Your second stewardess has just resigned, three weeks before the yacht crosses for the season. The agency sends you forty CVs in two days. You are turning cabins, doing the provisioning list and running a laundry backlog, and you have a strong urge to just hire the one with the nicest photograph. This is exactly where bad interior teams come from.
Define the Role Before You Look at Anyone
A vacancy is not simply a body to replace. Write down, before the first CV:
- The gap in the team. Do you actually need another service stew, or a laundry-and-detailing specialist, or someone who can carry a bar and a barista programme?
- Non-negotiables. Certificates (STCW basic training, ENG1 or equivalent medical, any flag-required security awareness), visas (B1/B2, Schengen), sea time, silver service, wine knowledge.
- Desirables. Massage, hairdressing, floristry, second language, tender-driving, watersports.
- The reality. Rotation or permanent, cabin sharing, salary, season length, guest load. Write it as it is.
The Job Description
| Section | What it does |
|---|---|
| Purpose | One sentence on why the role exists |
| Reporting line | To the Chief Stewardess; who they supervise |
| Core duties | Service, cabins, laundry, interior detailing, inventories, guest preferences |
| Requirements | Certificates, visas, experience, GUEST or equivalent training |
| Conditions | Rotation, salary band, uniform, leave, season profile |
A vague advert attracts vague applicants, and it is the single biggest cause of a candidate leaving after six weeks because the job was not what they were sold. Honesty at advert stage is a retention tool.
Sifting CVs
Sift against the written criteria, not against a feeling. A practical method:
- Screen out on non-negotiables only — missing certificates, no visa, no relevant sea time.
- Score the rest against desirables. Two or three criteria, consistently applied.
- Look for tenure patterns. A run of six-week jobs asks a question; it does not answer it. Ask about it rather than assuming.
- Read the gaps. Career breaks, study, illness and family are normal. They are not disqualifying.
- Note the writing. A CV riddled with careless errors from someone who will be writing guest preference notes is relevant evidence. A CV in someone second language is not.
Be alert to bias. Yacht recruitment has a long history of screening on photographs, age, nationality and appearance. Beyond being unlawful in many jurisdictions and contrary to the equal-opportunity commitments in most yacht policies, it produces weaker teams. Sift on capability against criteria you wrote down before you saw a name.
Keep a Record
Keep the criteria, the scores and the reasons. If a decision is ever challenged, or if you simply need to explain to the Captain why you rejected the owner friend niece, a written rationale is the difference between a defensible process and an argument.
Onboard Notes
- Never hire in panic. A short-term daywork solution buys you two weeks to hire properly.
- The agency works for the yacht, not for you personally — brief them properly and they will pre-sift.
- Do not let a rushed hire become a dismissal in three months. That is far more expensive.
- General professional guidance only. Not legal advice — employment law varies by jurisdiction.
- xplor is not an accredited GUEST provider; nothing here awards or counts toward a unit, certificate or Certificate of Competency.