Our goal in recruiting is to find first-rate employees to fill the positions at your ski resort. The steps are straightforward: determine where you will focus your recruiting efforts, send your best recruiters, find suitable employees, and finally, sell them on the joys and opportunities that abound at the resort and thus convince them to sign on the dotted line.

Your current and former employees can help you decide where to focus your recruiting efforts. Start with the best of them. Where did they come from? Whom did they talk to? Ask the employees that you value most—the shining stars—what convinced them to work with the resort. The answers will help you determine which of your past recruiting efforts were most successful.

If you expand your efforts to include a new recruiting site, understand that establishing a strong connection there will take time. It takes years for permanent relationships to develop. Once they do, the community will be expecting you to arrive and will be ready to be hired.


Who You Gonna Call?
Who to send on your recruiting trips? You have a handful of year-round employees begging for the job. But you can’t just send anyone who wants to travel. Your best recruiters are the ones who will truly give your resort its ultimate good first impression.

Good recruiters can be hard to find. If your resort is like most, your workforce consists of down-to-earth, hard-working people who want to do their best. Your job is to identify those who are motivated and performing at the highest possible level. You must then encourage and inspire them to recruit harder and more effectively than they ever have before. You are counting on them to bring back a solid team of employees.

Keep an open mind about who these top recruiters might be. You never know where you will find them. You might be blessed with some self-starters in maintenance or F&B, say, who are naturally more ready to recruit than others. Look for people who know the resort, like to travel, and know the type of employee that would make your resort tick.

Make sure your recruiters are properly trained for the job. You may have the greatest product or service in the world, but if the recruiter does not have the knowledge, skill, and desire to present the resort and evaluate talent, your recruiting effort will waste precious time and money.

So what is the secret to picking top recruiters? Look for people who have the necessary knowledge, skills and desire.


Knowledge, Skills and Desire
Knowledge means having the ability to explain all aspects of the ski resort: the town, the mountain, the people, the vibe, the HR benefits, the pay, the positions and the job descriptions. All of this knowledge, tied up in an amazing sales pitch, will hook potential employees and give them all the reasons they need to choose to work at your resort.

Being a recruiter also takes specific skills. Ask yourself:

• Are your recruiters effective interviewers? Do they ask questions that pull out the best qualities in the candidate? Behavioral-based interviewing elicits responses that reveal the candidate’s past performance at a job, and that’s a good predictor of future performance.

• Do they know how to “read” people?

• Do they know the legal implications of interview questions? It is common for an interview to take an unexpected turn, opening the door to illegal questions. There may be a difference between how much a recruiter wants to know and what he needs to know.

• How well do they give the job offer?

• Can they evaluate people skills or technical knowledge?

These skills help the recruiter identify potential employees who can actually get the job done. Identify the recruiter who has these skills, or instill them through training or coaching.

Finally, the most important factor in recruiting is desire. Do your capable colleagues even want to go recruiting? Not everyone likes to travel. Do they enjoy selling your resort? Are they ready to talk to hundreds of people in a short amount of time? An enthusiastic recruiter attracts potential employees.

So be picky when you select the recruiter(s) for your next recruiting trip. Your current and future employees will appreciate your effort to make this year’s recruiting season a hit!