Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Viking River Cruises Hiring


Viking River Cruises is North America s largest operator of worldwide river cruises with over 20 vessels on more than a dozen rivers in Europe, Russia, China and Southeast Asia. Our vessels carry an average of 200 English-speaking passengers, primarily from the United States, with English,

Australian and Canadian guests mixed in. A typical cruise is 7-14 days with daily visits to ports along the rivers. During these visits, guests are taken on guided tours, conducted by local guides. A ship has a hotel manager who is the chief officer for everything that has touches the guests, with the captain having the ultimate responsibility as the person in charge of the ship (and as such, in charge of safety and security, and  getting from a to b ). Reporting to the Hotel Manager is the Program Director and his assistants, who are the face of the company, as their role is to take care of the guests   they handle logistics, escort all excursions, perform airport meet and greets, make all announcement and conduct information briefings and other presentations.

 We recently learned that with appropriate paperwork, we can legally employ North Americans on our vessels in Europe. As the river cruise business is booming, we have been looking to cast our nets wider in finding the right people and this represents a great opportunity both for Viking and for tour managers in the US. In the coming months, we are trying to find some candidates with which we’d like to run a test: we would employ them on one of our vessels in a Program Manager capacity for 4-6 WEEKS before we evaluate the program we are likely to roll out completely in 2012.

Obviously, successful candidates of the pilot program would be first in line for the 2012 season.
Most of our people work on a 2 months on   2 weeks off contract. The season runs from late March until December. We’re basically trying to work with people s schedule, but for the North Americans, we are unlikely to provide more than 1 return air trip. If they want to come home during the summer, it is on their own dime. A typical season is about 6 months. Again, Program Managers on our ships escort passengers on their shore excursions and fulfill receptionist and administrative tasks on the ship; they also assist with airport transfers and meet and greets. It is a job where good organizational skills and excellent people skills are required.

Applicants must be very flexible, willing to SHARE a room with a colleague and knowledge of a FOREIGN LANGUAGE is a significant plus.

THE NATURE OF THE WORK MAKES THIS JOB A GOOD FIT FOR PEOPLE AT THE START OF THEIR CAREERS. PEOPLE WITH SIX OR SEVEN YEARS OF EXPERIENCE UNDER THEIR BELT ARE UNLIKELY TO FIND ENOUGH OF A CHALLENGE IN THIS WORK, BUT SHOULD NOT BE DISCOURAGED FROM SUBMITTING THEIR RESUMES.

Viking offers competitive pay and a chance to see something of the world!

IF AVAILABLE AND INTERESTED PLEASE SEND COVER LETTER AND RESUME TO CONTACT
BELOW: (and not to ITMI)

Joost Ouendag
Vice President, Product Marketing
email joost.ouendag@vikingrivercruises.com

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