PADI Divemaster. Questions about going pro.

[Kensei]

Yeah got my rescue over a year ago now, currently sitting at 75 dives pre-DM course so planning on trying to get to 100 before flying out.
The issue is I am currently a bit of a sushi knife and am well aware of that fact. As one of the posts above mentioned short-term DM opportunities for visiting foreigners is rare so I'm looking to try and make myself more employable from a diving stand-point to combat this. Hence why I'm here, do you have any recommendations??

What other skills do you have? Anything related to web design, marketing, carpentry/repair, mechanics, boat captain, etc? Just list what you know and people with tell you if it would be useful to a shop.

 

[Edward3c]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to forums so please bare with me!

I'm 21 years old, freshly graduated from University and am taking a year out to do some travelling while I've got the chance. My plan for a large portion of this year is to hopefully work as a Divemaster on the east coast of Australia diving in and around the Barrier Reef and am struggling to get some quality advice on how best to do this.

My current plan is to complete my qualification in the UK with my local centre so I can get access to the PADI PRO database ASAP. According to the guys that run the course, starting around now, I'd finish around mid-September. I'd then search for a dive centre on (North) East coast of Australia and hopefully have found one in time for me to fly out around mid-late November and work for 6 months having the time of my life!

Following advice from others I've been put off the internship route as I've heard you effectively get used as free labour for the whole season which although I wouldn't mind too much as I'd still get to dive, I cant afford to not get paid while I'm out there!

My first question is, how realistic is this plan? Because if I'm honest with myself it sounds a bit too good to be true!
My main concern is getting hired by a dive centre in time, I'm not overly fussy on location but other than having good people skills, I'm worried I don't have enough other qualities that a Dive centre might look for. I'm fairly hopeless with languages, don't have any other technical skills (yet, would be open to learning) and am not a skipper.
Is there anything I can do to make myself more attractive to dive centre employers before I go (don't have enough time to learn a language)?

Is there also any advice or pitfalls I should look out for when undertaking all of this?

Any response is more than appreciated,
Cheers!

Many countries have special visas for work, Australia is one of the strictest. But even Thailand requires dive centre staff to leave the country every 3 months to renew their work permits. Since the pandemic enforcement has increased to protect local jobs.

Dive centre skills:

• sales,
• administration,
• multi lingual (the more languages the better),
• dive equipment technician (regs, bcd, etc),
• general mechanic (compressor, boats, etc),
• boat handling/diver Cox’en,
• management experience,
• mentoring experience,
• local driving licence,
• etc, etc,

Being able to dive is the least important aspect. Same as commercial diving where you’re paid for what you do underwater, diving is just the transport to get you there.