Waitre d Recruitment

01/09/2026

“I want to work on a cruise ship.” Fine. But which one? Because the company you sail with shapes your working life for six months at a time and most applicants know almost nothing about Viking before they apply.
Here’s what’s worth knowing 👇
🛳️ Viking was started in 1997 by a Norwegian, Torstein Hagen, with a few river ships in Russia. Now over 100 vessels across 21 rivers, five oceans and all seven continents. Still growing and growing fleets need crew.
🛳️ The ocean ships are small on purpose. Up to 998 guests, around 463 crew. About a third the size of the giants. Just under two guests per crew member.
That last number matters more than people realise. On a 5,000-guest ship you’re one of two thousand. On a Viking ship the officers who decide on promotions know your name.
🛳️ No children on board at all since 2018. Minimum guest age is 18. And no casinos. So no kids’ club chaos, no casino crowd at 2am. Your guests are adults, mostly over 50, well travelled, genuinely interested in where they are. Demanding in the best way they notice if the w**e was poured properly. If you take pride in service, you’ll love it.
🛳️ 450+ awards. Rated #1 for Rivers and Oceans by Condé Nast Traveler. Around 10,000 crew worldwide and serious money spent on training. That quite simply is why they’re our primary client. We’ve placed candidates who started as Assistant Waiter who are in Restaurant Management today, and who started as an Assistant Cook and are a Chef de Cuisine today.

Full write-up 👉 https://waitred.co.za/who-is-viking-the-company-behind-the-job-youre-applying-for/

27/08/2026

Your CV is the only thing we have to go on.

Before we ever speak to you, before we hear your voice or see how you carry yourself, there is a document on our screen and a few minutes to decide whether to take it further. That is the whole of it.

And here is the thing most people get wrong. The CVs we turn away are usually not turned away for a lack of experience. They are turned away because the CV does not tell us enough to say yes. The experience might be there. We simply cannot see it.

These are the five gaps we chase people about, week after week:

1. Your dates. Every employer, from when to when, month and year. This is the most common gap we see, and an incomplete work history stops an application dead.

2. Your duties. Not just the job title. What did you actually do? How
many covers on a busy night? À la carte or buffet? W**e service? Write it out. If you're not sure whether something is relevant, put it in and let us decide.

3. A photograph. A recent colour photo, head and shoulders, smiling. It is not a convention and it may feel strange, but a CV without one is an incomplete application.

4. Two references, from different companies. Only ever worked for one employer? Send one company reference and one character reference — a professional person, your school, or your church is fine.

5. Contact details that work. A phone number you actually answer and an email address you actually check. We have lost people simply because we could not reach them.

Three more things, because a cruise ship CV is not a normal CV:

Leave out your salary and your reasons for leaving. Some clients ask for those on their own forms later. On a CV they add nothing.

If you have been to sea before, send your appraisals. Previous ship
experience carries weight. A few good appraisals carry more.

And if you don't have STCW yet, please don't worry about it and please don't go and pay for it. You only need it once a position is
confirmed, and we will tell you exactly where to go and when.

Full guide on our website — everything above plus what goes in each section, how to format it, and what we do with it once it reaches us:

https://waitred.co.za/submitting-your-best-cv-tips-and-advice/

Applying is completely free. We do not charge candidates a fee at any stage, for anything.

25/08/2026

There is an online business selling South Africans and Zimbabweans a fake work history.

A few hundred Rand or Dollars gets you a smart-looking CV, listing years of experience at hotels you have never set foot in, plus reference names and phone numbers that will be answered by somebody paid to say you were excellent.

We are seeing more and more of these every month.

So here is what happens when one reaches us. The application is
closed, and that person does not apply to us again. Not next year.
Not ever.

Before anyone panics: using AI or a template to help word your CV is not the problem. If English is your second language, or you have
twelve years of real experience and no idea how to lay it out, get
help. That is not dishonesty.

The line is simple. Help with how you describe your experience is
fine. Inventing experience you don't have is fraud.

And we do find out. Every time.

We see the same layout and the same phrasing arriving from different applicants in different countries. We see job titles that hotel doesn't use, and dates that don't add up. We phone the reference and it rings dead, or it's answered by somebody who can't tell us which section you worked in or if you ever worked there at all. And then there's the interview, which is where most of them end — because you cannot fake experience in conversation with somebody who has done the job. Ask a real fine-dining waiter what they do when a guest sends back a bottle of w**e and the answer comes back in a second, because they've lived it.

We are hard on this for one reason. When we send you to Viking, we are telling them we have checked you. Our name goes on it. That trust is the only thing this agency has, and we are not spending it on somebody who lied to get in the door.

Here is the part that matters more.

Most people buying these CVs are not criminals. They are people who want the job badly and think they are one credential short. If that's you: rather send us the real thing. We would far rather see an honest CV with two years at a busy chain restaurant than a polished lie about a five-star hotel. And if you do not have the experience Viking requires for the current available roles, try again in the future when you do.

