I’m nearing the end of my training and looking for career opportunities. I am mainly interested in Western companies that are offering or interested in applications for J3/O, 3/O or 2/O.
I am scheduled to do my last sea service in August until mid October, before starting my orals preparation course at the beginning of November. This will bring my total sea time during my cadetship to just under 15 months all spent on container ship’s between 6300 to 7000 TEU. (All registered in the UK)
Hopefully by the end of January I will have been awarded my OOW2 Unlimited ticket and ready for employment.
It’s great to start seeing some international participation on this site. It’s our goal to encourage more participation outside the US as I think we all have alot to learn from each other’s experiences.
I don’t have an answer right now for you but will look into incorporating the types of jobs you are looking for into our Maritime Jobs section. You may also look into joining a maritime group on LinkedIn as I’ve seen a few similar jobs posted in the past on the MAREX group.
Last, most of the people who have found jobs on gCaptain (and there have been many) found them because their fellow mariners posted them. Your best bet might be to help other UK cadets and mariners learn about our site. We can help you out here by creating a new forum section for UK mariners or even creating a forum for your specific maritime academy.
Feel free to contact me anytime regarding this… info (at) gcaptain.com
I’ll take your offer up on promoting your website to other Cadets across the pond. The website is great and has a lot of tools and resources we could use throughout and after our cadetships.
I’ll talk with my head lecturer at Fleetwood Nautical College about sticking a few posters up around the campus and on the notice boards, then I’ll inform some friends down south at Warsash Maritime Academy.
Also, again thanks for the link to LinkedIn and your help.
What I would like to advice you; aim higher than a job as a junior on an “ordinary” merchant ship. From what I’ve seen 25 years at sea, the “easy” jobs (containers, bulkers,…) are all taken over by low-wages-seamen (with all due respect; I am not a racist, just talking economical realities here). This trend will continue towards more diffucuklt ships, tankers, etc…
Better to aim for a high-end niche market, like DP-operator, or a job in offshore, special ships, dredging, away from the normal carreer paths, where your high level of education pays off, also in extra job satisfaction.
I know I will offend a lot of people, but I’ve tasted both: merchant marine and dredging, and I have my preferences.
I am sure you get a lot of advice and what Caps says is very good. However, not that I want to advise or sound like I am preaching, I think there are a few more factors to consider.
With your second mates ticket you should have a second mates position. I recall a “story” from years ago where a 2/E was taking his C/E orals. The examiner duly passed him and handed him his slip. The examiner then asked him what his plans were to which the 2/E replied; “I will probably do a couple more trips as 2/E for experience and then apply for a C/E position”. At which point the examiner reached over and took the slip back saying, “I pass Chief Engineers not Second Engineers”.
The days of only getting the position below the ticket that you have should be long gone.
As Caps says, specialist ships always need the best people…Masters of today’s modern LNGs certainly earn top dollar.
But this industry also needs its fair share of people to come ashore…pilots, surveyors, harbour masters, port captains/superintendents, college lecturers and examiners to name but a few.
I do not think many of us knew what our long term goals were when we went to sea (well I certainly did not!)…marriage, kids, mortgage, the thought of Christmas at home etc etc. All I could think about was fun in the sun, but what about when you get past that?
While the “easy jobs” as Caps says again, might be easy and lower paid, will promotion be quicker? How important is that? Ambition, money, future career path all come into play and knowing that sooner rather than later could be useful. Certainly once you get your sea time in it might be a good idea to get back to college for mates and masters as quickly as possible.
BTW, is FNC’s Navaids cabin on stilts still down on the beach at Fleetwood? (Separate story on that one).