing can't come because her job "won't let her have any time off between the start of January and the end of March". She works in corporation tax and that's when she's busiest with the end of the financial year. I work in software development which works out much better.

It made me think; there are some jobs which are a good choice if you want to do a lot of skiing, and some which aren't. Can we give aspiring skiers some careers advice?

Corporation tax / accountancy: bad - not enough free time in the winter
Freelance software development: good - enough time and money to get several weeks in a season
School teaching: in the middle - enough time off, but you've got to go when things are busiest and most expensive
Offshore work (rigs etc): good, I assume, since you can get plenty of time off
Locum doctor / vet: good - lots of control over when you work
Finance / pharma jobs: potentially good - you can get jobs in Geneva or Zurich and ski at the weekends
Ski instructor / other ski-related job: lots of skiing, but not easy to build a long term career

Any other suggestions?

(Don't worry, my friend's skiing days aren't over; I'm going to persuade her to come on the EOSB in April)

A snowHead

Whatever our friend FranzKlammer (sic?) does.

Also, how about working at the European Patent Office in Munich? Good pay working for a European organisation, with all its benefits. Near the mountains in a great city. Just hope you don't get sent to the Hague.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

BEcome an engineer or geologist and move to Calgary

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^^ This. Was close to this path myself (although i'd just have stayed in IT).

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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dogwatch, absolutely. I have to play mind tricks on myself where I convince myself that my 'maximum earning' are however many weeks I have left over after planning my time off, and try not to think of my time off as 'lost earnings'.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Know an accountant who moved to Luxembourg with KPMG, you don't even need to speak French. Skiing every weekend. Geneva probably another option with the zillions of multinationals there.

After all it is free

But if you are freelance, you could move to the mountains and ski every weekend. Or generally organise your time to get more skiing in, e.g. work long days on bad weather days, and not at all on blue sky powder days. Or work chalet style hours and ski in the middle of the day. Obviously you'd still have to balance getting the work done and attending any meetings, but even assuming you work a 50 hour week, that still leaves a lot of skiing time across a week if you are able to pick when you do those hours.

Maireadoconnor, pick up fluency in a couple of Alpine languages as well as a TEFL qualification (best ones are from the University of Cambridge as Jonny foreigner only see Cambridge in the title and goes weak at the knees Laughing

) Then apply like crazy to do some work placements to practise said languages. Having the widest possible skill set makes you kind of unique and the Germans (and German-speaking Swiss) love that. The Austrians like native speaker English teachers, but without another string to your bow it can be a pretty perilous path to follow! snowHead

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Get a job in the public sector that doesn't involve tax or teaching. 30-odd days off a year plus bank holidays and weird extra free holidays is hard to beat, plus flexitime, and you can rack up quite a few weeks of holiday in a season.

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Not everyone working freelance can work remotely.

You know it makes sense.

If the mountains won't come to Muhammad...

I easily doubled my skiing time by moving to a country where I can go skiing more often. Last couple of seasons have been 60+ days and I still managed over 30 this year with a new baby.

Freelancing could work if you could swing most of your contract work in-between seasons and then not work all winter and be frugal. I have friends that do similar with game development. Do six months work-for-hire then six months developing their own IP.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Maireadoconnor as has been said, move somewhere where you can easily get to the mountains. I did! I also did freelance software development for quite some time, mobile phone protocol sw. The problem with freelancing is always that time off costs you, and you are always trying to please the client(s); disappearing for a large part of winter will quite likely not please them! If you can arrange it so you can work from the slopes then all is well of course

One of my current colleagues/friends who started up my current company with me moved to Axams and works from there. Skype & the internet really make offices almost unnecessary these days!

A snowHead

Join the Royal Marines and spend half your life doing Arctic Warfare training.

A snowHead

Just be aware that the stuff that for most people has to be done at weekends, for most people has to be done at weekends.

