OP, if you can, try posting on some Facebook groups in Quebec. I’ve seen a few posts lately from young people looking for barn work and saying they want to learn, so perhaps you might get some interest from people in areas who have less access to high-quality coaching and might be willing to relocate to you.
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I do newsletters and a magazine for an association of manufacturers. For the past year, the labour shortage has figured prominently in every edition. Next year they are planning an entire year around that theme. An entire year.
Shortage of labour is a thing in most industries. I can’t help but think it’s an issue in the horse industry as well.
There are 2 largish barns close to me that import pretty much all their working students from Europe. So, that would be my suggestion - use whatever overseas connections you have to get the word out across the pond if nothing comes out of a re-write of your ad to target NA working students.
In that re-write, along with a lot of the great suggestions above about how to re-frame the position, I’d also include a bit of a CV and a small portion on where your top working students have ended up.
Additionally, if you are relying heavily on FB to get the word out, pay the fee for a boost. You will reach a LOT more people.
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I’m spending Christmas with friends, including a 15 year old daughter. Today, Christmas Eve, she has already put in 4 hours of revision for mock mock exams (yes, a practice of the practice before the real ones) due immediately she returns to school. Habitually she comes home from a full day at school and has another 3 even 4 hours of home work. Fortunately, over this Christmas Break, the regular Synchronized Swimming weekend practice of 4 hours Saturday and 4 hours Sunday is on hold, until the New Year. Amateur, not professional sport, children not adults. I am not expected to put out that much effort at work or in my sport - and I have three degrees, a professional qualification, numerous certificates and have held down a responsible job for decades.
Modern teenagers aren’t work shy: they are exhausted, over supervised and they never have time or opportunity to learn to do things for themselves. They are being pushed constantly to achieve for other people: parents, school, coach and it is all wrapped up as being for the benefit of the young person. They and their peers are plugged into the internet, with social media influencers telling them how they should be “perfect” or how to become “perfect” through consumption. I am growing to hate that word “perfect”.
I am so glad I’m not a modern teenager. I’m so glad I’m not at the beginning of adulthood.
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Agree with all you say. Add COVID into the mix and they are being deprived of all of the fun and social learning that teenagers and university students need to become well balanced productive citizens. The kids are indeed exhausted…and that is a whole generation that will be affected.
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This is what’s causing a shortage of equine veterinarians as well.
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the comment about “this is too much work” was a specific reference by that person regarding the ride on the GP schoolmaster alone and nothing else. Nothing to do with the job itself. The person thought it was too hard to ride the horse.
this suggests that some people looking for WS gigs don’t have a realistic idea of what it takes to ride a talented horse.
Maybe from your view the internet/social media doesn’t play a role, but in many other peoples’ viewpoints it does.
Young people these days get used to instant everything on the internet. I’ve heard many people talk about how it is difficult to get kids to stay off their iphones, ipads, etc. and do actual physical work.
Doing physical work doesn’t equate to having an abusive WS job. When I was a a kid, I did very phsyically demanding jobs on a horse farm, but that was mostly in the morning. I got to spend the afternoons exercising horses. There were no iphoines, ipads, etc. as distractions.
Instant gratification does have a tendency to create unrealistic expectations when people can’t detach themselves from their electronics.
a lot of kids don’t want to do any kind of hard physical work (mucking stalls, etc.) even when paid a decent wage to do it.
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SM phone addiction isn’t about instant gratification so much as it is about anxiety. Also a way of escaping from intense pressure and anxiety at the moment.
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I’m not sure why doing physical labor is romanticized as some sort of morally superior form of labor. Breaking down your body at a young age in a country without adequate health care does not sound appealing to me! Plus it is not valuable on a resume if you ever get injured and need a non physical job
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Blame the social media companies (and Amazon as well). They make their products addictive, they know what they are doing. Also, older generations are not immune to the effects of social media/internet. I know of several instances seeing older adults at their computer playing games or on Facebook instead of working.
Out of curiosity, I browsed the jobs ads in the equine industry over the past year around the area where I lived. I came across ads that made me shake my head, having high expectations for low pay and unprofessional ads. If I saw ‘no drama’ listed, I would be turned off immediately (is this seen only in the equine industry? Imagine seeing ‘no drama’ in an ad for a tech position…). Some trainers want young people so they don’t have to pay as much and so they can take advantage of them because they don’t know better. And if someone has dipped their toe in the industry, they learn to start asking around of which trainers to avoid.
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physical labor != breaking your body down.
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As your comment implies, “escaping from intense pressure… AT THE MOMENT”, is a form of instant gratification.
This isn’t directed at the OP, who is offering a fair compensation package, but until recently, I too sort of took the attitude for granted that to work with horses meant sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, probably because of my background in publishing/the arts. Almost as if it’s not a job, but a vocation.
