Cruise Ship CV Example and CV Writing Guide

Over 30 million people opted to holiday on cruise ships in 2019. The annual number of cruise ship passengers has been rising year-on-year for a decades. As such, there is always going to be high demand for cruise ship staff.

However, competition for cruise ship jobs in strong. Jobs on cruise ships are highly sought after, largely due to the fact that the roles offer travel, accommodation and a life at sea. Because of this, cruise ship jobs are hard to get.

If you want to be in with a chance of landing your dream cruise ship job, it’s vital that you approach applications with a strong, industry-optimised CV.

Source: Statista

This guide covers CV and resume writing for all types of cruise ship jobs. These include:

Whether capacity you’re working in – from entertainment, service and accommodation to ship maintenance, management and engineering – this guide will tell you everything you need to know to write a powerful cruise ship CV.

To help you secure the job you want in the cruise industry, we’ve created a professional, industry-optimised cruise ship CV template that you can use today. This cruise CV template can easily be tweaked and edited to suit your application.

While we have used Royal Caribbean Cruises as an example in this CV template, this CV is optimised for all cruise ship applications.

The template is also ideal for all jobs in the cruise industry, including deck crew, hospitality staff, sales assistants and able seamen.

To impress recruiters and hiring managers in the cruise industry, start your CV with an engaging professional profile that articulates your key skills and experiences while showcasing what makes you unique.

Keep your professional profile brief and to-the-point. Use strong verbs and adjectives, and make sure it communicates your best selling points.

Here is an example of cruise ship CV’s professional profile:

Extroverted, customer-oriented bartender, with over 3 years’ experience in hospitality and a passion for the cruise industry. Committed to enhancing the guest experience and maintaining hospitable environments that passengers love.

Utilises an in-depth knowledge of over 50 cocktail recipes and bartending experience in fast-paced environments to maintain quality standards and ensure optimal guest satisfaction. Proficient at using all bartending tools, including cocktail shakers, jiggers and drink strainers.

If you’re applying for jobs on cruise ships in the UK, the US, Ireland, Australia or Canada, you generally don’t need to include a photo on your CV. However, for roles in continental Europe (with the exception of the Netherlands), make you sure to include a photo.

For further information on whether or not you should include a photo on your CV, take a look at our article on the topic. In this article, we state whether or not CVs should contain photos on a country by country basis.

Include your work experience, using the reverse-chronological format. The reverse-chronological format involves including your most recent job first, then working backwords.

For each role, start by adding your job title, the name of the company you worked for, the location of employment and the dates of employment. Then include your responsibilities and achievements, using bullet points to draw attention to the key information.

Use this section to showcase what you’re good at and how you can add value, rather than simply writing a list of your responsibilities.

Here is an example of a cruise ship CV’s work experience section:

Dedicate a section to your key skills to show recruiters what you bring to the table. Include a small number of your strongest skills that enable you to excel in your profession.

In this section, focus on hard skills that are vital to complete your everyday tasks to high standards. These will vary depending on your role.

For example, if you’re a sales assistant, hard skills would include sales strategies, techniques and processes. If you’re pursuing senior roles, management and leaderships skills would be a key aspect of your skill set.

When it comes to showcasing your soft skills – soft skills include people skills, communication skills, character skills and personality traits – it’s much more effective to show, instead of telling.

But how do you show your soft skills?

The best way to show your skills is to write about times you have utilised the skills in the work experience section of your CV. While writing about your achievements and duties, draw attention to your skills by providing tangible examples.

By backing your skills up with examples in this way, they have much more of an impact in the eyes of recruiters.

What are the most important soft skills for cruise ship CVs?

Of course, the most important soft skills will vary depending on your profession. But there are some that apply to the majority of cruise ship professionals.

Below, we’ve detailed five of the most important soft skills to include on your cruise ship CV.

Unless you’re working in the engine room, there is a strong chance that you will encounter customers while working on cruise ships. In most roles, customer interaction will be a daily aspect of your job.

As such, customer service is one of the most important skills for cruise ship staff. If you can demonstrate your ability to satisfy customers and optimise their experience, you’ll make a great impression on recruiters.

How do you show customer service skills on your cruise ship CV

While customer service is an important skill for cruise ship roles, the skill isn’t exclusive to the cruise industry. Whether obtained at sea or on land, customer service is equally valuable for cruise ships jobs.

