A real skiing Job?

I like your signature line there, it makes me sad though.

ok unless anyone has any great ideas to stop me destroying my knees, i shall change my question:

What are the best ski schools out there?

The more money you want to make, the more qualified you have to be.. my tip would be to keep working and work your way through the ranks on your holidays then go for it when you are a bit more qualified and can earn more money from the off.

Just my thoughts, I am sure someone else will be different.

RossF wrote:The more money you want to make, the more qualified you have to be.. my tip would be to keep working and work your way through the ranks on your holidays then go for it when you are a bit more qualified and can earn more money from the off.

Just my thoughts, I am sure someone else will be different.

I think that's right on the money, so much that I've given up getting any more ski instructor qualifications. There's too many people getting them now and too many people prepared to work in gap years or on sabbaticals for peanuts that it makes rates too low and careers non-existent. I think BASI and CSIA are starting to do good work in making their qualifications more professional but they're still not quite there at this time, but you can't change things overnight.

I agree with ise when i qualified there were not many ski instructors qualifiying each year basi ran some gap courses and a couple of companies ran Canadian gap courses but nowdays its like Mc Donalds basi have franchised it out to loads of ski companies and schools and anybody who is on a gap year who can stand on a pair of skis is churned through the system.

If your serious about getting a qualifications i would take the 7 grand it would cost you to do a gap and go somewhere like soldeau for a season get a part time job if needed and ski as much as possible.
Talk to the ski school its mainly Canadian and BASI instructors english speaking and im sure would let you shadow lessons all day every day. Once your in with the click they normaly run personal performance hours throughout the week and obviously you will be working on your personal skiing with a range of instructors that you shadow. They may use you for real teaching to cover sickness or busy weeks.
End of season book on the Canadian and Basi Exam weeks and you could end up with two sets of qualifications as well as a lot of work experience.

Think i may stick to the Austrian Qualifications, they seem to be one of the most respected and are much cheaper. Also i dont have to do a million years of shadowing for each one, and i can work for the increased rates straight away.

Still, for a long term goal im having trouble finding views on what the really great ski schools are, They all claim to be the best. Kinda hoping one of the guys on this site who go to austria all the time could reccommend schools they've used or heard good things about.