Diving Jobs? What is there?

[dlearyous]

I'm a divemaster working in malaysia that's thinking about using diving as a career though i'm not quite sure what there is out there. i've heard a bit about commercial diving but i'm not sold quite yet and also dont know where to head or who to talk to. could someone give a few idea's as to where i could find a job or how to go about finding one. what to do, what types, etc.

thanks.

 

[mig_diver]

*subscribing*

 

[El Orans]

*subscribing*

Clicking Thread Tools and selecting Subscribe to this Thread works just as well.

 

[Ex-Aquanaut]

Hello dlearyous,

Glad that I got in here first with a substantive answer. The answer to your question is really two parts.

Before I tell you that, let me warn you that pretty much all the posts below mine will be from people telling you it's not possible to truly make diving a career, that the salries are too low and that you should just do it for fun or part time. Don't believe it.

To paint the entire industry and every job avaiable with such a brush is just foolish and short-sighted. Take a look at who's doing the posting, how many posts they make on SB and judge the source. As on any message board, there's a hard-core crust of people ready to shout down enthusiastic, hopeful people based on their bad experiences. I'm not saying many dive jobs don't offer low wages. They do. But I am saying that there are indeed good opportunities out there and that many, many, many people are happily working and living comfortably in diving.

Having said that, there's one thing I do beleive to be true: To have your best shot at working in the industry, you need to be an instructor. While we have had Divemaster graduates from our Diving Instructor Training (Thailand) internship program that make a liveable wage (for Thailand) during high season, the fact is that worldwide, DMs don't earn enough. (In Thailand we have grads pulling in about 30,000-60,000 baht per month, working and selling photo CDs to liveable customers.)

Instructors can do much better. In Thailand we reguarly see our grads land jobs paying 80,000-120,000 a month during high season and average about 30,000-45,000 during low season. That's a decent wage if you plan to live in Thailand and with the Malay and Thai economies being of near-equal size, I'd guess you coudl do the same at home.

We've had grads go on to work for cruise ships where all their accommodatins and food are paid for and they still get US$3,000 per month in tips and salary per month. And they get to live on a cruise ship. That's a pretty nice life IMHO.

If you'd like to become an instructor, I invite you to give us a try. See us at the link below (DivingInstructorTraining.com). We have a 2-month DM to Instructor program that is entirely all-inclsive and offers not only your IDC, but a full suite of additional courses to make you as employable as possible.

The second part of your question -- What's out there -- is more easily determined. I invite you to set up a free account at Jobs4Divers.com, which is the Internet's largest database of diving jobs. As of today there are nearly 800 jobs listed. Browsing the site will give you a good understanding of the types of jobs are available in what areas for specific certifications. There are, in fact, a large number of firms seeking DMs, so you might find something good right now.

Jobs4Divers is another reason to come to join at Aqauanauts for your instructor training. The site is the public face of our separately incorproated, full-time diving jobs placement service. The jobs you see online are not published for 2 days after the employer posts them. If you were an Aquanauts customer, you'd get immediate access to the jobs as soon as they are posted, giving you a big leg up in the job competition. In addition, we have an oflline database of 6,500 dive centers worldwdie we can query for job openings not even on the website yet.

Hope that helps. Please do have a look at both our training and jobs site and feel free to contact me if you have questions.

 

[mig_diver]

Hello dlearyous,

Glad that I got in here first with a substantive answer. The answer to your question is really two parts.

Before I tell you that, let me warn you that pretty much all the posts below mine will be from people telling you it's not possible to truly make diving a career, that the salries are too low and that you should just do it for fun or part time. Don't believe it.

To paint the entire industry and every job avaiable with such a brush is just foolish and short-sighted. Take a look at who's doing the posting, how many posts they make on SB and judge the source. As on any message board, there's a hard-core crust of people ready to shout down enthusiastic, hopeful people based on their bad experiences. I'm not saying many dive jobs don't offer low wages. They do. But I am saying that there are indeed good opportunities out there and that many, many, many people are happily working and living comfortably in diving.