Full article, including what South African law now says about this:
https://waitred.co.za/https://waitred.co.za/fake-cv/

24/08/2026

A young woman phoned us in tears last year. She’d paid R8,500 to someone on Facebook who promised her a cruise ship job. No job. No ship. Dead WhatsApp number, empty bank account.
We hear that story most months. So, let’s make this simple.

🚫 A real recruitment agency will NEVER ask you for money.
Not for registration. Not for “visa processing”. Not for a uniform deposit or a contract admin fee. The cruise line pays the agency — not the candidate. We do not charge anything for our services.

Other red flags worth memorising:
🚫 An offer with no interview. Nobody, ever, gets hired onto a ship without being interviewed. If a contract lands in your inbox before you’ve spoken to a human, it’s fake.

🚫 A Gmail or Outlook address. Legitimate recruitment agencies will have a proper domain name, like [email protected] or [email protected], not [email protected] or [email protected].

🚫 “Pay today, the ship sails Friday.” That’s pressure, not a deadline.

🚫 “No experience needed, earn R45,000 a month.” Real ships have real standards. An advert with no requirements has no job behind it.

And never verify an agency using the contact details that agency gave you. Search independently. Check the cruise line’s own website for its approved partners.

Full guide 👉 https://waitred.co.za/how-to-avoid-cruise-ship-employment-scams

Share this with someone. Their savings depend on it.

19/08/2026

We've been placing South Africans and Zimbabweans on Viking Cruise ships for the past ten years and the single biggest reason good applications get turned away is that candidates apply without having the experience that Viking is looking for. Not because they don’t have good experience.

So here is the list of things you need to work for Viking Cruises:

✔ You must be over 21. Not 20 and a half. Twenty-one. The cruise line sets this, not us. If you're 19 or 20, use the time — get into the hospitality industry and come to us with two years behind you instead of none.

✔ Real experience in the work you're applying for. Previous cruise ship experience, a five-star hotel, or fine dining restaurant. Two years minimum. The ships want somebody who already knows what a formal service standard feels like.

✔ Medically fit, and able to pass a seafarer's medical. Not a simple medical from your GP — a proper seafarer's medical with an approved doctor. Please don't book it yet. We'll tell you exactly where to go once you've passed the interview.

✔ A clear criminal record. No exceptions, and it gets checked properly. If there's something in your history, tell us up front. It's far worse when it surfaces at the background check stage.

✔ No visible tattoos in uniform. Forearms, neck, hands, ears, and anything above a collar or below a cuff. Under the shirt, nobody cares. Send us photos with your application and we'll check them against Viking's grooming policy.

✔ We don't place couples or friends together on a first contract, so be prepared to apply as an individual and be selected on merit.

✔ You must be from South Africa or Zimbabwe. That's our directive, and we'd rather tell you now than leave you waiting.

✔ And we don't charge you a cent. No registration fee, no application fee, no interview fee, no placement fee. All our services are completely free — and if any agency asks you for money to apply for a ship job, walk away.

Go down that list honestly. If you can tick everything off, apply here and we'll get back to you if you have the experience Viking is looking for: https://www.careers-page.com/waitred-recruitment

If you'd rather sit in a room and ask us questions face to face, follow this page to see when we're running our free presentations in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg. We also do one-on-one online interviews.

We look forward to meeting you soon.

11/08/2026

Please visit https://waitred.co.za/current-positions-available/ to apply.

07/07/2026

Kindly visit https://waitred.co.za to apply.

13/05/2026

🚢 We’re still looking for Assistant Chief Housekeepers to join Viking Cruises!

Applicants must currently be working in an Assistant Chief Housekeeper role and must have previous shipboard experience.

This is an exciting opportunity to work with one of the world’s leading cruise lines, with excellent benefits and career growth potential.

To apply, please visit www.waitred.co.za and follow the Apply Now link to submit your documentation.

We look forward to receiving your application!

Cruise Ship Jobs South Africa | Viking Cruises Recruitment | waitred.co.za Apply for cruise ship jobs with Viking Cruises through South Africa’s leading recruitment agency. Free to apply. Open roles in hospitality, galley, housekeeping & more. Create the career you will love Join the people behind...

31/03/2026

We are super proud of our Viking Chefs who were selected and have completed their advancement training in Manila and are now ready for promotion. Well done and good luck from us all at Waitre d' Recruitment 😁

31/03/2026

Such exciting times ahead for Viking Cruises, the World's No 1 Cruise Line, and we are so very proud to be a part of it. 😁

The Viking Libra, our newest ocean ship set to join our fleet in November 2026, touched water for the first time this week for her "float out." She is the world's first hydrogen-powered cruise ship capable of operating with zero emissions. This addition to our fleet of small, award-winning ocean shi...