Working as a ski instructor or snowboard instructor is a fantastic way for students to spend a year out.
By working a ski season, you get to travel to spectacular resorts, learn new skills, have fun and meet new like-minded people.
Skills & Qualities For Your CV
As well as having great adventures, unique experiences and seeing new parts of the planet, you’ll also be gaining some great features to add to your CV. Here are just a few examples:
Teaching and coaching skills: As an instructor, you’ll learn how to teach people of all ages and abilities how to ski or snowboard. You’ll develop skills in coaching, instruction and assessment, which can be useful if you’re thinking of going into teaching, coaching or sports training.
Interpersonal skills: Ski instructing requires you to work closely with other instructors, resort staff and resort visitors. You’ll develop strong interpersonal skills like communication which can be beneficial in any job that requires you to work with others.
Leadership skills: If you work as a senior instructor or supervisor, you’ll develop leadership skills such as delegation and decision-making.
Time management skills: Ski instructing involves managing your time effectively to ensure that you’re able to provide quality instruction whilst also sticking to a schedule. You’ll develop strong time management skills like planning and prioritisation.
Adaptability: The ski industry is constantly evolving. New technologies, techniques and trends pop up every year. As a ski instructor, you’ll learn how to adapt to new situations, environments and challenges.
Customer service skills: Ski instructing is a customer-facing role, which means you’ll develop good customer service skills. These skills are useful in any future job which requires you to interact with customers or clients.
Overall, a gap year as a ski instructor can provide you with valuable skills and experiences that can be beneficial in a wide range of careers, but most notably in the fields of teaching, coaching, hospitality and tourism.
However, after a gap year as a ski or snowboarding instructor you might not want to move into a different career. You could even end up going on to make a full time and lengthy career out of skiing or snowboarding itself!
How To Take A Year Out At A Ski Resort
If you already have some experience of skiing or snowboarding then you can find internships and training courses from some providers who will take care of everything and provide you with the training you need to become an instructor.
One provider we’ve worked with which offers services like this is EA Ski + Snowboard Training.
EA works at ski resorts in the USA; Canada, New Zealand, Japan and Switzerland.and offers internships and training courses in both skiing and snowboarding.
They’ve recently published an article about the latest batch of ski and snowboard instructors which qualified with them last season. We’d encourage you to take a look at the whole article – but here are just a couple of the videos from their latest interns which were featured:
If you are interested in signing up for one of EA’s ski or snowboard instructor courses then you can check your eligibility here.
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