Turning pro is the ultimate dream for many divers. Being a professional diver means you’ll earn a living doing something you love. You’ll spend your days in the water and around likeminded people. But to make that dream a reality, you must be able to find employment after becoming certified as a professional divemaster or instructor.
As those who have already earned professional status know, this can sometimes be difficult, precisely because there are so many dive professionals chasing the same dream. Job markets for every kind of work are becoming more competitive all the time, and diving is no exception. As in other industries, it is no longer enough to hold an entry-level professional qualification. If you want to maximize your chances of employment, you must stand out from the crowd. This article looks at a five ways to increase your employability, and consequently your chances of getting a job as a professional diver.
Learn a Foreign Language
Some of us are lucky enough to have grown up speaking more than one language. But many people have only a few half-remembered fragments of vocabulary left over from high school language classes. Speaking multiple languages is a real bonus when it comes to securing a professional dive job. As the diving community becomes more international, employers are looking for staff that can teach in multiple languages. If you can teach in English and Spanish, for example, you are doubly as profitable to a prospective employer.
Your best bet for a second language depends on the location and clientele of the dive center where you want to work. Generally Chinese, Spanish, German, Italian, French, Dutch and Russian are the most lucrative second languages when it comes to increasing your employability. If you weren’t raised bilingual, consider enrolling in a language course. You don’t need perfect fluency. But you do need to be able to teach a course and answer competently any questions your students may have.
Expand Your Dive Training
When it comes to dive training, there’s always more to learn. Admittedly, it will get expensive to pursue endless qualifications. But ultimately, you should come out on top financially as each one makes you a better employment prospect. If you are a divemaster, consider becoming an instructor. Often, instructors have many more employment opportunities abroad, as dive centers are often legally obligated to hire only local divemasters. If you are an instructor, consider becoming qualified to teach specialties. You’ll become more valuable with every additional course you can teach.
If you’re targeting a specific region, consider which specialties will be most useful there. For example, a dive center operating out of Coron in the Philippines might be particularly interested in an instructor who can teach wreck specialties because of the many WWII wrecks in the area. The further you go up the qualification ladder, the more unique your skills become. You’ll have far less competition for a PADI Staff Instructor job, for example, than you might for a standard PADI OWSI one. It is also worth considering qualifications in more than one training organization.
Learn Additional Skills
There is much more to a professional diver’s role than simply teaching courses or guiding dives. Often, dive professionals are also responsible for maintaining the dive center’s equipment, filling cylinders, fulfilling a retail role in the dive center shop and helping out onboard the boat. Any extra skills or qualifications that you have will give you a better chance of success when applying for a job —your prospective employer will know that you’re more than just a one-trick pony. This is particularly important when applying for a management role, or a vacancy in a remote location where the number of staff may be limited and each person hired must fulfill several roles.
Good skills to either acquire or brush up on could include: compressor maintenance, equipment servicing and repair, basic accountancy, knowledge of websites and social media, and the ability to drive both standard transmission and automatic vehicles. Particularly if you would like to work on liveaboards, consider becoming a certified deckhand or steward/stewardess; in any case, basic boat-handling qualifications are always a bonus. Decide on what your additional selling point could be based on your strengths outside of diving, and earn the appropriate experience or qualifications to allow you to capitalize on that selling point.
Get Experience
This is the Catch-22 that all new dive professionals face. Most employers are looking to hire someone with experience. This can mean a certain amount of time in the industry or a certain number of student certifications. But how can you get experience if you need experience to be employed in the first place? Unfortunately, unless you’re very lucky and you happen to find a dive center that’s willing to take you on fresh from your divemaster or instructor course, you may need to offer your services for free at first in order to get the experience that you need. It may seem unfair, given the cost and the effort required to achieve professional status, however, many industries require a period of unpaid internship before employment with remuneration.
Diving carries more risks than most jobs. Your employer must know that you have the experience and the confidence needed to fulfill your role competently. When looking for a dive center to intern with, make sure to choose a reputable company. Unfortunately, there are many unscrupulous shops that will take full advantage of a dive professional working for free. Although you may not earn a salary at first, you should expect other benefits. For example, many internship positions include living expenses and cost-free diving.
Create a Professional-Looking Resume
Finally, never underestimate the power of a professional-looking resume. Once you have experience and training, your certifications and your additional skills, you need to present them in a way that leaves a good impression. Make sure that your resume has a clear layout. A prospective employer should see at a glance what you’re offering. Make sure that it is concise; give all your information without waffling or repeating yourself. Above all, make sure that your spelling and grammar is flawless. First impressions count, and your resume makes yours for you.
If you are not delivering your resume in person, include a cover letter or email explaining who you are and the position you’re applying for. Also include any other information that may be relevant or help you stand out from your peers. Often, you will need to send a resume via email or fax. But if you can deliver it in person, you should. Being able to put a face to a name and a personality to a list of qualifications will help your prospective employer distinguish you from the crowd.
Becoming a dive professional can be an incredibly rewarding career choice. It can also be difficult, expensive and time-consuming, so before you pursue a life in diving, make sure it’s what you truly want. If it is, persevere — you’ll find that the reality is often even better than the dream.