Here is a sample of how to show customer service skills on your CV:

‘Contributed to the improvement of customer service by maintaining a polite, professional manner when engaging with guests and going the extra mile to solve their problems’.

If you don’t have customer service experience, don’t worry. Instead demonstrate your understanding of the importance of effective customer service and showcase your people/personality traits.

If you analyse the skill requirements on cruise liners' job adverts, you’ll usually find that they expect candidates to be enthusiastic. This is an important skill because you’ll be spending long periods of time at sea, away from your home. To ensure you perform your job to high standards, you need to be enthusiastic.

But enthusiastic about what?

Candidates are expected to be enthusiastic about the cruise industry, customer service, people and working at sea.

Why is this necessary? Because if you’re enthusiastic about these things, you’ll be a more effective employee.

How do you show enthusiasm on your cruise ship CV?

Use your professional profile to touch on your passion for the cruise ship industry and the customer experience. State that you’re enthusiastic about working at sea and ensure to highlight your people skills.

Of course, we only recommend this approach if you are in fact enthusiastic. We would never urge anyone to lie on their CV.

Writing about your enthusiasm in your cover letter is another great way of making a strong impact on recruiters and hiring managers.

Whatever your role on cruise ships, you will be required to communicate with either colleagues or customers. To maximise efficiency and customer satisfaction, it’s important that you are able to exhibit quality communication skills.

How do you show communication skills on your cruise ship CV?

A fantastic way of articulating your communication skills on your CV is to highlight accomplishments that came about as a result of your communication skills.

Additionally, write about duties that involved communication with colleagues and customers. This might involve participating in meetings or engaging with clients to solve problems.

In order to maximise on-board efficiency and complete tasks to high standards, cruise ship employees must possess good team working skills.

A lack of effective team work can lead to poor performance, failure to achieve objectives and a poor customer experience. To make a positive impact on recruiters, ensure your CV draws attention to your team working qualities.

How do you show team working skills on your cruise ship CV?

Highlight successes and achievements that were a result of your team work skills.

Additionally, you could showcase extracurricular activities that involved good teamwork. For example, touching on your participation in sport teams shows that you’re adept at collaborating with others to achieve positive outcomes.

When working on cruise ships, you will be representing your employer’s brand. In some cruise ship jobs, you will often be the ‘face’ of the company.

For this reason, recruiters in the cruise industry expect candidates to demonstrate their ability to be professional on a consistent basis.

How do you show your professionalism on your cruise ship CV?

A great way to show your professionalism on your CV is to highlight times you have demonstrated professionalism while operating in challenging environments. For example, this might involve maintaining a calm, professional demeanour while solving problems for angered customers.

Here is an example of how to show your professionalism on your CV:

‘Maintained a calm, professional comportment while engaging with agitated, unreasonable customers on a regular basis’.

List your qualifications, starting with your most recent or most relevant qualification.

What details should you include?

Include the qualification you achieved, the university/college name, the grade you achieved and the dates of study.

Feel free to leave out any training that is not relevant to the role you are applying for. If you’ve completed small courses that are relevant to cruise ship roles, such as health & safety and first aid, ensure to include these in this section.

In this section, include any additional information that is relevant to your applications. Additional information might include languages, licences, certifications, IT proficiency and voluntary activities.

If you have no cruise ship experience, focus on your transferable skills and experiences. Make these transferable skills and experiences the focal point of your CV.

For example, if you’re pursuing sales jobs on cruise ships, you could focus on your customer service and customer interaction experiences.

Use your work experience section to highlight responsibilities and achievements that are relevant to the role you are pursuing on cruise ships.

Remember, most cruise ship jobs don’t require direct experience on cruise ships. As an example, sales jobs on cruise ships usually require retail experience, which doesn’t necessarily have to have been obtained in the cruise industry.

Scour job boards and job listings to find your ideal role. Network with industry professionals and build relationships with potential recruiters on professional networking platforms, such as LinkedIn.

There are also a number of websites dedicated to encouraging communication between members of the cruise industry. These include CruiseMates, a website that offers up-to-date information about the cruise industry, as well as a forum for professionals to meet.

Hopefully this guide has helped you prepare a powerful CV that will enable you land your dream job in the cruise industry. Feel free to use our cruise ship CV template to optimise your job search and increase your chances of success.