A Career At Cedar Point

Jobs like you are looking for are hard to come by, especially if you live in Canada and want a job at CP. I would think your best bet is to get "similar" experience that can be applied to the work done at the parks. Then, its all a matter of being in the right place at the right time and possibly knowing the right people to get a job.

You're also going to need to study all the laws, codes, and other building restrictions used in the US as I know they differ from those used in Canada.

I guess no one had an answer for you? It's a question many before you have asked. The tough answer is that it's beyond a long shot. No need to get upset about a tangent, though. Having the discussion go in off in another direction isn't anything personal.

All I can tell you is to keep an eye on this page. I know it seems like a no-brainer to you that they could use someone with your skills, but those types of positions are limited and don't exactly come open everyday. When they do, it's often someone working their way up.

Lots of people want to jump into careers at Cedar Point, but job openings are few and far between. It would have been much easier if you had started 15 years ago in ride maintenance and worked your way up. To make that kind of jump into a mid-level position without any previous experience there is very rare.

Thanks Walt/Tim.

At least now I have a little bit more to go on, allbeit not the most encouraging responses that I was hoping for.

Just out of curiosity, what are your relationships with Cedar Point and/or your experiences in the engineering and construction industries? I'm interested to know about your 'inside information' about these matters.

Have you tried contacting the ride manufacturers (Intamin, B&M) directly?

From the sounds of it, you want to do more of the engineering aspect of ride construction, which CP doesn't do. That might be a more direct (and easier) route into the ride construction biz.

I was a seasonal landscaper for six seasons (starting in 1993). At Cedar Point, Landscaping is part of the maintenance department. Working on this web site (and its predecessors) has given me the opportunity to develop relationships and friendships in other departments.

We have former PointBuzz members who have gone on to full-time work at Cedar Point, so I have seen how they have each made their individual climb in the company. In every one of those cases, there was previous seasonal experience.

I'm an architect/construction manager who was also an Imagineer for Disney. I unfortunately don't have a relationship with Cedar Point, but I know that getting into the industry is really tough for all the reasons Walt said. I'd love to work for CP in their planning and design department, but I know its a long shot. If Disney wasn't effing up their Imagineering department so much, I'd love to go back there. You just can't beat a creative environment like that. Cedar Point would be my second choice, especially since they have so many properties now (and its quite obvious the same planning department works on them all).

This is great! Now we're getting somewhere!

While I was still in university (1993 or so), I sent a letter to Arrow Dynamics expressing my interests in roller coaster design from a structural point of view. To my amazement I received a reply letter from Ron Toomer to address my questions. Unfortunately he basically stated what you've already said, that its a very difficult and select industry to get in to.

After school I sent resumes to all the North American based roller coaster manufacturers (GCI, CCI, Arrow, etc.) to no avail. Three years ago I received a telephone call from Jeff Pike at GCI for a telephone interview. However, when he finished off the interview by saying, 'I can't garantee there will still be work is six months', that pretty much ended the phone call.

Up here, Canada's Wonderland is really the only option to get 'inside experience'. Now that its a Cedar Fair property, maybe it'll actually go somewhere.

I was hoping that through this discussion group some suggestions would be made to point me in the right direction. Thanks for your inputs.

halltd,

With Lasseter coming back to the company I thought there were some indications that Imagineering was going to be revitalized and given the necessary resources to dream once again. Is that not happening?

As for getting in at the Point, Walt is right. 9 1/2 times out of 10, someone will have been a seasonal LONG before they get hired full time. I was one of the rare exceptions and it was dumb luck more than anything else that got me the opportunity. And, I will tell you, people in the company were shocked I'd been hired simply because they didn't know me.

The bottom line is there is a finite number of jobs available. People tend to stay at the Point, or inside of Cedar Fair, for the lengths of their careers. When the occassional job DOES open it up there are countless seasonal employees with many summers of experience who would be vying for that rare opening.

Let's assume that Park Operations has 20 full time employees (not sure how accurate that number is...but for argument's sake we will stick with it). Now let's figure there are several HUNDRED seasonal positions in Park Ops. Of those, it is safe to assume that there are several dozen seasonals that would be interested in full time.

So, when one job opens there are going to be at least 30-40 people who are interested, and I'll bet at least a dozen or more have more than 5 seasons of experience with the company. That doesn't include the full time employees in OTHER DEPARTMENTS that might be wanting to move to Park Ops.

I had 7 years of experience in Park Ops at parks other than Cedar Point. Then, I acquired 4 years of experience in one department at the Point. Several times I expressed interest in, and even interviewed for, jobs both at the Point and at sister parks. I never got the opportunity to make a move. So, I had to consider if that was something I wanted to do the rest of my life and the answer was no.

Of course, when I left the company Cedar Fair had 4 parks and not the 11 or so it has now. So, arguably, there are more opportunities for advancement now. But, there are also more seasonals waiting in the wings.

In other words, it is a pretty big longshot that you are going to get a full time job at a Cedar Fair park unless you have some summers of experience. Impossible? No. But, highly unlikely.