Tuesday, August 18, 2009

High Demand For Catering Jobs Offshore

For those seeking jobs offshore, opportunities continue to grow, even with the economic slowdown. Half of the current workforce in the oil and gas industry is retiring in the next 10 years. This is creating a huge labor shortage for the energy companies and drilling contractors, and a huge opportunity for those seeking jobs offshore and on land. There has never been a better time for either experienced or entry-level workers to find jobs offshore.

This growing workforce shortage is creating a groundswell of opportunity for catering personnel who would like to find an offshore catering job. Jobs offshore in catering in 2009 - 2010 is expected to accelerate as the economy begins turning around. While all job categories are experiencing vacancies and shortages, the opportunities are particularly good for offshore cooking jobs and other catering personnel.

There are many openings for a variety of jobs offshore in catering positions, including Chefs, cooks, assistant cooks, night bakers, galley hands, stewards and stewardesses, housekeeping and cleaning staff. Offshore catering is typically contracted out and managed by catering and food service companies. The catering contractor is responsible for all food service, to include meals, snacks, and special Holiday requirements. Additionally, the offshore catering service manages the cleaning and upkeep of the kitchen and chow hall, as well as the recreational and common areas and sleeping quarters. The following jobs are in high demand and available now.

Offshore Catering Jobs, Duties and Wages

Camp Boss
The Camp Boss is responsible for running the catering department. He oversees the chefs, cooks, night bakers, stewards, and housekeepers. The rig crew work long, hard hours, and an important part of running the operation is ensuring they have adequate energy and good morale. Ensuring that the kitchen puts out great tasting and nutritious food is what the Camp Boss does every day. He is assisted in this responsibility with a small crew of Chefs, Cooks, Night Bakers, Galley Hands and Stewards Stewardesses. Four to Six main courses are prepared and served every 24 hours, split into 12 hour shifts, so that both shifts get good meals. The Camp Boss also manages the Stewards and Stewardesses, ensuring that the rig's recreation areas, downtime areas and, living quarters are kept clean, and the laundry completed.

Chef Head Cook
For the Chef or Lead Cook position, while previous offshore experience isn't a requirement, previous cooking experience is. The quality of offshore food preparation is often comparable to the fare one would receive in the nicer Hotels and Restaurants; the food is good, nutritious, and there is lots of it. The Chef plays an important role in keeping morale high among the drilling crews; looking forward to a good meal goes a long way in maintaining job satisfaction. Experience managing a kitchen is a must. This is not an entry-level cooking position, one is expected to have a proven record of preparing quality food. However, those with less experience will be considered for the Galley Hand or Night Cook. Salaries run from the mid 60s - 70s, depending on the rig, the catering service company one is working for, and experience.

Night Baker
This is a very important position on the rig. All bread onboard is baked by the night baker, as well as pastries, muffins and desserts. On smaller rigs, this may be rolled up with the Assistant Cook Sous Chef as one job; on larger rigs, the positions will be two separate jobs. Offshore Night Baker wages will run from the 50s to 60s.

Night Cook
Most people with experience seeking an offshore cooking job will start here. The Night Cook will work the night shift. This is a great position in which to obtain one's first offshore job. The Assistant Cook will prepare meals according to the recipes and directions of the Chef or Lead Cook. If you do a good job, and prove capable of running the kitchen in the Chef's absence, you can move into a Lead Cook or Chef's position fairly quickly. Offshore Assistant Cook wages will range from the mid 50s to mid 60s.

Galley Hand
If you have worked as a dishwasher or busboy in a Hotel or Restaurant for any decent amount of time, you can qualify of an Offshore Galley Hand job. This is a great way to get a foot in the door for those wishing to progress up to Chef or Head Cook - as on the mainland, many Offshore Chefs have gotten their start in the industry by starting at the bottom and working their way up. Offshore Galley Hand wages salary will range from the mid 40s to mid 50s.

Cleaning Housekeeping Staff
Generally speaking, anyone with mainland experience in a janitorial or housekeeping position, especially in industrial facilities or hotels, can qualify for jobs offshore in the same capacity. It is not uncommon for people wanting to break into the industry to accept a cleaning or housekeeping job, get to know people, and then, when the opportunity arises, advancing into a position of greater responsibility. This could be a supply room job, a roustabout job, or moving up the ladder to become a maintenance supervisor. It is quite common for people to start in this sort of position and then make a career in the offshore oil industry, moving in whatever direction they choose. A great way to get the proverbial foot in the door. Offshore Janitorial and Cleaning Housekeeping wages salary will range from the mid 40s to mid 50s.

