Companies

[Unregistered]

Good evening, all.

It would be great to hear from current and past cadets recommending which training organisations and shipping companies are best to pick. It would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers.

[Clanky]

Why is this in the anonymous forum?

It's very much a case of different strokes for different folks. I would urge engineering cadets to avoid cruise ships, but I would strongly advise ETO cadets to go for cruise ships.

As a good all round company Foreland Shipping have decent ships and British junior officers who will have gone through the same process as you fairly recently.

[ETwhat?]

I'm guessing that its either someone who cant be bothered to make an account or someone thinking that some people may post, i work for this company and they were really slick at interview / self promotion but they are a total waste of space with absolutley crap ships and rubbish crew. in which case being able to reply with anonymity might be a good idea.

[Lewis]

To be honest it does make sense Lets people speak frankly about their company.

[Unregistered]

Clyde marine is a no go unless you want to work on a bulk carrier or supply ship

[ETwhat?]

Clyde marine is a no go unless you want to work on a bulk carrier or supply ship

When you say work do you mean after cadetship i.e. regardless of the training you recieve from a clyde company thats the only sort of companies that will employ you once qualified, or do you mean that its the only sort of ships you will do your cadetship on?

As the latter is rubbish as im not on a bulk carrier and well it is possible that this is a figment of my imagination or too much LSD awww crap how am i going to work this out i could be on a ship but i could be sitting in a park drugged out of my merry mind

[HolyNougat]

I think that companies that expose you to lots of different ships during your cadetship are the way forward. I did my Cadetship with a pax ship company and they put us on cargo ships for the experience, but now passenger ship cadets are almost doomed to staying on pax ships forever! (which might be good or bad) but of course, there is more money and much more rapid promotion in the oil / gas / cargo industry.
It is difficult to say that one company is crap and another is good - you might have the best cadetship ever with your company giving you lots of support, but if they kick you out at the end of your cadetship then you might change your opinion of them.
My ideal company As a cadet would be one that paid my wages, sent me to a ship, organized my college time and pretty much left me alone unless i wanted something and gave me a job at the end!

[Randomist]

Sorry guys, I approved it yesterday and my internet screwed about so I couldn't move it afterward.

To the OP:

Hi there, Welcome to OfficerCadet.com

I have moved this thread to one of our discussion boards as the Anon. Forum is reserved for sensitive questions only. If you wish to post further replies then please register an account. As you can see the thread already contains some interesting responses.

You tend to find the best sponsorship company may depend on what sort of ships you want to work on. It's less of what they do right and more of what's right for you.

[gadget123]

One thing I think that is important when dealing with training agencies such as SSTG or clyde, you need to make sure the company that is actually sponsoring you actually operates their own vessels, and that you will do your training on their vessels.

What happens if you cant train on the companies vessels is that the training agency will try to buy berths on ships for from other companies. There are two main problems with this:

1. You are relying on the agencey managing to find you a berth on a ship, sometimes this takes a long time, I once spent 2 months sat at home doing nothing and not getting paid.

2. Seeing as they are just paying random ships to take you on board the level of training you get varies hugely depending on the company. Some ships are brilliant, but a lot are awful.

You are much better off getting sponsored by a proper company if you can.

[ETwhat?]

2. Seeing as they are just paying random ships to take you on board the level of training you get varies hugely depending on the company. Some ships are brilliant, but a lot are awful.

I really dont think this is just limited to companies that have no interest in you but also down to every individual officer that has a hand in your training. As an ETO this is really amplified as i tend to only have one guy to work with and the amount and quality of training on the same ship and ships owned by the company changes hugely depending on the person, obviously this is diluted a bit for other cadets as you have a range of officers to shadow at different times.

Same goes for working with an specific country, ive sailed with a range of officers from the same countries, and they vary in how willing they are to get involved how well they can explain and train etc

[gadget123]

I really dont think this is just limited to companies that have no interest in you but also down to every individual officer that has a hand in your training. As an ETO this is really amplified as i tend to only have one guy to work with and the amount and quality of training on the same ship and ships owned by the company changes hugely depending on the person, obviously this is diluted a bit for other cadets as you have a range of officers to shadow at different times.

Same goes for working with an specific country, ive sailed with a range of officers from the same countries, and they vary in how willing they are to get involved how well they can explain and train etc

I agree with you about it being the officers not the company that makes it a good training experience for you, but I think the better companies are able to attract the better officers so give you a better training experience.

As for countries I think you will generally get a better training from British and northern European officers, due to there being less of a language difference and the training schemes being similar.

[MacNeil]

With CMT, I heard that Gulf and Farstad are good to the cadets!