Having said that, there's one thing I do beleive to be true: To have your best shot at working in the industry, you need to be an instructor. While we have had Divemaster graduates from our Diving Instructor Training (Thailand) internship program that make a liveable wage (for Thailand) during high season, the fact is that worldwide, DMs don't earn enough. (In Thailand we have grads pulling in about 30,000-60,000 baht per month, working and selling photo CDs to liveable customers.)

Instructors can do much better. In Thailand we reguarly see our grads land jobs paying 80,000-120,000 a month during high season and average about 30,000-45,000 during low season. That's a decent wage if you plan to live in Thailand and with the Malay and Thai economies being of near-equal size, I'd guess you coudl do the same at home.

We've had grads go on to work for cruise ships where all their accommodatins and food are paid for and they still get US$3,000 per month in tips and salary per month. And they get to live on a cruise ship. That's a pretty nice life IMHO.

If you'd like to become an instructor, I invite you to give us a try. See us at the link below (DivingInstructorTraining.com). We have a 2-month DM to Instructor program that is entirely all-inclsive and offers not only your IDC, but a full suite of additional courses to make you as employable as possible.

The second part of your question -- What's out there -- is more easily determined. I invite you to set up a free account at Jobs4Divers.com, which is the Internet's largest database of diving jobs. As of today there are nearly 800 jobs listed. Browsing the site will give you a good understanding of the types of jobs are available in what areas for specific certifications. There are, in fact, a large number of firms seeking DMs, so you might find something good right now.

Jobs4Divers is another reason to come to join at Aqauanauts for your instructor training. The site is the public face of our separately incorproated, full-time diving jobs placement service. The jobs you see online are not published for 2 days after the employer posts them. If you were an Aquanauts customer, you'd get immediate access to the jobs as soon as they are posted, giving you a big leg up in the job competition. In addition, we have an oflline database of 6,500 dive centers worldwdie we can query for job openings not even on the website yet.

Hope that helps. Please do have a look at both our training and jobs site and feel free to contact me if you have questions.

Thank you. All that info is very helpful

 

[Scared Silly]

And they get to live on a cruise ship. That's a pretty nice life IMHO.

That is not my idea of a pretty nice life. The cabins given to crew are typically shared, small, dank, dark and in the bowels of the ship.

Also in talking with an uncle who was a commercial diver, there is not much in common between commercial diving and diving instruction other than both take place under the water.

 

[leapfrog]

could someone give a few idea's as to where i could find a job or how to go about finding one. what to do, what types, etc

Don't know where you are from originally but if you want to have a diving CAREER, join the Navy (if you're Swiss or from another landlocked country I understand that may be difficult) or become an emergency services diver. I don't doubt every word that Aquanauts has said but he has a pretty impressive set up in an area with high grade tourism. He has also given you a very important piece of advice. To make anything at all that resembles money you have to be at least OWSI. IT IS NOT EASY TO MAKE A LIVING AND HAVE JOB AND FINANCIAL SECURITY IN THE RECREATIONAL DIVING INDUSTRY. The other thing you should think of as a young man is: "If I ever give up diving or HAVE TO give up diving, what then?". What about wives and kids? How would you put kids through school and college?

 

[pasley]

Mig Diver is right there will be a lot of people Pooh poohing the idea. This is one such post.

There is a college for commercial divers in Los Angeles CA College of Oceaneering http://www.50states.com/cc/detail/ca/112516.htm another school is Natpolly Commercial diving school offering programs in technical diving, marine technology, Hyperbaric Medicine, underwater welding, Non Destructive Testing and more.http://www.natpoly.edu/Programs/COO.html . I don't know anymore about it than that, except I have heard of people giving up good paying jobs to go through the course to get commercial diving jobs that pay less than 1/2 of what they were making. Remember the school is selling you their product, so check their claims of jobs and wages carefully. The US Department of Labor website has information on careers and wages http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes499092.htm. Commercial divers are listed at $24.76 US Dollars an hour with a median wage of $41,610 per year for the estimated 1980 jobs out there. The college turns out a few hundred graduates a year. Note, many made far less than that, visit the web page. I acknowledge this is US jobs and US currency and the situation may be far different in your part of the world with better (unlikely) or worse (IMHO more likely) working and wage conditions. Also look to the long term of how long commercial divers last and how many 55 year old commercial divers there are and why. Also commercial diving is usually a travel job trotting all over the world. Great when you are young, tough on a family.