Steward
The Steward Stewardess position is essentially a combination of Galley Hand and Janitorial Housekeeping responsibilities. On small rigs, these jobs may be rolled into one, and that would be the role of Steward. Offshore Steward wages will range from the mid 40s to mid 50s.

Getting Hired for Jobs Offshore in the Catering Section
For those without industry experience, it has been proven that the fastest way to get hired is to utilize one of the legitimate employment services for jobs offshore. Be sure to work only with honest, legitimate companies that will assist you with getting your resume written correctly for an offshore catering job.They should have references of people who have landed jobs offshore with them. A legitimate recruiter or job finding service will make no guarantees of getting hired, but should guarantee your satisfaction with their services, with a refund if no job is procured.

Julian Gaston is a Freelance Writer, Chef, Webmaster, and Adventurer. For more information on the exciting world of Offshore Jobs, and how to break into the field, please visit http://www.OffshoreJobsReview.com

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Doing Offshore Outsourcing Management the Right Way

Offshore outsourcing management has been on a constant rise in the past years. We have noticed a growing trend in the number of companies that are currently offshore outsourcing to different countries including USA, India, Japan, China, Brazil and so on. The biggest reason why this happens is the fact that through offshore outsourcing management we can obtain cost cuts and bigger profits at the end of each project we do.

Everything started around 1990, when different IT companies have realized that they can cut costs by hiring people through an online environment to do different tasks. This ranges from online technical support desks and customer services to more complicated fields of activity like programming and project management. The idea was that you can cut employee costs by hiring someone that will work for less money. Due to the evolution of the Internet this was easily implemented and profits started to grow constantly.

As time passed more people realized the potential of offshore outsourcing and problems started to appear. We have seen a lot of companies complain that they hired someone that was not fit to do the task needed and this is something that we all have to avoid. The truth is that there are many individuals out there that claim they can do something but they can not. For instance, I hired someone to write 20 articles for me. The first 2 that were sent were very good and when the entire batch was turned in I found that the others are not at all equal in quality. The first two were surely written by someone else. In order to avoid such circumstances offshore outsourcing management is currently needed. This basically means that it is better to invest in help from a company that knows what is linked with outsourcing strategy and planning.

If you plan to undergo offshore outsourcing we recommend that you consider getting help from a company that can aid you properly. Unfortunately there are many out there that will only want money and will not offer you a correct approach that maximizes profits. We live in a world where everyone thinks about personal gains.

Outsourcemethod.com currently stands out as a company that does things differently. We are talking about the fact that their main idea is that a satisfied customer comes back. If you make money they make money and it all boils down to a case of one hand washes the other. We recommend that you first take a look at what this company has to offer and after that, if you are not satisfied with the offer (although we seriously doubt that this will happen) you can turn your attention towards another company.

"Outsource Method Saved Me Over 500% On My Staffing Costs"
Outsourcing can be a very costly and mistake ridden path if you don't have the connections or know the pitfalls. When we Interviewed the CEO of RentACoder.com we were amazed at how many buyers get this wrong.
Learn how to save yourself mistakes that could cost you 10's of thousands of dollars and how you can more effectively manage your business process outsourcing

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Offshore Recruitment Agencies - Reasons American Job Seekers Are Worried

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Offshore Recruitment Agencies are most likely to bring two things to your mind, one is a set of recruiters who recruit people for maritime jobs and the other being those who recruit people for jobs in the United States of America, but are located in foreign lands. These agencies which can be found on the click of a button on the web, hire candidates who want to be placed overseas or help companies who need people from other lands.

In the first type of agencies, recruiters find people for jobs that are offshore or overseas. In general, jobs in the oil and maritime industry, like that of crewman or driller are provided by these recruiters. Internet search engines are by far the best method to locate these kinds of recruiters based on the job seeker's requirements. Invaluable information on obtaining visas for these jobs and also on compiling a good resume is available as a service of these search companies.

Recruiters who are literally located offshore constitute to the other type of offshore recruiters. These recruiters are strategically located in countries where services and labor are available at the lower cost like India. Many companies in the US recruit these offshore agencies to scan the applications that come in from candidates who are keen to fill in a job vacancy. Once the agency is satisfied with a particular resume, it forwards the resume to the company which decides whether or not to offer a job to the person.

