I wanted the job very badly, and knew the odds I was up against. So I wrote
on my résumé that I was an expert in all kinds of activities, figuring that if I
was hired and sent to a village, I could learn whatever I needed to learn
before anyone found out what I didn’t know. I was hired and made a sailing
instructor. In my first week on the job, I was asked if I could take out 50 or
so GMs on the village’s 46-foot schooner. What was I to do? I said, “No
problem.” Things went great the first day, but a major storm cropped up on
my next voyage. I had visions of Gilligan’s Island, but didn’t panic and, luckily,
we had plenty of wine and food on board. I guess I lost my bearings, because
we ended up sailing into the cove of another hotel – on an island 30 miles
away!After the initial screen of résumés by Jacky and his staff, those who were
not invited to interview were sent rejection letters. The candidates who
were granted interviews were notified by mail or by telephone with details
about time and place. Interviews were conducted in major cities and on a
few college campuses in the United States and Canada by Jacky and by the
Club’s regional sales managers. Arizona State and, to a lesser extent, UCLA
and USC, had been fertile recruiting grounds for good GOs. A self-perpet-
uating grapevine had developed at Arizona State, which was located close
to the company’s national reservations center in Scottsdale. The candi-
dates, many of whom traveled fairly long distances, arrived up to four
hours early for their interviews (9 A.M. for morning interviews, 2 P.M. for
afternoon interviews). Jacky or the regional sales manager talked to all
applicants, as a group, about the merits of the Club before the individual
interviews began. Included in the 45-minute presentation was a short,
glamorous movie on Club Med, filmed in several exotic locations, showing
GOs at work and at play. (GOs were allowed to use the village’s sports
equipment when they had time.) Jacky said:
I do a good job when I give the presentation. I don’t hear any complaints. I
tell them the truth about the difficulties of being a GO, but in a funny way. I
tell them they will get responsibility right away. When the new GOs land in
the village they are immediately “on stage” – our term for GO interaction
with the guests. We say “the curtain goes up” when the GOs leave their
rooms in the morning, and “the curtain comes down” only when they go to
sleep. I believe on-the-job training is the best way for new GOs to learn to
interact with the guests; it is very difficult to simulate what goes on in a Club
Med village. We can teach them to become “technicians” – windsurfers, for
example – but we cannot teach them to become human beings.The candidates were interviewed by Jacky and two other Club Med per-
sonnel who had been GOs (and often had been village chiefs as well). Each
interviewer conducted a 30-minute interview with each candidate and
The recruitment and internal market domains 345