, 4 min, 752 words
Tags: adventuring
This week I had the tremendous pleasure of accepting my first outdoor industry job: during summer 2018 I will be guiding kayak tours with Kayak Adventures Worldwide in Seward, Alaska. This company has a fabulous training program and a tight-knit community. On top of that, Seward is one of the most spectacular places I've ever seen. I couldn't be more excited. Here's how I went from "it might be fun to work outdoors?" to "heck yeah I'm going to work outdoors!"
My first serious conversation about what it takes to work in the outdoors was over the summer last year, when I sat down with two fabulous kayak guides in Alaska and absorbed a ton of wisdom from them. It was from these two amazing women that I learned what outdoor industry jobs tend to entail, when and where to start looking for them, and what's important in an application. Most significantly, they emphasized the importance of a wilderness first responder (WFR) certification. I took my WFR course in October through NOLS and it was an absolute blast. I wrote about it on an older blog (now updated to be here too!) if you want to hear more about it.
At that point, I started mentioning my harebrained work-in-the-outdoors plan to friends and family. Almost everyone I spoke with had a friend or two who'd done something similar. Many people were kind enough to introduce me to their outdoorsy friend(s), and I started hearing stories and advice about outdoor industry jobs.
Based on many such discussions, I decided I had four requirements for my foray into the outdoors. I wanted to be:
I mostly found positions through the NOLS Jobsnetwork, which is a treasure trove of outdoor industry jobs. It's free to NOLS alumni, though I've heard that non-alums can also access it. Using their handy filters, I was able to find a variety of positions that looked good to me. I ended up primarily looking at guiding, summer camps, and wilderness therapy.
Word of mouth also worked well for me, whether in conversations with friends of friends or on a shadow day with an amazing ski patrol team.
Over the course of about a month (late December to early February), I applied to:
I was also planning to apply to a bunch of others (you should have seen my browser tabs), but ended up getting an awesome offer before I got the chance.
For the places I applied, applications were due anytime between late December and mid-February, with many more falling later. In general, guiding jobs seemed to have earlier applications, while wilderness therapy and summer camps are much more spread out. The typical application process included a resume, some sort of cover letter or long-form answers to specific questions, a 30-45 minute interview over Skype/Google Hangouts, and reference contacts. The ordering of references vs interview was inconsistent, and next time I plan to be a little more upfront with my references about what I know and where I've applied.
In the end, I got 2.5 job offers, one rejection, and I retracted one application when I accepted my job with KAW. I learned a lot about working in the outdoors through the process, and more importantly I got to know many inspiring outdoorspeople. None of this adventure would have been possible without the support of friends, family, and coworkers. Thank you all for believing in me.