Ski season 2013/14 - applying while abroad

A snowHead

Hi all,

I jet off for 10 months backpacking this coming week and I am really interested in doing a ski season when I come back for the winter 2013/14.

Will it be possible for me to apply to companies like Crystal even though I will be out of the UK? I was thinking perhaps phone interviews?

If anyone could give other companies which provide similar ski season jobs that would be great.

Also, I have plenty of customer care experience working at supermarkets and I had a portfolio of clients whilst working at various law firms. However, in terms of cleaning etc (associated with chalet host roles etc) I lack these experiences. Will this seriously affect my application? I intend to find work in Aus / NZ whilst away to boost my CV for ski season apps.

Thanks all!

A snowHead

Big tour operators such as Crystal generally have a standardised recruitment process that involves an interview in the UK. Smaller companies with no permanent UK base are sometimes happy to hire on the basis of a phone interview after seeing a good cv/cover letter/ and menu plan (if applying for chalet work). I had no direct experience when I applied though several years professional experience in my other career, and had no problem finding work as a chalet host without a face to face interview in the UK. But I only applied to small companies.

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

Thank you for the reply! I think it's best I ring Crystal and check tomorrow. Do you know of many smaller companies! This is new to me!

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A lot of TO's will do skype interviews nowadays. You do need to be registered to work in the UK i.e. have a NI number and of course be available to go when they say come.

Check out Natives.co.uk for loads of advice and jobs.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

If you're not going to be back from backpacking until the winter I think you'll have quite a task to find a job without going for interview; particularly if you don't have previous ski season experience. Crystal in particular have a huge amount of candidates, and rather than an interview Crystal utilise an assessment day programme. Its essentially a whole day of tasks, group sessions, tests and final interview all rolled into one. So I'd be surprised if you could bypass that, though worth giving them a shout of course. As annaski says, you may have better fortunes looking at smaller companies.

Also bear in mind that most companies start their recruitment drive soon after the season finishes, so from May/June onwards. I worked 2 winter seasons and started the interview process both times in June (although a lot of them will recruit all the way up to and throughout the season).

You'll need to Register first of course.

Ah yeah I understand. Would you be able to give me a couple of companies who I should be contacting. I only know of Crystal as my girlfriend is currently with them.

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

The larger ski companies are Crystal/Thomson/First Choice (all under an umbrealla called TUI); Neilson; Direct Ski; Espirit/Inghams/Ski Total; Ski World. Those are the major players, there are of course hundreds of smaller companies that will specialise in just one resort or a small number of resorts.

After all it is free

sequoiaboard, Well that explains why it seems to have died. still like you say, most jobs are on there.

dunney77, There are always people dropping out so you could try for one of those. Can your girlfriend not put in a good word for you? However I feel like Dav, says you will be lucky for this season.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Thank you everyone for your advice. I will give these companies a ring tomorrow. I get back from travelling in October so that gives me 2 months to look around!

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

If you're back in October you'll probably be ok with that; you just may not get your first choice company or resort. A common problem all ski companies find with doing the bulk of their recruiting in the summer is that the staff they have in place sometimes change their mind later in the year. So the recruitment process typically goes all the way until late November/early December, and continues throughout the season to a lesser extent. For my last winter season, management training started in mid November, the rest of the staff arrived in early December, and even then there were around 5 or 6 vacancies (out of a total of around 120) that hadn't been filled by that time; so you may just find it works out ok for you, but you'll need to be quick! Good luck.

snow reports

I know Crystal were recruiting in the first week of December. Would just be nice to know I am sorted whilst away but I will make some calls and see if I can have a phone interview! May I ask which company that season was with?

I was also wandering if you could give me some guidance on whether I would be a suitable applicant. I have plenty of customer service experience working at M&S for 2 years and I also had a portfolio of international clients working for law firms and that included hosting clients when they came to visit. However I am lacking in experience cooking and general hospitality (waiting and cleaning etc). I plan to spend a few weeks boosting these experiences in New Zealand but would you recommend I apply for a chalet host role or perhaps a rep?

