How to get a job on a cruise ship

Cruise industry has for decades now been one of the fastest growing in the world. More than ten new cruise ships are designed and put on oceans every year. This brings on thousands of employment vacancies for people with a sense of adventure who like all kinds of challenge while globetrotting the world on see and on land.

Cruise jobs are available onboard world-class luxury liners or yachts in romantic style just like in smaller vessels and steamboats. Moreover, staff is recruited also for the positions on land (customer service call centers, information technology departments, land excursion guides etc.).

Depending on what your skills and qualifications are, you can apply for a variety of positions aboard a cruise ship, whether it be technical officers and deckhands or entertainment and maintenance crew.

After you have carefully considered and evaluated your cruise employment choice, it is necessary to follow certain steps while applying for a position in order to be successful:

Job application

Make sure that your application form is neat and legible, preferably typed. Specify why you have chosen that particular cruise ship/line and position pointing out your social/technical and language skills (English and other). State when you are available to start your cruise job from and include your (cell) phone number where you can be reached.

Resume (Curriculum vitae)

Your resume (CV) should contain your education and employment history in reverse order (current job first). Include also your significant skills and competencies which are relevant to the position you are applying. Be aware of the fact that most of the cruise lines require also references that they can contact to approve of your experience.

Job interview

Once you are invited to a job interview, it is wise to disclose any circumstances to your employer that might pend your cruise job commitments.

Work visa

There are also some particularities which cruise lines apply. For example, the American brand of the Norwegian Cruise Line employs only US citizens or residents for their fleet in Hawaii. To make it easier to replace their job-holders within all their brands, the line prefers all their applicants to be US citizens.

However, if you are their new hire and not a US or Canadian citizen, you need to get a C1/D visa which you can obtain at the US Embassy of your country. Not to mention, you also need a valid passport. With the Carnival Lines and all five of their brands, all the applicants must be legally able to take up employment within the UK.

While the ship crews are mostly British, Canadian and American, the technical officers tend to be primarily Italians, Greeks or Norwegians. With some cruise lines the deck jobs and positions in engine rooms are done by Filipinos. It might be difficult to get this kind of jobs unless you are of the same nationality as the technical officers, deckhands or engine room crew since this part of the employment policy is a fixed routine in the cruise industry.

Flexibility

Another thing to mind, there is no guarantee that you will stay onboard of the ship where you have been originally placed, and if you wish to try out a different job position be also ready to be moved to another ship within the cruise line.

Job contracts

Normally the new hires are given job contracts for a period ranging from four to six months. It is therefore not very likely that you will be accepted for a cruise ship position just to cover the summer before getting back to your university or secondary school studies.

While the air ticket to reach your ship is covered by you, the way back home is usually paid by the cruise line as part of your contract. Unless, of course, you violate it in some way or other (there are many things to better avoid in order not to make the line authorities terminate your contract immediately, for example love affairs with ship guests or disrespecting zero alcohol tolerance while on duty).

End of contract / reassignment

When your current assignment is over, you might be issued a performance review (you definitely will with the Norwegian Line Corporation) upon which your further/future contract is considered and, if your performance proved satisfactory, before you leave the ship for a five-to-eight-month holiday back home you may be an owner of a return assignment with the cruise company. It does seem a smooth way of how to keep hired, which is not an easy thing as there still are some cruise lines which take on only applicants who have previously been employed by a cruise company (the more luxurious ship, the more likely the case).

All this acknowledged it is very important that your application and your resume are well-organized and truthful. Many cruise lines also appreciate if their applicants keep their applications updated and maintain their interest in the cruise ship jobs.