A chief stew is standing on the passerelle with her phone, filling a gap before a charter that starts on Friday. She has forty CVs in her inbox. She will spend about eight seconds on each. Yours has three paragraphs about your passion for travel and a photo of you at a festival. It is already gone.
The Rules of a Crew CV
- One page. Not two. One.
- Photo, top corner. This is normal in yachting and not negotiable.
- Certificates high up. STCW, ENG1 expiry, Food Safety, PSA — with dates.
- Nationality, visas, languages. Say plainly which visas you hold.
- Reverse chronological work history, short bullet lines, no essays.
- References with names, roles and contact details — real ones, who know they are on there.
Structure That Works
| Section | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Header | Name, role sought, phone with country code, email, current location |
| Personal | Nationality, DOB, visas, languages, smoker/non-smoker, tattoos/visible |
| Certificates | STCW, ENG1 (with expiry), Food Safety, PSA, any hospitality/barista |
| Sea service | Yacht name, size in metres, private/charter, role, dates |
| Shore work | Relevant experience first, with what you actually did |
| Interests / other | Brief, human, honest — this does get read |
What Green Crew Put On It
You have no sea time. That is fine — everyone starts there. Show transferable evidence:
- Hospitality: restaurant, bar, hotel, housekeeping, barista, silver service, events.
- Care and detail: anything where you were trusted with someone's home, health or valuables.
- Physical, disciplined work: military, sport at a serious level, nursing, cleaning.
- Day work: log every single day you do, with the yacht name and the person who supervised you.
Do not pad. Do not invent. Yachting is small, captains talk, and a lie about a yacht you never worked on will follow you around the Med for years.
The Photo
- Head and shoulders, plain light background, plain polo or shirt, hair tidy, smiling, looking at the camera.
- Taken in daylight, not a nightclub, not a bathroom mirror, not a passport photo, not sunglasses.
- Neutral and professional. Yachting still has old-fashioned expectations about presentation, and the photo is where they land first.
Onboard Notes
- Save it as PDF, named
Firstname Lastname CV.pdf. Notcv final final2.docx. - Update it after every single day work job, the same evening. Momentum is everything when you are green.
- Keep it truthful. The industry's memory is longer than your CV.