First of all - Extremely sorry if this should be posted elsewhere. If this is the case let me know
My partner (23) and I (27) currently live in Sydney, Australia and are looking into embarking on a working holiday in Canada for the Winter snow season. I was wondering if any of you have any tips / advice for us on the best way to go about organising short-term employment and accommodation. After doing a bit of research online it looks like organising a Visa is extremely easy for Australians so I am not to worried about that as it should be pretty straight forward. I am more concerned with the "where the hell are we going to work? And will be be able to find somewhere to live before we get there" kind of questions. I recently looked into an organisation called IEP (www.iep.org.au) who claim to organise employment on a ski resort as well as accommodation.....This is done by signing up with them, they then fly several resort managers to Australia on the 30th Aug who will interview my partner and I (individually) and if they like us, offer us a position at their resort. The catch is that they are asking for a $975 sign up fee which does not include costs such as flights, insurance, or even the $150 fee for applying for a Visa. It is also not guarenteed that we will get a job at the same resort, or even if we will both get accepted at all in which case we might have spent a lot of cash for no reason!
I then googled as much about IEP as possible and discovered many mixed feelings...these are pretty much summed up below:
Feeling 1: IEP is great, they organise everything for you and you arrive with a job on a ski field. Awesome!
Feeling 2: IEP or any similar organisation is a complete waste of money and any cluey person should be able to arrange VISA, Flight, Travel Insurance, Employment, Accommodation themselves with little hassle.
Can anyone comment?
Our aim is to arrange as much as we can from Australia and being older than 21 and in a relationship, we would prefer to stay in more of a share-house situation rather than some horrible dorm, filled with drunken teenagers. As far as work goes, we don't mind getting our hands dirty and understand the kind of jobs we would be applying for and how little they pay - that's all sweet, its a working holiday, not a career change. The big question is: how risky is it to NOT use a company like IEP. As far as location - we are pretty easy, so long as its near the snow and we can go riding every week without having to travel too far. Working for a resort would be great as most of them throw in a season lift pass! We won't be able to fly to Canada until around November as we need to wrap up our current jobs and also save up some enough money - so if we do need to wing it and just head over, live in a hostel for a while until we find work, is waiting until November to do so a really bad idea?
Any tips / stories / advice is greatly appreciated! thanks!