About 600 hopefuls seeking employment this winter were shoulder to shoulder at the Banff Ski Job Fair last week – about double the number organizers had predicted would attend.
When the doors opened on Oct. 1 for the 18th annual hiring fair at Cascade Plaza, the size of the crowd was a “standout” this year, said Director of the Job Resource Centre Michel Dufresne.
“This one is the biggest recruiter in the valley for skiing right now,” Dufresne said. “This crowd of people we got … I would say 300 just got here and 300 (already living in the area) are looking for winter jobs.”
The jobs offered were various entry-level jobs at ski hills, hotels, retail, and restaurants, with approximately 100 job offers on the day and 100 followups, Dufresne said. Although up to 300 applicants may be considered.
With the large number of applicants eager to show they have the right stuff for the job, some candidates, like Frank Kazantzis, who expected to potentially walk away with a job that day, will nervously wait for a call back. In Canada for just a few days, Kazantzis came here with his wife from Melbourne, Australia, seeking employment.
“I think it’s been positive, obviously a lot of people turned out,” said Kazantzis. “I guess at the same time that builds a lot of anxiety ‘cause you think, ‘How am I going to stand out; how am I going to get a job?’ But, yeah, it’s been positive seeing all the big companies are here everyone’s been really friendly.
“I guess having been through it now, I didn’t know what to expect before. It would have been good to know you weren’t necessarily going to leave here with a job in hand and that it was a good way to show your face and see what was out there as well.”
An employer avid to fill jobs for the upcoming season is Mike Wiegele Helicopter Skiing (MW).
Rui Dykeman, food and beverage manager at MW, was on hand to speak with candidates at the MW booth and said with 15-30 positions to fill, the company aims at hiring about eight-10 people at the event.
“There are a lot of qualified and interested people,” Dykeman said. “Typically, we hire attitude first, then train the skillset necessary for self motivated individuals and self starters.”
Meanwhile, a walk up and down Banff Avenue or Canmore’s Main Street will present dozens of help wanted signs from employers still anxious to fill jobs for the upcoming fall and winter seasons. On the Banff-Canmore Resource Centre website, currently over 100 jobs are listed as available.
In June 2015, a third of the service and hospitality job market was available for employment, according to the Banff Lake Louise Hotel Motel Association. In total, 485 jobs were filled out of 696.
For further aid in finding employment opportunities in Banff and Canmore, visit jobresourcecentre.com. The Rocky Mountain Outlook newspaper is also a leading source for job opportunities in its Careers Section every Thursday.
