Making My Dream Job a Reality

From operations to administration, to guest services and more, meet the people who make the Mountain so special! 1. Where are you from? I was born and raised in Oakville, Ontario, but I moved to Toronto to attend school at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University) and lived there for about 6 years before moving to Collingwood. 2. How long have you been working at Blue? I’ve been lucky to work at Blue for almost 5 months since mid-June. 3. What made you decide to apply for a position with Blue Mountain? When I told my friends that I was moving to work at Blue, one of them responded “It’s like you manifested this for yourself.” which gave me a good laugh. Partly because I’ve never been much of a believer in manifestation, but also because she was kind of right. For a few years since the pandemic began, my partner and I started seriously considering moving out of Toronto, the city we both adored and called home, to the Collingwood area since he has family in Wasaga Beach. We’ve spent a week here each summer and fall for as long as we’ve been together and would make the drive up many weekends in the winter to night ski with our 5×7® Passes or stay in the Village for an extended long weekend. When evaluating what we wanted from our life, we concluded that Collingwood would be a better long-term lifestyle fit for us, since we love to bike, hike, ski & snowboard, swim, kayak, visit breweries, and more. We’re also excited to hopefully purchase our first home next year, something we knew would take much longer to achieve in Toronto or the GTA. My best-case scenario was always working at Blue, ideally in Marketing, making content that I loved and enjoying all that the Mountain has to offer. When I received a careers email for the perfect open role (yes I had HR notifications on #nerdalert) I jumped at the chance to apply. I’m proud to say that I was able to truly make my dream come true and feel honoured that the Blue crew welcomed me with open arms! 4. What department do you work for? What is your position? My title is Social Media & Content Specialist, as part of the Communications team in the Marketing Department. 5. What was your work experience in the past? I started in social media work at a digital media company making interior design online content for about a year and a half. While there, I also started freelancing for several small businesses on the side, which I still do today. I then worked at as a Social Media Specialist for several Canadian retailers before joining Blue. 6. What things were important to you when looking for in a job in your field? When looking for new roles in my field, I’ve always believed in only applying to companies I know I’d be excited to work for. In my professional experiences, I’ve worked for some awesome teams that value employee retention, sustainability, equity, diversity and inclusion, and who treat their customers and their talent with respect, all values that I share. Mainly, I wanted a manager and a team who would champion my work, provide adequate feedback when addressing my mistakes, and who liked to have as much fun as I do while still getting the work done. Because I had experience in contract work, I wanted a position that was permanent with health benefits, fair compensation, and regular working hours that fit my lifestyle. All of the above were offered in my role at Blue! 7. What were some of the biggest barriers to finding employment? When I was in the city, there was a much larger talent pool when applying to jobs so it was always tough to cut through the crowd and stand out. In Collingwood, there was a lack of roles in my field that provided everything that I listed above, so I had to seek out individual companies I was interested in to see their postings, rather than rely so heavily on job boards. 8. What has been the best part of your experience so far? The people at Blue are the GOAT. Due to the nature of my role, I get to interact with many staff members across the whole resort, and I love that I get to be my natural social butterfly self with people who often match my energy. I also love that there is a healthy mix of desk work, outdoors work, and work from home opportunities. 9. What has been your biggest challenge? The biggest challenge is meeting friends outside of Blue. While I love who I work with, my partner and I are slowly meeting new people in town to make new friends and create relationships that we’re hoping will last a lifetime. I’ll always have my friends back home, but I want to experience living here as much as possible rather than driving to and from the city every month! 10. What are you looking forward to most at Blue Mountain? I’m so excited for the snow to hit the Mountain and for ski season to begin. I’ve been a skier all my life and I can’t wait to start making more winter content to share on our social pages. Plus, the après this year is going to be like none other now that I live in town! 11. What’s your biggest piece of advice for someone applying at Blue Mountain? My biggest piece of advice is to 1. Be yourself, and 2. Turn on your employment email notifications! When applying, I never would have known of this position if I hadn’t researched it before and turned on those notifications for the marketing department. And I never would have been offered the role if I wasn’t my usual bubbly self during the interview. There’s something to say about the culture of Blue Mountain – you don’t need to have the loudest laugh or shred the most gnar, but you do need to put your best self forward, be honest with your capacity for taking on new challenges, and have fun with the opportunities you will most definitely get! Are you interested in applying to Blue Mountain this season? Check out our careers page here, and learn more about our open positions. We’re excited to hopefully welcome you to the Blue Crew!