"Experience of a Lifetime" - Anonymous employee Vail Resorts Employee Review

4.0
Mar 12, 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Awesome perks Wonderful and supportive management Great way to experience a new place and culture while making a decent living Room for growth if you can stick it out

Cons

Everyone starts from the bottom Transient staff by nature

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Vail Resorts Response
11y
Thank you for posting your review! We agree that there are some challenges by having a transient staff and part of that is the nature of the business. Vail Resorts has been making a large effort to empower our employees to own their development and encourage the employees to find his/her long term position. Some of the resources offered are ‘Leadership Development classes – open to all employee levels, webinars and local learning series for all types of soft and hard skills as well as the access to Mentor and Connections programs. Through many of these programs we have seen the successful placement of employees from a seasonal position to a year round role. We are currently working on compiling many of these success stories to be published on our jobs website, so you will be able to see the path that some employee’s chose to take and hopefully it will lend insight into those searching how to find their long term placement. Thank you for all that you do and sticking it out with us!

Explore other reviews about Vail Resorts

5.0
Jun 12, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The managers were really cool and the work was fun. Pretty relaxed environment.

Cons

It was cold sometimes and long hours standing but that was all in the job description and we got jackets.

2.0
May 14, 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
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