How to Get a Job on a Cruise Ship

Last month, I blogged about working on a cruise ship and pointed out many of the numerous benefits of working at sea. In the aftermath of that post, a number of you wrote in wondering just how you land such a sweet job. Well, here’s the scoop:

There are three basic ways to get hired to work on a cruise liner:

1. Apply, interview with and be offered a job directly from the cruise line. Want to work on a Carnival cruise ship, send off your email to Carnival. Better yet, check their website for open positions. But either way, it’s hard to make your resume stand out unless you know someone (or someone who knows someone — aka work your network.)
2. Apply for a cruise ship job listed on one of the many online cruise ship job boards. A good place to start? JobMonkey content partner CruiseJobFinder.com. They have shared some of their info with JobMonkey for many years.
3. Apply, interview with, and be offered a job with a cruise ship concessionaire. What’s a concessionaire? Only the best bet for getting hired to work on a cruise ship. If you subscribe to the JobMonkey newsletter, you already know all about concessionaires, since we reported on them a few weeks ago. If not, here’s a quick recap:

Concessionaire companies rent out space on the cruise ships to run retail-based operations. Think of it like the sunglasses stand at the mall — only on a much bigger (and floating) scale. Concessionaires typically run the following operations on a cruise ship:

• Gift shop
• Photography service
• Beauty salon
• Casino
• Day Spa
• Café
• Day trips/off-board excursions

90% of American cruise lines work with concessionaires, as do many of the Mediterranean and European lines. Concessionaire salary jobs are on par with regular cruise ship salaries, and like cruise line jobs, all your living expenses are covered while you are at sea.

There are hundreds of concessionaires, ranging from a ten-person operation to an international enterprise with thousands of employees. One of the biggest is Steiner One World Spa. Come visit JobMonkey to learn more about working through a cruise ship concessionaire.