Every agency has the same candidates
This is the thing owners are rarely told. Crew register with several agencies at once — it costs them nothing, and it is the sensible thing to do. So the candidate pool is largely shared.
What differs is what happens to a candidate after they register. That is the whole of it.
Three questions that separate the field
1. Has someone actually spoken to this candidate?
Not emailed. Spoken. A large agency working at volume filters by keyword and forwards what matches. A candidate can reach you having never had a conversation with anyone.
Ask directly: who spoke to this person, and what did they make of them?
2. How are references taken?
Written references are close to worthless — nobody writes a bad one. What matters is a phone call with the previous captain, where the useful information lives in tone and hesitation rather than in the words.
Ask whether references were taken by phone, and who made the call.
3. Has the person briefing you worked on a yacht?
This decides whether your brief is understood or merely recorded. Someone who has run a department knows why a technically perfect candidate will not survive on your boat. Someone who has not will match the certificate and hope.
Volume is not a service
Twenty CVs is not twenty options. It is a filtering job that has been handed to you.
A useful introduction is three or four people, each with a reason they are on it, and an honest note about what is imperfect. If a role is genuinely hard to fill, you should be told that rather than sent volume to disguise it.
Questions worth asking before you brief anyone
- Who will I be dealing with, and will that person change?
- How many candidates will you put forward, and why those?
- How do you take references?
- What happens if the placement does not work out?
- Have you crewed a yacht with this programme before?
- What will you tell me if you cannot fill it?
The brief matters as much as the agency
The best agency in the industry cannot help with a brief that says "experienced chief stewardess, 50m, available April".
What actually helps: the owner’s style, the crew already on board, what went wrong with the last person, the realistic workload, and whether the programme is as advertised. Agencies that ask those questions are worth more than agencies that do not.
Small agency versus volume agency
A large agency has more people and more reach, and for high-turnover junior positions across a fleet that can be exactly right.
A small agency handles fewer yachts and knows each one. For heads of department, for confidential replacements, and for any boat where crew fit decides the season, that knowledge is the service.
Neither is better in the abstract. What matters is matching the model to the hire.
More on how we work: crew placement, or start a conversation.