No point being an hour from e.g. chamonix if you have chores to do all weekend...

Also don't forget seasonpassitis .... It's not a perfect blue sky powder day, I won't bother going up...

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Mistress Panda, sounds like my husband's situation Happy

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There's lots of marketing, engineering and bio-medical jobs, at all levels, in English, in and around Innsbruck and in and around Salzburg. Easy to ski a lot from both locations, Innsbruck particularly so. Come spring (and lighter mornings) you can even ski tour very good terrain and be back in the city before 9am. Some of them are serious money too.

Plus 10 months of lift-served skiing a year and 5 weeks holiday + public holidays...

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

under a new name,

This is easily solved. Why even attempt chores when you can ski

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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

I guess the only issue with my job (graphic designer) is the long hours and minimal holiday allowance (3 weeks and 8 days). In theory I could use all 3 weeks for skiing holidays but I can't afford that so only 2 skiing holidays for me.

After all it is free

clarky999, is there a specific company/agency that recruits for these roles? I have done the obvious Google search but not found anything quite suitable. Didn't know there was such a huge requirement for IT personnel. Might have to retrain! As I have said before very interested in relocating from sunny Derbados - funnily enough for this thread I'm an Engineer with a Geology degree.

gryphea, sometimes they're unavoidable.

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AthersT, there probably are, but I normally just google 'English jobs in Tirol,' or in Innsbruck, or in Zillertal, etc.

Med-EL is one of the better options; they are frequently looking for marketing staff, scientific researchers, and engineers. Not so much IT though, but as the company language os English most roles that come up could be done by an English speaker.

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NOT lawyer in the City - decent enough money but getting time to use it on the slopes is a bit of a laugh.

I did know some young doctors, who would work 12 hour shifts, 7 days on 7 days off. So still an average of 42 hours per week, but free time every other week. Best of all worlds: good money, and enough time off inbetween to make trips to alps (or even N. America if they have pow) worthwhile.

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Work is the scourge of the skiing classes....
If you want to ski then become a bum Wink

Offshore work on the oil rigs is probably the best way to balance lots of time off vs. good salary / career.
So long as you work for an employer (as opposed to starting your own business) then you will always be trading your own time for money.
Freelancing from the alps might sound ideal - but for many the reality is very different.

You know it makes sense.

Maireadoconnor, But companies can choose their accounting dates...my experience is that about 40% choose 31 March, 30% choose 30 September and the other 30% spread over the other months. Their CT returns are due 9 months after the end of the accouting year which should actually make December the busiest time.
I worked in tax for 30 years and whilst in income tax ( employed or self employed) I wouldn't have taken much of March off, and these days January is busy too, working in Corporation tax holiday was not a problem.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

If you look at people who heli ski, and check what they do, then you'd probably come to the same conclusion my own dentist came to: you need to be a high end dentist in the USA. That works.

Having stinking rich parents also works, but you have the addiction problems to deal with, and it's really hard for those people to be nice.

I went for software development, and I'm confident I get more vertical than almost anyone who is not getting paid for it. Plus I take only the good stuff. Eventually you get to a point when if you don't work you don't get paid (either because you're working contract or it's your own company). That affects the economics and stops some people, but not all.

Most "operational" systems have embargoes over the xmas/ new year period, so you'll not be upgrading or doing anything interesting with systems in that period. So it's dead time. The same things true for even snow related stuff, which I also work in. The last thing you want to be doing is "development" at the busiest time of year. My snow related R&D is done in summer, where it's laid back and safe.

Personally there's no way I'd use offshore developers irrespective of where they're based. Management and Accountancy companies build software that way, but then they don't value technology or the people who can build it. That's why their developers don't work out of Gstaad, or even London.

A snowHead

What sort of software are you making Phil?