In the recent past, many American citizens are concerned about the amount of jobs that is being offered by American companies to people in foreign lands. As a consequence, the agencies that offer these jobs facing the heat too. The most common worry among the American public is that cheaper labor offshore will lead to more jobs being led out of America. There is a lot of proof that this is not bound to happen since these agencies can recruit people for simple jobs only while complex jobs such as that of business executive and lawyers won't be moved offshore. The personal relationship to be maintained between the candidate and the employer is that rain reason for this. Many professionals may need direct contact with the recruiters. Some others may even need closer communication with these recruiters. Offshore recruitment agencies cannot influence a candidate to take decisions pertaining to their job. This is one more reason why they cannot replace direct recruiters.

Both these recruitment agencies are controversial to an extent. But with the growing need for close and personal relationships between candidates and their prospective employers, it is no pragmatic to imagine that all jobs of recruiting will be shifted to overseas recruiters.

Abhishek is a Career Counselor and he has got some great Career Planning Secrets up his sleeves! Download his FREE 71 Pages Ebook, "Career Planning Made Easy!" from his websitehttp://www.Career-Guru.com/769/index.htm. Only limited Free Copies available.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Offshore Website Development

What started as a simple website development has taken a large pie of market share. Let me start with the literal meaning of website development - starting from the baseline, Offshore + Web + Site + Development in simple terms means developing, coding for your website and making web page available on the web and later offshoring your website services. Or you can say, website development means developing a website and making it available on the World Wide Web to promote your product and services and contribute to global information base.

Basically web development follows web design phase and spans from coding for simple static web pages to complex applications pages, complete website development life cycle needs to be monitored with caution. Web Development is one of the fastest growing industry in this IT edge. Graphics designer, web editor, flash developer, designers all together look into the requirement, i.e. requirement analysis is must and then step into development and coding phase, development is not design but coding for design template.

Web Development cost depends on various factors: complexity of design, content of the website. With advancement in technology, technology has gifted developers with many free web development tools like LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) that will bring down your development cost, CMS (Content Management System – Typo3, Joomla), WYSIWYG, all these help to control, edit, manage contents with having in-depth knowledge of the softwares. With the Microsoft product Dot.Net has enabled to run applications online.

With digitalization of world and integration of various modules separated geographically all changes are reflected dynamically in this real world and fetching information is easy these days. E-commerce is best example for this that lets visitors to shop online, all transactions being managed from the backend; you just enjoy shopping, placing orders without bothering about its other side happening. Emerging social networking sites are another set of examples of web development that influenced the worldwide communication network and helped disseminating useful information among members of the communities.

Starting with the generic web template and moving towards customized web templates we get benefits like more clarity and better placement of various web components, more flexibility in functionality and presentation of website, its look and feel can be improved. Many firms these days specialize in providing custom web site development solutions for all size of business that helps you to promote your website’s product and services and improve traffic. Security, software testing are important aspects that follow website development. Quality web services promise to take your business to new level of business.

Web Development covers different areas:

Client Side Coding for layout and design that includes:

CSS – Cascading Style Sheets is used to describe presentation of document written in markup language.

Flash – Adobe flash player (most popular) is used to create content for movies, games, mobile phones

Javascript – is a scripting language used for client side web development

XHTML – Extensible Hyper text Markup Language is an application of XML

Server Side Coding for website functionality and back end system that includes:

ASP and MySQL-

ASP.NET and MySQL

CGI and Perl

Cold Fusion

Java, J2EE

PHP and MySQL

Python

Ruby

Looking inside the website development phase:

First step is analysis, studying and understanding client’s requirement, base requirement of the website, its target market and audience, its benefits over the existing system, its incorporation with the existing system with the help of chat, documents, discussions. Every plan should be realistic and based on certain real figures like resources involved, documents needed, hardware and software requirement, cost involved, manpower and finally the cost benefit.

Second step is Building Specification; the base specifications are withdrawn from the requirement analysis report. All the real information gathered in the analysis phase are used for building requirement specification. After requirement specification preliminary document is sent for approval then a written proposal is made and scope and effort estimation is also prepared.

Third step Design & Development, in this step after requirement specification and getting all proposal documents, contract documents and money signed for, and graphics and layouts specification documents from client we move to design phase.

Customer/client can be in touch, by sending e-mails, feedback, can send comment using contact us form, for very urgent message can use facsimile services or can contact directly through telephones.

