Are you a fresh 4th Engineer or 3rd Officer ? Here are few ways to boost the chance of getting a job

Hello friends !

Are you a Fourth Engineer/ Third Officer who has just cleared your MEO class IV/ Second Mate ? or are you somebody who has been  looking for a vacancy for long time after passing your examination?  If yes, here are some tricks that may help you to get a job.

Everybody who works in shipping knows that it has been hard to get a job after class 4 or second mate exam in India. Joining as 4th engineer/ 3rd officer directly after passing the examination is almost impossible. I can hardly find any company that recruits them as watch keeping officer in the first contract. They send them as assistant 4th engineer or junior engineer instead ( junior/ assistant third officer in case of deck department). Companies have capitalized the situation very well, I should say.

Do you ever get a reply to your e-mail that you send ? 

The answer would be 'No'. Even if you get one, that would be an auto-reply which says ' Well received your CV. We will revert back once we have suitable opening' . There is something you should keep in mind when you send your application. Companies hardly open your mail as they get hundreds of e-mails everyday, either they discard them or never read them.

How will you make them go through your CV? 

Here comes the importance of ' subject column' in the mail. You should add your rank along with few other things that would make your email get their attention. You could highlight your rank with the capacity of license you are holding (eg. FG/ NCV), the type of vessel you did as junior officer, the duration of the contract and you could also mention if you have a US visa etc. For example, I used to write something that looked like this :

4th Engineer (FG/ Product Tanker/ 9 months/ US Visa) - Mumbai

or

3rd Officer (FG/ Product Tanker/ 9 months/ US Visa) - Mumbai

It did work out in my case so it will, with you too. Believe me, I frequently received calls from companies after I had tried this even without having any experience in rank. You might ask why I wrote 'mumbai' at the end. There is an explanation for that. Most of the times, companies take candidates from outside only when they have an immediate opening for that rank and when they do have one, they look for the people available nearby. If you have ever got a call from a company, you must have noticed that the second question they asked must be 'where are you now?'. So if you add 'Mumbai', it increases the possibility of getting a call as most of the companies as you know, are located in Mumbai (even if  you are not in Mumbai, you could put the same tag, you could lie them that you are away from Mumbai and tell them you will visit their office the very next day 😉 ). 

You also have to give a brief detail in the mail such as your availability of joining, the number of vessels you have served on, the special courses you have done etc, but not the whole story. Do not forget to write your contact number and a local address in Mumbai (if you could find any) in the mail which is significant as most often they make call without going through your resume, they see only your subject column. Well, who has time to go through your resume right? The CV that you are attaching should be simple but at the same time it should include all the relevant details. 

Does visiting company offices to drop the resume help ?

Yes it does. I have many friends who got their job this way. Some of them were lucky to get the job early and some of them had to wait for long. 

Do I need to send individual mail to every company ?

No. you could send your resume in a single mail to a group of companies. But there is something important. When you draft the mail, if you put so many email ids in 'to' column directly, every person receiving your mail will see all the recipients of your mail. This might not look good if someone gets such mail and the mail may end up in trash. So you have to select the option 'Bcc' in the 'To' column if you do not wish this to happen. Bcc stands for blind carbon copy, which means no one can see whom the mail is going to. Do not add so many ids when you send because it will eventually make your mail going into spam, 10 to 15 recipients would be fine.

Have you ever thought of joining offshore after clearing the exam? 

Many of you must be thinking that joining offshore would be a bad idea and you would not be able to join back main fleet once you have sailed on an offshore vessel. I must say, this is a misconception. The very first vessel I served on after class 4 was an offshore vessel though I had experience on main fleet vessels. Later I joined back merchant vessels. Moreover, if you have long waiting period for joining in main fleet, you could do a quick contract in offshore and come back. This will save your time. You can always find vacancies here because every 2 or 3 months crew change happens.

How to join offshore ? Is there any advantage? 

Compared to main fleet, getting a job in offshore is not that difficult as you think. In today's market, offshore pays less but it does have some advantages. For example, you do not need to spend 5 or 6 months at sea (this is especially good for married seafarers), you could easily get a 3 month contract or even less. Most of the time you have internet available so that you can get in contact with your friends and family all the time. And the best part, it is quick money. When you do not have sufficient money in your account and you don't want to sail for long, you could just go for a short contract.

If you are interested to know more about how to join offshore, what are the documents and certificates required, read my post below:
How to join offshore as 4th Engineer or 3rd Officer ?

Click on the link below to see the list of over 100 shipping companies where you can apply for a job ( You might have to pass an ad and security check before downloading the list )

Over 100 Shipping Companies for Fresh 4th Engineers & 3rd Officers

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