A snowHead

I'm a software dev too, but not freelance, trying to figure out how to maximise ski time. I tried to suggest to my old employer that they could do without me for a month (and not pay me) but they weren't keen on that idea. So I moved on. In the long term I think the strategy is going to be moving to a city where I can ski after work or at the very least, on weekends. Originally from Australia though so I don't have the shiny EU passport (yet, mere months away!) that would allow me to move closer to easy skiing.

The shortlist, roughly in order of preference:
- Vancouver: closer to 'home', appear to qualify for FSW visa, seems to be jobs in my field, night skiing options
- Seattle: closer to 'home', visa possibly harder, reasonable amount of work, night skiing options
- Geneva or Lyon: speak (very very) basic French, seem to be jobs in my field but few advertised in English
- Munich / anywhere in Austria with a job: I don't speak any German, but I'd take a job if I could find one!
- Scotland: It's probably the simplest option but the skiing is a bit hit and miss.
- Melbourne: the skiing is shite and you can only do it for 2 months a year, but there's always Japan during Oz summer
- anywhere in NZ: there's no city with an IT industry that I can find anywhere within 4 hours of a ski area. But the skiing is probably better than Oz

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

queen bodecia, why do you only get 3 weeks plus 8 days (which I assume are the bank holidays) when the legal minimum is 28 ?

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Hells Bells, the legal minimum is 20 days plus 8 bank holidays, I get all bank holidays too so effectively I get 31 days. The reason it's 3 weeks and 8 days is because there aren't enough weeks in the year for everyone in the studio to have 4 weeks off, the 8 days can be taken as many as 3 together, but 4 days together counts as a week. It's a bit complicated but to minimise the possibility of 2 people being off at the same time.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

^^don't want to go there again, cos I think it's been discussed several times, but HR needs to recruit some more graphic designers.

before I went in to this industry, I looked at TV SFX (the developing of kit, rather than operating the kit). That was similar... 20 days leave plus BH, but you're not expected to take more than 15 per year total, and you're not allowed to take any in the 2-3months leading up to the 3 international trade shows per year. So they essentially dictate when their staff can take a week off.

They offered me a salary 2x what I was on. I told them "you're joking, right?". I think most staff last 2 years max before quitting the industry or defecting to a competitor.

Pick the German side of the border for 30 days + public holidays + potentially 3 extra days for the Fridays where there's a religious holiday on the Thursday.
And they're pretty happy for people to take 3-4 week summer hols, because that's the norm.

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andy, there's no HR in graphic design. It's a cut-throat industry, clients constantly demanding more work, shorter deadlines, rebates, etc. There's no way the industry can afford to employ people whose time can not be billed directly to clients. And yes TV SFX, animation, web development, etc. all related industries, the company I work for has departments for all of those.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

andy, hubby is taking 4-5 weeks next winter in one go. Slack time for holidays, no-one else off, and the relief manager is twiddling his thumbs. Ideal all round.

queen bodecia, my cousin works in graphic design, he doesn't have anywhere near the restrictions you seem to have. If you have more than a certain number of employees there is no way you can restrict leave to only one at a time.

After all it is free

>What sort of software are you making Phil?
Right now a mix of the odd helicopter booking system plus some large scale health-related stuff. I've not worked in games, which could well work entirely differently.

Relocating to where the snow is.... an approach, but it's a bit obvious and I like the non obvious. I know lots of people who live in resorts, but I tend to get rather more snow days than they do. I think you get more done when you go somewhere to do it. The distractions are otherwise distracting.

So my approach is to work somewhere you can find work, stash the money away, and then have the courage to spend it on snow. The danger with this approach is that people start to like the money more than they like the snow... by the time you're old most people fall into that hole.

Not quite fallen in that hole yet though there is a tension when you'd be quite happy to cut down the money for more snow but source of the money thinks if you still want the money they'd rather you had less snow.

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philwig, I'm pretty sure spending lots of money going on lots of ski holidays is by far the more obvious approach than relocation! NehNeh

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Careers advice for young skiers!

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