With a booming national economy creating “a job for everybody,” the question facing ski areas heading into the 1997-98 ski season is: “Will there be a body for every job?” According to a spot check around the industry, the answer is: “Mostly Yes, with some to spare. But sometimes, it takes effort to do it.”
“We get more applications for seasonal jobs than we know what to do with,” said Lora Howe, personnel administrator at Kirkwood, Calif. Even in a tight job market, Howe said two one-day job fairs at the mountain are enough to find most of the 450 to 550 seasonal workers Kirkwood hires every winter.
At Big Mountain, Mont., filling the hundred or so winter positions is even easier than at Kirkwood. “I don’t have to do anything,” said Don Abram, director of resort administration. “I don’t even advertise for positions. We have one job fair at the end of October and we’ll have 200 to 300 people show up for the 80 to 120 slots we have open.”
While other industries might indeed be hurting for help in the tightest job market in a quarter century, some segments of the ski industry apparently are not among them. It seems to depend on factors such as size—small—and proximity to urban centers—close—more than sex appeal of the resorts.
“We haven’t been having what you would call a lot of negative problems filling our seasonal jobs,” said Kent Matthews, area manager at Snowbasin, Utah, which fills its 125 winter positions through one ad in the local newspaper. “I suspect that part of the high level of interest is because people who apply like to ski. It’s the best benefit going.”
Even with the “best benefit going,” however, there are spot problems here and there for some segments of the ski industry. Keeping up with an area’s seasonal help needs in a tight job market can be a never-ending battle and demands constant creativity. One of the biggest sources of seasonal help for ski areas is local high schools and colleges.
Crystal Mountain, Mich., which hires about 200 additional people every winter, draws most of them from the 12 schools located within a 20-mile radius of the resort. “This year we started going right into the schools during the lunch hour,” said Kathy Karafa, personnel services assistant. “We’ve always sent them our postings, but this year we set up a table during lunch, had our job descriptions and signed ’em up right there.”
Crystal also advertises in seven local papers, several regional magazines, on the radio and, this year, went on-line with its postings. “We’ve grown by leaps and bounds, as has the whole area,” Karafa said. “So far we’ve been able to keep up with our employment demands, but it’s getting harder and harder. We’re always looking for new ways to recruit the people we need.”
Ski area web pages are a favorite new medium for many ski areas to advertise for seasonal help. Telluride, Colo., which last year for the first time in its history, was unable to fill all of its 400 winter jobs, has hit the web in a big way this year hoping to take up the slack. “We’re doing much more aggressive advertising in all types of media,” said Linda Stephens, vice president of human resources and risk management. “Our problem is that there are more and more employers in Telluride. We weren’t the only ones with problems last year.”
Instead of local job fairs, Stephens said Telluride this year will go to regional fairs; instead of advertising locally, it will now advertise statewide, nationally, even internationally. “We’re branching out,” Stephens said. “We have to.”
At Copper Mountain, Colo., which also experienced problems filling its 1,100 seasonal positions last winter, “branching out” doesn’t do any good. “Housing is our biggest obstacle in attracting seasonal help,” said Karen Ponds, human resources manager. “It impacts on where we recruit. We could get tons of people from out-of-state, but it doesn’t do us any good if they can’t find an affordable place to live after they get here.” Copper is investigating building employee housing, but until that happens, Ponds said the company is resigned to recruiting in Summit County and having positions remain open all winter. “Our hands are tied,” Ponds admitted. “We know we have to address this problem, especially now that Vail and Keystone have created employee housing.” Copper is part of the Intrawest network of ski areas, but Ponds said there is no corporate-wide initiative around seasonal employees other than a policy permitting employees to ski five free days at any other Intrawest resort.
In the East, the American Skiing Company this summer hired a recruiter to hit the road on behalf of all of ASC’s eastern resorts in an effort to drum up more seasonal employee contacts. “The recruiter will go to colleges and universities and summer seasonal businesses, and come up with some new resources and contacts we may not have tapped sitting here at Killington or Sunday River,” said Diane Davis, vice president of human resources at Killington, which hires 600 to 700 seasonal workers every winter.
Eastern resorts such as Killington, Sunday River and Sugarloaf USA have long been successful in filling their ski season positions by “trading seasons” with summer businesses on the Maine coast or Cape Cod in Massachusetts. “They come to our outplacement fairs in the spring and we go to theirs in the fall,” Davis explained.
Across the country, personnel managers agree that housekeepers, chefs, line cooks, dishwashers and wait staff positions are the hardest seasonal jobs to fill. Outside, lift operators are often hard to find and most agree if you have a good lift maintenance person, hold on to him or her because there’s a big shortage.
Boreal and Soda Springs, Calif., have had good luck filling some of their 750 winter seasonal positions overseas. In addition to maintaining a big presence on the Internet, the sister resorts also contract with an international firm, Work Experience USA, to recruit seasonal employees overseas. “They do a tremendous job of screening candidates and coming up with a good match,” said Deb Aebi, director of human resources at Boreal and Soda Springs. “They take care of all of the documents, visas, make sure the employees get here. They handle everything at no cost to us.”
It’s not by accident that ski areas are able to keep up with their seasonal help demands. They work at it year-round.
