Commercial Diving Jobs
In today’s economy, finding a commercial diving job can be tough. The number of prospective divers seeking commercial diving careers is high while the number of diving jobs seems to be increasing at a snails pace. The struggle to find a position as a commercial diver may be difficult, but not impossible. Here are some strategies for landing a diving job.
Commercial Diver Job Strategies
Focus on Skills
All too often, commercial diving cover letters are filled with the same old boilerplate information. While you may be proud of the dive school that you attended and the basic dive certifications you have received, diving school alone will not make you stand out. As important as these factors are, most commercial diving cover letters and resumes overemphasize this information rather than unique information about your diving skills.
Your diving skills are more important than where you went to school. Focus on your skills by providing solid examples of your skills. Instead of saying, “I am good at rigging” in your cover letter, show that you are good at rigging. If true, a statement such as, “After three unsuccessful attempts by other divers to rig a burned out Bayliner in one hundred forty feet of water with no visibility in a buoy field, I successfully rigged the vessel and saved the company time by noting the location of other nearby debris.” Which sounds better and has more appeal to a diving employer? I will let you decide.
Customize, Customize, Customize
Yes, customizing a cover letter and resume for each diving position might take more time, but it is worth the effort. Generic cover letters are very obvious, not to mention the harmful effects of accidentally sending out a cover letter with the wrong company name listed or to bulk email the resume and forget to blind carbon copy the email addresses. Unfortunately, this happens all the time and it is amateurish. Instead, it is important to customize your commercial diving resume and cover letter to match the type of commercial divers wanted by the company. For example, if you are applying for a position that is inland, then really highlight skills that are used inland. The closer your skills match the commercial dive job’s criteria the better.
Presentation
When dealing with hundreds of resumes, first impressions can and often influence an employer’s decision to look at or disregard your application. I do not encourage over-the-top fancy or flashy resumes, but a professionally formatted and grammatically correct application does reflect a diver’s professional nature and attention to detail. If this is a weakness for you, then I highly recommend having someone help to format and edit your resume. A nice looking resume that highlights a powerful skill set can really stand out.
Follow Up
Show the employer that you are serious by following up, but do not come across as desperate. If a couple of weeks have gone by an you have not received a response, it is possible that the employer never even made it to your resume due to the number of applications received. A polite follow-up can pull your resume to the top of the review pile. It also demonstrates that your level of commitment. In some instances, an employer may be interested in you, but is waiting to see if you will follow-up. However, a slight warning is in order, excessive follow-ups do more harm than good. Try not to follow up more than once a week.
Commercial Diving Salary
Should you make it past the initial phases of the dive job application process, then it is time to negotiate your dive pay. When it comes to commercial diving pay, there really is a lot of diversity in pay levels due to the complexities of individual projects. Each dive project will likely have require different tasks and offer varying benefits.
When negotiating your salary as a commercial diver, it is important to remember that there may be large discrepancies between dive pay amounts from company to company and region to region. As a result, it is often beneficial for you to not make the first salary demand as this will limit your ability to get the job or will cut you short.
For example, you might throw out a salary amount that is higher than what a company is used to paying. This might cause the employer to lose interest in you even though they might have other benefits that more than make up for the lower salary. If the company cannot offer the pay you require, you can always pass on the job offer.
On the other side of the table, you might cut yourself short by offering less than the going rate at a company. Surely, you do not want your commercial diver salary to be less than your coworkers, especially if you are an underwater welder and they are not. Unfortunately, this happens all of the time.
By being the first to suggest pay levels, you are likely to limit your ability to negotiate a competitive commercial diving salary. With commercial diver jobs on the rocks, you really need to step up your job hunting efforts and really stand out.
Additionally, it is important to remember that if you have your own diving equipment, you can often use this to increase your pay. It also has the added benefit of not having to worry about sharing a gear with a sick diver. By staying healthy, you will be able to make money rather than miss out on work.
Fortunately, when the economy struggles, companies tend to fix things rather than replace their equipment and this means that it is still possible to find commercial diving employment. If you are in the process of searching for a commercial diver jobs, check out our list of commercial diving companies in the United States and Canada.