Can I trust these cruise ship job sites?

January 22, 2007 8:27 PM

A friend of mine wants to be a cruise ship florist.

She lives in a drydocked sailboat on the Olympic Peninsula, with no phone service. She asked me to look online for her dream job, but the only sites I find seem like big scams. They want money (via credit card) and scads of personal information, including a physical address, up front. She has neither a credit card nor a physical address. She does have a cell phone. I think perhaps the internet cannot help her. Am I giving up too easily?

posted by owhydididoit to work & money (12 comments total)

I wouldn't trust a "job service" for something like that... I'd look up the contact information for each individual cruise line and find out how to send an application to them directly.
posted by amyms at 8:33 PM on January 22, 2007

I got a list of cruise ship jobs on Monster.com without entering information. [if it asks, just say 'no thanks']. Also a couple on Craigslist.com.
posted by Osmanthus at 8:35 PM on January 22, 2007

I bought a book at Amazon that had snail-mail addresses, phone numbers, and websites for all the major cruise lines. It would say when they accepted applications, how they preferred to accept them, etc. It also included info about living arrangments on each of the ships, average pay for that cruise line, and stories from previous/current employees. It was only $12 or so at Books-A-Million so maybe she could find one locally. Sorry, I can't remember the exact name of the book. One tip I will offer, I got triple the responses after an insider suggested including a wallet-sized photograph with my resume.
posted by Ugh at 8:43 PM on January 22, 2007

Oh, and yes, please stay away from any site that offers you inside information for a small fee. Yes, they are total scams, along with those that offer a subscription to cruise job postings. If you go to any of the major cruise line websites, it will tell you exactly what they are hiring for and many have printable applications. You could always just print and pass those along to her.
posted by Ugh at 8:47 PM on January 22, 2007

There are many jobs for Americans on cruise ships, but many are essentially off-limits because of industry hiring practices. Working in a kitchen, for example, or being a maid, or actually being a member of the crew (as opposed to the cruise direction and recreational staff). Florists might fall into this category, because, while artistic, it's essentially back-of-the-house work.

So, your friend has a chance to be Julie McCoy. But not Captain Stubing, Issac, Gopher or Dr. Bricker.
posted by frogan at 8:53 PM on January 22, 2007

Just start by calling the cruise lines directly. 888-CARNIVAL. Ask for the number for personnel. Explain what you want to do and hopefully someone will know who you should to talk to.

That's how I did it. I just made calls for a few days to all of the big lines and eventually got the number and address of the dudes who hire musicians. Gave them a call, sent in a demo, and I was on the ship a few months later.
posted by nonmyopicdave at 10:11 PM on January 22, 2007

A friend of mine ran a boutique on a cruise ship for a year and said two things that your friend might find interesting:

1. There are hiring restrictions that are based on the country of registry for the ship, so if the ship is registered in Norway (as a lot of them are), they need to keep the crew at least X% Norwegian to maintain rights to dock as a Norwegian liner. That number X varies from port to port, so they work with the most restrictive number. It's often 60-70%, from what my friend says.

2. She also tells me that life on the ship can be really awful and isolating. It's hard to leave the ship with passengers when the ship docks, so the crew ends up spending up quite a bit of time on the ship, rather than off it.
posted by LGCNo6 at 11:18 PM on January 22, 2007

As Seattle is a major port for Alaska-bound cruises, many major cruise lines actually have offices in the city. If your friend lives out on the Olympic Peninsula, it might be worth going by one or more of those offices next time they come into Seattle.
posted by Inkslinger at 2:09 AM on January 23, 2007

There are many jobs for Americans on cruise ships, but many are essentially off-limits because of industry hiring practices.

I think this bears repeating: it's perfectly legal to hire international crew, for international wages, and that's what shipping companies do. Unless your friend can and wants to compete with someone with a diploma in floristry from a college in Manila, she's highly unlikely to get the kind of job she wants. But good luck with the searching, anyway.
posted by Lebannen at 4:52 AM on January 23, 2007

Try coolworks.com. They have cruise ship listings.
posted by Alpenglow at 7:02 AM on January 23, 2007

Most of the special services like the spa, salon, etc. on cruise ships are owned/operated by concessionaires who do their own staffing. I am guessing that the florist shop is run the same way. That is the first question your friend needs to ask: who runs the florist, cruise ship or concessionaire?
posted by necessitas at 7:36 AM on January 23, 2007

Thanks, y'all!
posted by owhydididoit at 12:44 PM on January 23, 2007