You are ready for something new. Maybe you want to work on more complex vessels, take on different technical responsibilities or simply see what is possible outside your current company.
Then the research starts. Looking at vacancies, comparing shipyards, reading job descriptions, checking LinkedIn and trying to work out what a role actually involves. Then you apply, wait for a reply and tell your story all over again at every company. Do that with ten different companies and you have almost created a second full-time job for yourself.
And then there are the two extremes many engineers will recognise. You send your CV and hear nothing for weeks. Or you leave your details somewhere and suddenly get calls about every vacancy that happens to have ‘engineer’ in the title. Neither is particularly useful.
Middle Point works differently. Our consultants work every day within yacht building, shipbuilding and offshore engineering, supporting major shipyards and technical companies across North-West Europe. When you tell us you are open to a next step, we do not look at just one vacancy. We look at the companies and opportunities that genuinely fit your experience. Or where you want to go in the future.
One conversation, several possibilities
It starts with a good conversation about what you have done so far. Nothing more complicated than necessary, but detailed enough for us to understand your experience.
A Mechanical Engineer who has spent the last few years working mainly on engine room systems will be looking at different opportunities from someone with the same job title who has strong experience in HVAC or piping. For Electrical Engineers, it makes a big difference whether your background is mainly in design, power distribution, automation, commissioning or system integration.
Your next step does not simply have to mean becoming ‘more senior’ either. You may want to work closer to production, take responsibility for a complete system, finally gain commissioning experience, work on a different type of vessel or join an organisation where you can specialise further. That is what we want to understand first.
Our consultants know the companies in their market. They know which shipyards could be interesting for your discipline, how engineering is organised there and what kind of experience they are looking for. Together, we can then select the opportunities that are actually worth your time. You do not need to send your CV to a long list of companies first just to find out where there might be a match.
Understanding a vacancy better
This is especially useful in the maritime industry, because the same job title can mean something quite different from one company to another.
A Senior Engineer may be deeply involved in technical engineering at one organisation, while at another the role includes much more supplier coordination, planning and integration. A large shipyard may also divide responsibilities differently from a smaller engineering company. Two similar vacancies can therefore turn into very different jobs in practice.
Middle Point has worked in this market for many years. We speak with Lead Engineers, HR teams, project organisations and, of course, engineers themselves. This gives our consultants a good understanding of what sits behind a vacancy and the company offering it.
We are not here to decide where you should work. We give you more information before you decide where you want to spend your time. Because a vacancy can look great on paper. That still tells you very little about how you will feel on Monday morning.
We do not simply send your CV into the market
That matters to us. Speaking with Middle Point does not mean your CV will suddenly land on the desks of twenty companies. We first discuss which opportunities suit you and which ones you are actually interested in.
It also helps us avoid contacting you about roles that have little to do with your experience or ambitions. A Senior Naval Architect does not need a weekly call because somebody somewhere is looking for a Mechanical Engineer. It sounds obvious. In recruitment, apparently it is still worth saying.
There may also be a moment when we simply do not see an opportunity that makes us think: you really should look at this. There is no reason to turn that into an application.
Our consultants work in their own areas of the maritime market every day. If something relevant comes up later, we already have a much better idea of why it could be interesting for you.
There is more to consider than the job itself
Once an interesting opportunity comes up, practical questions quickly follow. What does the contract look like? Where will you work? How much travel is involved? Will you be fully on-site, or is there some flexibility? And what would a different location mean for your daily life?
Middle Point works with different types of contracts. Which option fits depends on the client, the role and your situation. Our consultants can explain the possibilities during the process.
Location can also matter more than you expect. You do not have to move from Spain to the Netherlands before relocation becomes relevant. An engineer living in southern Germany who finds an interesting role around Hamburg also has a practical puzzle to solve. If the right next step means moving within the Netherlands or Germany, we can help you with that move and the questions that come with it.
For engineers moving internationally to the Netherlands or Germany, there may be more to arrange. Depending on your situation, residence and work documents can be part of the process. If your situation and the role qualify, we can also guide you through the administrative steps. You should not have to start figuring all of that out only after you have already said yes.
What if you do not know exactly which company you are looking for?
That is not a problem. Many experienced engineers have a good idea of the work they enjoy, but do not automatically have an overview of every shipyard, engineering company and technical organisation where they could do that work.
You might immediately think of the well-known large yacht builders, while your experience could also be relevant to a commercial shipyard, system integrator or engineering company. The opposite can be true as well. Our consultants can compare those possibilities because they work with different companies across the same industry every day and also know which projects are coming up.
So you do not need to come to us with a list of employers. Tell us what you are good at, which projects you have worked on and what you would like to do more of. That gives us something useful to work with.
Ready to look around?
You could, of course, open ten vacancies, research ten companies and explain ten times what you have been doing for the past few years. Or you can start with one conversation at Middle Point. From there, we can look at the companies, roles and contract options that fit your experience and plans. You decide which opportunities are interesting enough to explore further.
One application to Middle Point can give you access to multiple potential employers across the maritime industry.