Although there is less backbreaking labor in those art and publishing positions, there is kind of an unspoken expectation that you’re grateful to work for long hours for a revered, talented person for almost nothing (or pay to do so), to “make it” in the industry. And yet, often the people at the very top are spending God knows how much money on frivolous things, and people who don’t work hard but who have money and connections get opportunities the “hard workers” don’t. Even at lower level barns, I see the “can’t afford to pay the help, but can afford to breed several mares” mentality.
I agree that there is less of a willingness (and also, perhaps less of a physically active culture) among young people. Maybe computers are partially to blame. (I was never very talented physically myself, when young, so I can’t judge.) But I also think older employers are often (but not always) unwilling to reconsider their business model, if they can’t offer fair compensation. I’ve seen some barns, for example, eagerly glom onto kids who are wiling to work for free to ride, and then unsurprisingly when there’s too much work for the kid to ride, and school kicks up a notch, the kid has little incentive to stay, and then the younger generation gets blamed for not being willing to work, when a better solution might have been just to pay someone cash (and not buy a new horse that year).
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This.
I was going to ask OP if she could offer the gig minus the room and board, if an adult rerider might suit. Its something to consider.
I did a WS gig at about age 48. It was great and awful, for all the reasons we’ve all heard about WS positions.
In the end it just killed my desire to work for any more crazy horse ladies.
I know they exist, but figuring out who isnt one is hard to do, even with references.
Eta one of the things I look for in horse farm ads is the detail wrt stall cleaning.
Is it 10 stalls or 100, am I doing them alone or as part of a crew, and is it with wheelbarrows or a tractor and spreader. Each of those can make a huge difference.
Details like that tell me whether I’m going to kill myself doing too many stalls, by myself, with a broken wheelbarrow, or if its a reasonable number of stalls with appropriate tools and just a great warm up for an exciting educational day.
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Yeah, I had a friend who is my age who went back to working in the horse industry after losing her white collar job. It’s grueling, and mentally as well as physically a huge shift. There is no HR department at a barn if you’re being unfairly treated.
Re: the equipment. Omg, totally, two barns I’m thinking of have perpetually broken barrows and pitchforks as well as a ramp you have to go up to dump the manure. Like, they can’t even be bothered to get equipment that works, and complain about not finding help.
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It can feel like you are the luckiest person in the world to be allowed to do this… Or the biggest, dumbest schmuck. The difference isn’t really the pay either, but the atmosphere and opportunity.
I’m pretty sure the OP is sorry she asked. I hope not, her gig sounds very nice.
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these days people are throwing in a ton of perks and still not finding people to take any sort of gig.
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Indeed.
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Kids are dreaming of this. https://fb.watch/a5YHl1gt-t/ They are not lazy. They are invested in a future that seems more possible, and productive, to them. SM is loaded with under 18 doing endless amazing things. Trainers seeking cheap labor band/or “those with equal passion” are going to have to come up with better reasons. I think horse industry folks are a bit taken aback at having to work…. To attract employees and WS.
The industry in the USA needs to start altering it’s models. Maybe more like a riding club. Maybe more like a ‘village’ where everyone needs to participate in the horse care because there is no 2nd class of folks available to do the work. Think public schools in Japan where the kids clean the school everyday. Maybe the minimum entry for lessons students should be 2 hours of paid ride time/week and 3 hours of barn work/week?
For sure what will not suffice is bad mouthing the (hoped for) working class and waxing wistful about the ‘good old’ days.
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As someone who’s been a WS, and who now runs my own farm, and coaches and trains, I’d like to say a few things, the first being that the OP is someone I know, and who’s offering something more than many offer WS, and who will deliver on her promises.
My WS experiences were wonderful. I worked very hard physically (guess what, riding horses all day is also working very hard physically), and I worked 7 days per week. I also learned more than I could have dreamed was possible, and made international connections within the industry which still serve me today. Doors were opened for me as a result of those connections, and I do not regret an instant of it.
However, I know of many many people who’ve been used and abused as working students. I sent one who was physically assaulted by the BNT whose barn it was, and she turned her back on the industry completely. On the other hand, I’ve sent clients to other barns with other (much bigger) BNT’s who did fabulously well, and who were and are thankful for the opportunities.
I have trained working students, and with one exception they were all rewarding individuals, who poured themselves into the possibilities, and who profited as riders, trainers, coaches and individuals. I do think it’s harder to find those people within our industry now, and I can’t say I blame SM, it’s just harder to find committed people to do many jobs, all over. Certainly on my side of the country YR are becoming a thing of the past, we just aren’t making YR in dressage. I think part of that is financial expense, and part of it is personal and emotional expense.
I hope that Liz finds the person she needs, and that that person finds her, because both will benefit.
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