If you enjoy skiing, teach elsewhere. - Alpine Ski Instructor Vail Resorts Employee Review

1.0
2 May 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The mountains are great and teaching skiing is naturally fun.

Cons

Vail is a joke of a company in terms of how they treat their ski instructors. Their HR department is a mess. They'll pay you like a Wal-Mart employee as aforementioned (even if you have certs), while expecting you to act and work like you are being compensated well. Many of the full time instructors I knew needed other jobs just to get by. It seems that Vail Resorts preys on the passions their employees have for teaching and skiing as well as high turnover rates to justify their horrible wages, but who knows. I have taught at multiple other ski areas and worked for Fortune 100 companies as well as small startups; Vail Resorts is hands down the worst company I have worked for. I would highly recommend teaching at a mountain owned by another company if you are looking to make a living wage and be treated fairly.

Explore other reviews about Vail Resorts

5.0
30 Dec 2025
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

pay ski discounts employee housing

Cons

no cons during my* employment

2.0
14 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Most people are smart, passionate, and enjoyable to work with and be around. - Fairly frequent opportunities for development and advancement through the internal job board. - Nice perks if you're into skiing or riding.

Cons

- There's an unspoken expectation to regularly work significantly more hours because the majority of employees are very passionate about the ski and ride industry, which isn't great for work life balance. There's not much down time either; you're either hustling in season or hustling to prepare for the next season. - Climate change poses a significant threat to the future of the company. The season pass model mitigates some of the impacts, but not as much as senior leadership asserts. And, since bonuses are tied to company results, you can end up working super hard all year and still end up getting half of your bonus target due to uncontrollable weather conditions. - The culture has taken a serious hit since enterprise transformation work began. Lots of people are constantly stressed out and the atmosphere in the office is depressing. - Most of the time, it feels like senior leadership makes decisions in a vacuum without consulting any of the people that would be responsible for the downstream work associated with the decision. For example, I've seen senior leaders decide on a savings target multiple times without consulting the experts, who then have to scramble to figure out how to make it work. It creates chaos and negatively impacts morale. - This organization has a wordsmithing problem. I've never worked at a company that spends such an inordinate amount of time on the framing of a message compared to the actual substance of the message.

4
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All