Yeah, you need to choose what role you're going for. That could largely also dictate which company you could apply to, as some (smaller) companies are chalet only, some are hotel only, so the role you're looking for will have an impact on that. Obviously the big companies such as Crystal employ them all, but you'll need to know (probably before calling them I'd suggest) which is the role for you. The main ones as you say are chalet host or rep, though there are other roles depending upon the company such as driver, maintenance guy, hotel cook and catering assistant plus also ski host. The natives site mentioned above is (or was) a great one for seeing what all the job roles are and whether you suit them. But from you say you'd definitely be a suitable condidate on paper; some staff are on gap years from uni or straight from college, so your previous experience is an advantage.

For a chalet host its not neccessarily a pre-requisite that you have a cooking qualification, although its obviously a very significant leg up if you do. You may find with your skill set that you're better suited to being a rep, where you meet customers at the airport and generally be their customer service point of access throughout the holiday, as well as accompanying them on any excursions and nights out. I don't know how old you are but age isn't that much of a factor for any, though some companies will insist that anyone who drives a vehicle for them is over a certain age (with Crystal I think it was 21, not sure though).

My advice from what you say; go for a rep role. I'm probably a different age bracket to you, I decided in my mid 30s to interrupt my career for 3 winter seasons (2 working), my last one was last year. But my first year was as a rep for Crystal in Les Arcs, and I absolutely loved it, in fact it was an amazing experience. As a Resort Manager for a chalet company in my second year, it definitely seemed to me that the chalet hosts had a harder working time of it than I did repping, but then both of them have some pretty unsavoury hours thrown into the mix at times so you just have to go with it. One thing as a rep you can make sure you brush up on is your public speaking and being able to speak a language (French for me, you obviously also have the options of German, Italian and to a lesser extent Spanish). Public speaking is a very big thing as a rep, welcome meetings every week for anything up to 100 newly arrived guests at a time. And language skills would be a very big advantage; you can get some really good tapes these days, I used Michel Thomas and they definitely got me to a much better conversational level.

You know it makes sense.

Thank you so much for the advice. I want to try and sort my plans and course of action before I head off so this info will definitely help.

I think I will go for a rep role. I’m 22 and have just graduated from uni and want to get everything I want to do out the way before embarking on a career. Hopefully 9 months travelling solo will show I am open to new experiences and good with people. I don’t know whether this would be appropriate to say in an application but I have friends who are doing a season and they say it is hard work. I have worked every holiday so I just want to get the message across that I am prepared for the demanding hours.

Do you know if jobs with companies like Crystal are extremely competitive?

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

OK, I'm just off to bed but will answer this one quickly!!

Not sure if travelling will be a great example for you to use on a CV; don't hide it, but I'd definitely focus more instead on your previous work experience (particularly which is relevant to the role of a rep). Also, have you ever been on a tour operator holiday before? Do you remember the rep; was he/she good or bad? If so, what was it that made them good. When I applied I used all the experience from having travelled on quite a few tour operator holidays before, with some good reps and some very bad. For the job role you need to put yourself in the shoes of the customer; what is it that you want from the rep, what skills would you want him/her to have? Then highlight your own experiences and skills which will fit that requirement. For example, you say you've hosted clients before for law companies; how is that particularly relevant to how a rep would host clients? Customer service skills; have you dealt with customer complaints before? Again, that's a skill and experience that is transferrable to being a rep (and you will get interview questions such as "tell me about a time when you faced a disgruntled customer; how did you resolve their problem for them?). A good rep is one that is organised, knows the local area well, and has a "can-do" attitude where you can help to sort out any problem that a customer may have, so play your experience up to that.

Seasons are hard work at times. They're also bloody easy, really. The hours are sometimes long, but if you love the mountains and enjoy being around people (especially when they're on their holidays) it can be brilliant. At times I really didn't notice I was working; lets face it you get paid to ski, eat and drink and live a great life for 5-6 months.

And yes, the application process can be fairly competitive for a rep's role. I have no idea what the ratio of applicants to each role is, but the bigger companies usually have a reserve list of staff so you'll need to perform. Other roles (including chalet hosts) seemed to be slightly less competitive to me, but as I said earlier I thought they were harder work.

Anyway, if you have any more questions I'll check in again tomorrow at some point when I get a free moment! But if you're back in October, unless you have anything sorted before you go, you're probably best to start firing off applications in August and September ready for when you arrive back home.

Help!!

Ski season 2013/14 - applying while abroad

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