Before actual design is finalized, design and layout are designed as a prototype with different variations offering customer with choice. Customer can be offered full prototype with interactivity, based on customer feedback lots of changes may be required to make. All the required changes should be made and all problems should be fixed before moving ahead.

Test plan is major milestone in this step which needs to be developed during design phase to assure quality. Finally site template, design, images are sent for client approval.

Fourth step involves writing quality, theme content for the website. This is very crucial from visitor’s point as the site needs to be very informative and theme related and this will in real drive your website as these days websites are quality content driven. Content writer can use template finalized in the design step.

Moving to the coding step, it is developers turn now but before proceeding developers should understand the design code and navigation and proceed in a way so that design code, template look and feel is retained. If needed, developers may interact with designers for proper co-ordination and better understanding the design template. Coding team should also generate test plans to check all forms and field and make development step bug free and maintain integrity with different segments. Development team uses the SRS (Software Requirement Specification) or FSD (Functional Specification Documentation) that are prepared by technical writer and approved by client as a guide that speeds up the over all process. At the other end coding team can prepare document for end-user that can be used for preparing user manuals and help guides.

Testing is an important step in development of a website. Whether automated testing or manual testing both are important and mandatory. Many online testing tools and online free testing tools are available for testing various applications. White box, black box testing and application testing is done. Also application is tested if it can run on different browsers and similar other functionalities are tested. Finally live testing after website is made available online is carried.

Website needs to be promoted and it should reach the potential customers once it is online. With the changing search engine strategies website design should be search engine friendly (designers at the beginning should take care otherwise it may become difficult to optimize the website). Website promotion is an ongoing strategy, first step is competitor analysis, target market research, keyword selection for targeting the market, then websites are initially submitted to directories and submission continues at regular interval.

Websites need to be maintained and update, as search engine always index sites that have new information to offer, else your site will gradually faint away. Regular analysis and bug fixing is part of this maintenance process. This also involves educating; training team members to meet challenges and keep themselves update with the knowledge of the emerging latest technologies and meet the challenges of tomorrow.

Highlights in true prospect include web engineering and re-engineering and quality and timeliness will be the resultant for your product and services. For more information on website development and offshore web site development feel free to contact us any time.

Rakhee, is a SEO content writer at Development India.

Development India is website development Company in India and a leading provider of offshore website development services

Offshore Drilling Jobs - How To Get Hired Without Drilling Experience

So, you want to work an offshore drilling job. Do you know which companies are involved in offshore oil drilling? Besides the super-big players like Esso, BP, Shell, etc. Did you know that these big boys do not always do their own drilling? Quite often nowadays, they are forced to subcontract some of the work to smaller players.

Have you heard of these companies: Diamond Offshore (Houston, USA), Dolphin Drilling (Tananger, Norway), and Frigstad Offshore (Singapore)? How about Offrig Drilling ASA, Scorpion Offshore, Songa Offshore and Thule Drilling ASA? These are just some of the companies in the modern oil industry. In their own way, you can call them the modern wildcatters. During the last slump in oil prices, the giants like BP and Shell stopped investing in their staff and oil drilling technologies. But some smaller companies correctly predicted that prices would rise again. They invested in R&D to develop new drilling techniques and technologies. They build new oil rigs for deep-ocean drilling. These are the boys that Shell and BP are sub-contracting for oil drilling services.

If you want to work on an offshore oil drilling rig, you have two main choices. The path most people think of is to go on board as part of the drill crew. If you have prior experience, you will probably be a pumpman or derrickman. If not, you have to get in as a roughneck or roustabout. Drillers are pretty much the 2nd-in-command and assistant of the oil rig manager. Technically, a roughneck/roustabout is a laborer. On the other hand, how many laborers earn $50,000 per year for just 6 months of work every year? Unlike a normal laborer, who never gets the chance to work his way up to manager level, a roughneck with the proper attitude has a reasonable chance to become a manager on an oil rig. Of course, first he has to work his way through derrickman and driller.

This is not the only way to get an offshore drilling job. If you have some useful trade, like a cook or medic, this will be a good choice regardless of your offshore oil rig experience. You get the same generous living conditions of the drill crew, and better salary than a comparable job on dry land.

Just because it is an offshore oil rig does not mean it does not need office staff. No matter where you go, you can't escape paperwork. You'll still find your paper pushers. Except that on the oil rig they are called tool pushers. They work in the rig offices and rig floors.

