Job Email Requests

Our Thoughts on:

Work Placement Programs

Most Course Directors will offer you some sort of ‘job placement scheme’ but don’t rely on this too much as once you pass your IDC and IE you will generally be left on your own to find a diving job. Their ‘job schemes’ generally work by the Course Director / PADI 5 Star IDC or CDC saying they will try to find work for you within their own companies and then when they are unable to find work for you within their own companies they will encourage you to travel around the local resort’s dive centres handing in your CV, your local phone number (you can normally get local pay as you go phones easily and cheaply). Then if your face fits its hoped that when a “freelance” instructor is needed you will start to get called up when an extra body is needed. The diving CVs given as examples below may give you an idea as to how your one will look, feel free to use them as templates for your own diving history.

Request 3

I am looking for a freelance job as either a Dive Guide, Divemaster or Open Water Instructor. As a way of introduction, I am from Switzerland and speak German, English and a little bit of Spanish. Before I did my SSI Instructor here in Geneva in December. I already worked as a Divemaster guide in the Dominican Republic for a couple of months and gained a lot of experience there working in a Dive Shop and guided fun divers. I have also been working in a big Dive Shop here in my hometown of Geneva selling Diving Equipment for a couple of months so i know my way around Equipment.

You will find that your languages really help whilst looking for work, the Spanish isn’t that important but the German and English combination will very useful when it comes to looking for work

Unfortunately we are not currently looking for any Staff, although as you are probably aware, things change constantly in a high powered resort environments like Honduras, Thailand, Florida and Egypt.

Something to be aware of when looking for work in general, is that there are always an excess of PADI Divemasters and Instructors looking for work so most dive companies tend to employ instructors for DM positions for the obviously flexibility this gives the company, but as in every job in the recreational diving industry it’s a question of who you are, as well as being in the right place at the right time.

Similarly most Liveaboard operations tend to only employ instructors to work as DMs due to the amount of Continuing Education instructors are able to sell customers: Night Diver specialties, Deep, Wreck and Advanced Open Water Courses.

There are very few dive centers that will employ people without ever having met them or had them work for them as free lancer first.

Without a doubt the best idea if you want to work in the recreational diving industry is to become a PADI Instructor, although I can see that if you are only looking at working a few months a year the initial investment might prove expensive, If you was an Instructor right now in resort you would probably be able to get DM work, but you would obviously earn more if employed as an instructor and you would find that you would get a good return on your investment from the IDC Course. I would be surprised if you had not paid it off with a few months of working as an Instructor.

Although you have the SSI Instructor rating, you will find there are very, very few dive centers which do SSI, those who do, only employ SSI instructors who are also PADI Instructors, you can get work as a PADI instructor without being an SSI instructor, but you won’t find work as an SSI Instructor without being a PADI Instructor.