Did you know? Carnival UK operates an extremely popular and highly successful Officer Cadetship Programme, supplying our CUK fleet with steady numbers of Deck, Engine and ETO third officers – once they’ve completed the Merchant Navy Training Board (MNTB) UK cadetship programme.
Much like an apprenticeship, the three-year programme sees cadets join us from school, further education or even current professionals looking for a career change, and gives them the opportunity to train and qualify as a third officer in their respective discipline.
Cadets join our programme from all over the UK and Ireland, and, to reflect the global nature of our business, we also have an international cadet programme – with cadets currently on-programme from New Zealand and Malta and we are exploring opportunities for cadets from the Caribbean.
In addition, we offer a graduate technical fast-track cadetship programme – giving mechanical or electrical engineering graduates the opportunity to complete their cadetship and qualify in approximately half the time of the regular programme. Cadets are extremely valuable to the business and deemed our future Captains, Chief Engineers and SETOs. Indeed, some of our current senior leaders on board have progressed up through the ranks from the in-house cadetship programme. To support our prestigious cadet training programme we receive funding from the UK Government under the SMarT funding initiative, this gives us the opportunity to ensure Cadets are trained at leading maritime colleges, as well as receiving first class training in our ships.
Meet the team
The CUK Cadet Team is led by Kristy Dawson – Manager, Cadets & Early Careers. Kristy manages all our early careers programmes and has oversight of the CUK cadet programme, management of study leave and Professional Development Records (PDR). Kristy is responsible for ensuring we are recruiting, training and developing highly capable Deck & Technical Officer’s to meet the requirements of the fleet. Kristy also oversees the day to day management and development of PDR’s – a structured professional development programme to support the ongoing development of an officers’ competency from Third Officers to Captains and Chief Engineers. Kristy is supported in her team by Matt Selby (Cadets) and Sian Mellor (PDRs).
Working with Kristy on the cadetship programme is Matt Selby – Consultant, Cadets. Matt manages the day-to-day operation of the cadetship programme and works with the cadets from assessment day and interview, through to their graduation. Matt manages cadet rotations – liaising with cadets, ships and colleges – ensuring they gain enough sea-time to meet MCA requirements while experiencing the broadest range possible of brand, class and size of ship, maximising the experience they can bring to the role of third officer. During the cadetship, the cadets are met with regularly – both on board our fleet and at their college – to ensure they are progressing as required. Cadet welfare is paramount to our Cadet Team and Matt is often the first point of contact for any issues they may be experiencing, whether personal or professional.
Local (Hampshire) school and college outreach forms a large part of the work for the Cadet Team with regular and frequent attendances at both individual school and college careers evenings along with county-wide careers events.
The recruitment of cadets is looked after by Dominique Bennett – Resourcing Consultant – who is part of the Maritime Resourcing Team. Dominique reviews the hundreds of applications we receive for our two intakes in January and September each year and shortlists the brightest talent. With an average of just 50 cadet places available each year – from all areas and across all three disciplines – after a number of years’ experience Dominique has the skill to identify the key qualities and attributes that we are looking for. Once identified the successful candidates are put through a robust recruitment process which involves a CUK Shine video and an assessment day at Carnival House during which they are required to take part in a group task, give a presentation and undertake a face to face interview with a member of the cadet team and a senior seafarer. This process ensures we are recruiting the best talent from the various regions and continues to bring into the business our high calibre future leaders.
Dominique also manages the Carnival Cadet social media pages and is involved in the promotion of the cadetships by attending maritime college open days throughout the year.