You also have the mechanical department and electrical department. The mechanical department hires motormen, mechanics and maintenance supervisors who are responsible for all mechanical operations. The electrical department includes jobs like electrician, electronics technician and maintenance supervisors who repair and look after of all the electrical equipment.

An offshore drilling job is a very lucrative career. As you can see, you do not need drilling experience to get hired on an offshore oil rig. And now that you know there are companies other than Shell hiring people, you have many ways to get in on the action. You can get in as part of the drill crew, or as a tradesman.

RigWorker.com has been helping people get offshore drilling jobs since 1998.

Click here to to learn how we can help you get your offshore drilling job

Offshore Rig Jobs - Key Factors Needed to Find the Perfect Rig Job

Are You Tired of repeatedly Applying over and over again to various oil rig employers just to get no response? Unless these "Incredible" resume creators are yielding results stop wasting money on them! The Key to obtaining offshore rig jobs is just honest smart work! Below i have explained some smart tips that will increase anyone's chance's of obtaining any job they desire.

There are many factors employers consider before hiring employees!

Two key elements that employers constantly look for are creativity and leadership. Now in order to be ahead of everyone else applying, these two qualities must be shown through your application or resume submitted. I know your thinking "How in the world can I show employers these two characteristics on mere pieces of paper?" The answer is obvious, you have to make it more then just a mere piece of paper! This means attaching a cover letter with a detailed explanation telling why your the perfect candidate for the position. In This Letter you have the chance to give your application or resume an extremely personal touch.

A great thing to do when preparing a cover letter is to take some extra time and research the companies main problems! This will allow you to gear your resume and cover letter towards these problems, showing the prospect employer why your the best person for the job and how you can solve some of these issues. As long as one has a powerful resume to back up the cover letter attaining an interview should be no problem. For example: In the experience section of your resume or application you want to show your most recent and relevant positions to the job your applying for. This means they should appear at the top of whatever page you print them on. This one small step can truly make a difference, because generally employers scan or skim resumes due to the high volume.

Furthermore, research is key in planning the attainment of any desired job position. This one element saves so much time because when implemented correctly the results presented are critical to the planning process. In these results the answer to the age old question "who is hiring" can be found for jobs including offshore rig jobs. Are you thinking "Where do i begin to research?" Their are many medias that can be used to collect research. I suggest the internet to begin with because it has a wide variety of information pertaining to jobs including offshore rig jobs and its Free. The easiest way to use the internet is to head to your favorite search engines, when searching use keywords that clearly state what employer or job information you would like. Make sure you are taking results from the most current news pertaining to your desired position, so you know what is going on in that industry. Knowledge is power, when one goes into a interview and has no clue about any new developments or news in the industry one is applying for it makes it harder maintain conversation.

Finally. employers hire usually based on experience and personalty....

Find more Tips To Get Your Foot in the door for jobs including Oil Job Opportunities

Check out These Offshore Rig Job Tips here: http://www.squidoo.com/offshorerigjobs

Offshore Oil Rig Jobs - Apply Online

any people are attracted to the adventure and high pay of working offshore on an oil rig. Drilling for oil and gas is very demanding and requires a special type of person; for starters you have to work in mostly remote locations working 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off.

However a career in the oil industry is very rewarding and the best part you can get started without any prior experience and the average starting salary is $55,000 and $70,000 per year for only 6 months work.

If you have experience or a specialized trade it may increase your chances of employment and with a higher pay but it is not always required.

If you are just starting out in the industry you will want to start out as a roustabout. Roustabouts are general labors on the oil rig; they play a crucial role thought out the drilling process from offloading equipment to ongoing maintenance of the drilling rig. Their main role however is to perform general maintenance on the drilling platform and oil rig.

Work on an oil rig demands a lot of physical work and mental focus so you will want to be fit and alert. Emergencies do happen like fires and oil spills, as a roustabout you will undergo extensive training as part of a firefighting team and how to deal with safety issues.

Once you have acquired the skills of a roustabout you may want to look at getting promoted to roughneck. Roughnecks manually operate the drill on the drill floor and thread the drill pieces together and unthread them once the drilling is complete.

After roughneck you want to aim for Derrick hands who handle the top section of the drill pipe. The derrick hand raises and lowers the drill pipe in to the hole.

For more detail and the official oil industry guide to getting a job on an offshore oil rig.
For the official guide to the Oil Industry and critical information regarding the in's and out's of employment in the offshore oil industry. If you are considering a job on an oil rig, this is the best place to help you get you employment in the offshore oil industry http://GetOilRigJob.com/