How to Optimize Your Employment Profile

Before start reading about optimizing your Employment Proifle and getting noticed by employers, please make sure that you have already registered online and have created your profile. In case you have not, please Register Online - it's fast and it's free.

We can not stress enough on the issue of how important are your employment profile look and content for the success of your job search. Your profile is the very first impression that a potential employer or recruiter will get about you and depending on this impression he/she will take the decision whether to keep reading the information that you have provided or to move to the next candidate. Please, take your time to read and follow the instructions below since they are written entirely for your own benefit. Certain things might look like a common sense to many of you, but believe us, we have seen a vast number of profiles with many grammatical, punctuation, stylistic and other errors. While in most cases we fix most of them for the Premium Cruise Job Seeker Package users, we just can not do that for those of you with Basic Cruise Job Seeker accounts.

1. Adding a Resume

Adding a resume to your profile is not compulsory (if you complete all fields properly and with the necessary details, the employer will get a good idea about your qualification and work experience). If you have a resume, though, we strongly advise that you add it to your profile.

You might wonder why we have provided two different ways for adding a resume - uploading a file and copy-pasting the resume into the box at the bottom of the profile. Either way is OK, the more popular is to upload a file. Each method has a specific purpose, though and the ideal profile would have a resume both uploaded and copy-pasted.

When an employer is glancing through different profiles, the chances are that he/she would notice a resume, which is copy-pasted, since this does not involve downloading it to his/her computer. This way you have everything displayed on your profile ready for a quick review.

On the other hand if and employer is interested in your profile and would like to save your resume in her/his files, she/he would need a resume as MS Word or .pdf file.

The same rules apply when we forward profiles to employers/recruiters (Premium Package candidates). The copy-pasted resume is for a quick glance, the uploaded one is for storage in employer's own data system.

If there are problems with copy-pasting the resume (MS Word files transfer certain formatting to the HTML code), don't bother, just upload your resume as a file and make sure that you provide sufficient information on your Work Experience and Education fields on the profile.

2. Editing your profile

Your profile is made of several different sections. You can edit each one of them by clicking on the correspondent link on the left-side navigation menu. For example, if you would like to change your positions of interest (add or delete positions), click on the "Change the positions you are applying for" link.

If you would like to change your address, date of availability, email or phone number, please click on the "Update your contact information and availability" link.

Since your email address doubles also as your user name, we have placed a separate link for the email address and password change (it still leads to the section above).

The same is valid for every other section of your profile, just look for the corresponding link on the left-side menu.

3. Punctuation and spelling errors.

Please, pay attention to these issues. Do not write your names and names of cities, towns, companies, universities, colleges, schools with all lower case letters. Each one of them should start with a capital letter. The name of each language starts with a capital letter (i.e English, German, Italian etc.) Each school, university, college, company starts with a capital letter - University of Toronto, Princess Cruises etc.

4. Selecting positions of interest

Please, make sure that you select only positions that you are qualified for, "shooting in the dark" is counter-productive tactic. You may select positions from different departments, just make sure that you meet the requirements. When in doubt, please check our position descriptions - https://www.cruiseshipjob.com/position.htm

5. Contact details

Please enter your first and last names, address, email address, phone number, nationality (the country which issued your passport). All this information can be edited (see paragraph 2 above). Please, make sure that your names, names of cities, towns etc. start with a capital letter.

6. Languages

Please, select your proficiency in English and list all other languages that you speak along with the corresponding proficiency level. If one or more languages are not listed, you can always add them.

7. Shipboard Experience

Please, complete this field only if you have worked on board a ship, it could be any type of ship (passenger, cargo, river etc.) or even an oil rig. If you do not have such an experience, please leave the field empty. Please, start company names and locations with a capital letter i.e. Celebrity Cruises, Miami, FL. Describe with a few words your essential duties i.e Responsible for ship's navigation, training of subordinate officers and crew etc.

Indicate when you started the job and when you terminated employment (the year should be sufficient if a period more than one year is covered, if within the same year, you could add months i.e. March 2019 - November 2019. If you are still employed with the same company, mark "Present" on the "to" field.

Please, start either with your most recent shipboard experience or with the one closest to the position(s) you are applying for.

8. Work Experience

Please, enter first the position held (starting each word with a capital letter i.e. Retail Sales Associate), then enter name and location of the company (again each word starts with a capital letter i.e. Rolex Shop - Heathrow Airport). Explain with a few words the essential duties performed (again - each sentence starts with a capital letter i.e. Serving customers and operating the cash register. Opening and closing the shop).

Indicate when you started the job and when you terminated employment (the year should be sufficient if a period more than one year is covered, if within the same year, you could add months i.e. March 2019 - November 2019. If you are still employed with the same company, mark "Present" on the "to" field.

Please, start either with your most recent work experience or with the one closest to the position(s) you are applying for.

9. Education

Please, select your type of education - Masters, College, High School etc. Then enter the education details i.e. Degree in Psychology, Doctor of Medicine or just Diploma if it is a High School. Please, enter the time period for each education.

Indicate when you started your studies and when you finished them (the year should be sufficient if a period more than one year is covered, if within the same year, you could add months i.e. March 2019 - November 2019. If you are still studying, mark "Present" on the "to" field.

It is a good idea to also enter other courses taken i.e First Aid, PADI Open Water etc.

If you have read to the end these instructions, thank you for your patience. Once again the only reason we are writing this page is that the appearance and the content of your profile are extremely important for the success of your job search.

As a conclusion we would like to assure you that we do not share any of your personal information with third parities, except reputable cruise industry employers and recruiters.