For many people, the call of the great outdoors is too strong to resist. You love spending time in the wilderness, on the water, and traveling across the country. In fact, that’s why you chose to make it your profession—but breaking into the industry and building your career can be harder than it looks.

A big part of the reason it’s trickier than in the past to lock down a job in The Great Outdoors is that hiring trends have evolved. There are cultural aspects of the industry that are expected in any candidate, but there is also increased competition from peripheral industries like automotive and general sales. As a result, many businesses serving niche client bases are working with recruiters to find qualified applicants rather than investing in traditional hiring practices.

You may be able to find your way through the forest without a map, but navigating the outdoor industry jobs market can feel impossible. Fortunately, at V20 Recruiting, we’re experts in connecting talent and employers in outdoor sectors like powersports, the marine industry, RV industry, and recreation. We’ve got a long track record of matching great candidates to the top jobs, and we can show you how to get your foot in the door.

Passion Is Powerful… But What Else Does It Take?

The dream of every employer is to find team members who love their industry as much as they do. It makes for knowledgeable and enthusiastic employees who understand what customers are looking for and can connect them with practical advice.

That being said, there are a lot of skilled workers aging out of the outdoor, powersports, and RV industries, and they need to be replaced by skilled business professionals who have the knowledge and expertise to fill their hiking boots. You can’t just be passionate—you need to bring the toolkit it takes to maintain industry standards and be prepared to take them to another level.

Even if you have both passion and professionalism, with growing pools of applicants that often overlap with other industries, it’s not always clear what employers are looking for. If you’re trying to stand out in a large pool of online applicants who may have management experience in non-outdoor sales fields, is it more important to highlight your outdoor job history or showcase leadership credentials that aren’t directly related to the job?

This problem isn’t just on the candidate side of the equation—employers aren’t always sure how to pick through the pile and identify the right investment either. That’s why they’re increasingly turning to highly focused industry recruiters who can cut through the fog.

However, recruiters can’t function without talent, so if you’re looking for outdoor industry jobs you’ve got to make the first move, pick up the phone, and call. That’s why it doesn’t cost you a dime to access our recruiters at V20. If you’re a great candidate, our clients want you—and we can help you develop the resume and skills you need to build a career, not just land a job.

Be a Great Investment, not the Total Package

It’s easy to feel intimidated when you’re dealing with a faceless online application process, and it can lead to writing resumes that are bulky, unfocused, and try to cover all the bases at once. Unfortunately, attempting to showcase everything you know actually waters down your credibility and relevant qualifications.

What you need to understand from the get-go is that employers aren’t looking for a finished product. Will you need to get those critical skills? Absolutely, but employers expect to train you—especially for outdoor industry jobs with very specific inventory and business angles. The key to being successful is demonstrating that you have the potential to be worth the investment, and a lot of that is intangible and difficult to spot on a resume.

That’s where a recruiter comes in. The reason businesses rely on them to fill positions is because they can find out if you have the desire, commitment, and disposition to make the most of the opportunity. On top of that, they make sure that a great candidate’s resume tells a specific employer what they need to know. That’s how you get ahead in the hiring process, and it’s why many outdoor industry employers have long-standing relationships with their most trusted recruiters.

Power Wash Your Social Media

While employers for the top outdoor industry jobs rely on recruiters for a lot, they certainly do their fair share of due diligence and research before pulling the trigger. Is it going to be as simple as a Google search of your name? Probably, and if you’ve got some questionable content out there, it’s going to be found.

70% of employers report using an applicant’s social media accounts to screen them, and it goes directly to the question of finding employees worth investing in. If you’re using your social media presence to post content that represents a potential liability for them, they’re going to throw your resume in the trash no matter what a recruiter tells them.

You need to view your relationship with your recruiter as a partnership, and if you want the best from the opportunity, you’ll need to demonstrate flexibility and a hunger to succeed. Show them you’re a serious prospect and scrub the following off your social media accounts:

• Profanity
• Drugs/alcohol posts or pictures
• Aggressive political content
• Discriminatory language of any sort (sexism, racism, hate speech, etc.)
• Anything relating to violence
• Disparaging former/current employers and colleagues
• Lies, especially pertaining to your qualifications
• Plagiarism
• Unprofessional behavior

If you aren’t able to complete this, at least set your profile to ‘private’, temporarily disable it, delete it, etc. And a great rule of thumb is, if you would be surprised to see it on an employer’s Instagram page, don’t put it on yours.

Connect with the Best Outdoor Industry Jobs Recruiter

Many employers are still posting outdoor industry jobs online, but they’re rarely—if ever—hiring from those pools. The big players in the business know what they’re about, they’re ready to invest in a great employee with a solid skill package and a passion for the business who will deliver huge returns over the course of a career.

That’s the biggest advantage of forming close partnerships with recruiting agencies like V20 Recruiting, and it’s why qualified candidates need to pick up the phone and connect. We’ve been placing top candidates in outdoor industry jobs for years, and our clients have come to rely on us to deliver the talent they need.

That’s why there’s no cost to work with us if you’re a qualified candidate—if you’re willing to put in the work to succeed, you’re exactly what our clients want. We’ll help you with resume services, career advice, networking in the industry, and interviewing skills to make sure you’re ready to land the job once we’ve got it on the hook.

But we can’t help until we hear from you! Reach out directly to one of our team of recruiters in your field today, and supercharge your career search today.