A good wage is also a relative term. Here in California $50,000 US dollars a year is not really all that much, but to Malay, it may be a good wage. Commercial diving is hard on the body and you should take a hard look at the realistic jobs available, working conditions and the toll it will take on your body.

Last but not least the way to ruin a fun hobby is to make it your job. But hey, if you are teaching in tropical waters it can't be all that bad.

 

[Rick Murchison]

The industry is in flux, particularly in the United States.
Four years ago I posted this:

The paradigm of the dive shop as we know it today is dying.
It will die.
It will die because it still ties goods to services.
The computer industry was the first to suffer the total separation of the two, for it is the computer that made it possible and inevitable.
It is only a matter of time before the complete line of Scuba equipment will be available at Wal-Mart, Sam's Wholesale and on the internet (with no service attached) at margins that are impossible for the local shop to support.
These outfits don't need to know what's in the box or how to use what's in the box or why the customer wants what's in the box. All they need to know, all they care about, is that the box leaves at 105% of what it cost to put the box in the customer's hands.
Dive professionals will continue to be underpaid, because there will continue to be many of us who are teaching diving on the side, because we love it, and don't need to get anything other than "free diving" out of it.
The shop of the future will be the place with the pool and the compressor and the maintenance & repair shop; gear maintenance & repair, gas, pool time, instruction and gear selection consultation will be what they sell. Making that profitable will be a tortuous road, and many will fall to the wayside on the way.
But there is no doubt whatsoever that the future will bring the change.
As an interim, we will see the rise of the "one man show" - the independent instructor who owns a few tanks and a small compressor, is renting pool time (or using his own) and consulting on internet equipment buying and can do small repairs or ship stuff off to a real shop for warranty service but has no money tied up in inventory or overhead in a shop.
Rick

Haven't seen anything to change my mind, in spite of recent near-heroic (or heavy-handed, or brutal, depending on your point of view...) efforts on the part of agencies and manufacturers to resuscitate the old-time structure of the LDS.
There may be a way to make a decent living through the turmoil... indeed, change usually means opportunity for those able to see it and willing to pursue it. I have my ideas about what will work and what won't, but as they're as likely to cause one to go bust as boom, for the time being I'll keep 'em to myself, and watch the game with interest from the stands.
Rick

 

[Oxy]

Hello dlearyous,

Yadda
Yadda
Yadda
(main body removed for cause we don't need to read it again)

Jobs4Divers is another reason to come to join at Aqauanauts for your instructor training. The site is the public face of our separately incorproated, full-time diving jobs placement service. The jobs you see online are not published for 2 days after the employer posts them. If you were an Aquanauts customer, you'd get immediate access to the jobs as soon as they are posted, giving you a big leg up in the job competition. In addition, we have an oflline database of 6,500 dive centers worldwdie we can query for job openings not even on the website yet.

Hope that helps. Please do have a look at both our training and jobs site and feel free to contact me if you have questions.

Now it's my turn!
You heard from the top, well I'm at the other end.
First I don't live in thailand I don't even have a certification.
BUT I am trying to rationalize the cost of equipment/training on an employment prospective. If the earth is 2/3 water, well you are a dm you already know what I am leading to. Although that cruizship thing sounds like a great kids thing (grandkids at my age). There is also the movie industry or private for hire (my thoughts). But if you want a "robot dive job" assembly/construction (same place, same thing, day after day)well it's available world wide.

As for pay rate, aquanut has me beat. I can't seem to get past low middle in come even in computers. If diving goes the same I will have trouble buying air.