What do yacht crew interviews actually ask?

I have interviewed crew on a video call before breakfast, and on the aft deck with their shoes in their hand. The questions were the same both times. Most green crew rehearse for questions nobody asks, then get caught out by the ordinary ones.

Who is actually on the other side of the interview?

Four people do the asking in this industry: the owner, the captain, your head of department, or a recruitment agent. Which one you get tells you what the call is for. An agent is screening you against a brief. A head of department is deciding if you will make her week harder. I am deciding if I can live in a metal box with you for six months.

The first round is a phone or video call on most boats, and plenty of jobs are filled off that call alone, with no in person meeting at all.

Four things to get right before you dial in:

• Wear trousers, not just a clean shirt. You can be asked to stand up and show your full length on camera.
• Plain wall behind you, laptop on a table, charged. Not a phone held up in a bunk.
• Clear the hours after the call. A first interview that goes well runs long.
• Be ready to say yes to a start date that is uncomfortably soon. Owners want crew who can start tomorrow, and would prefer yesterday.

If the interview is onboard, take your shoes off at the passerelle before anybody has to tell you.

Definition

the passerelle is the gangway, the ramp or steps between the dock and the yacht. Shoes come off there. It is the first test and nobody scores it out loud.

What questions do captains actually ask?

Ordinary ones. Career goals. Why yachts. What you enjoy in your current job, your strengths and weaknesses, why you over the next CV. Then the ones that catch people: your last three jobs and why you left each, what you dislike about your current job, and what a past employer would say about you. Agency prep lists from Bluewater to Wilson Halligan carry the same set, because every interviewer uses it.

Then there are the ones a captain asks because he has been burned. Conflict, and how you handled it. Crew misconduct. Difficult personalities in a shared cabin. Whether you would help another department on a turnaround. Whether you can actually take the schedule.

That last row is worth a number. Under the Maritime Labour Convention you get a minimum of 10 hours rest in any 24, and 77 hours in any 7 days. That is the floor, not the plan. Say the number back to me and I know you have read something.

From the bridge

I ask the same conflict question to everyone and I am not listening for the resolution. I am listening for whether you name a person and blame them.

What should you ask back?

Have five to ten questions ready. The number itself is the signal: it says you researched the yacht, not the job board. Good ones: who is in the crew, how the yacht operates, what the day to day looks like in your role, what training you would get, and why the last person in the job left.

There is a short list you keep out of a first interview: salary, time off, tips, flight allowance, course payment, partner employment, and what the yacht charters for. Some agency guides soften that and say raise salary if the interviewer has not. My rule: ask about the itinerary and the crew first, and follow the money only if the conversation has already gone there.

One question is worth more than all of them. Ask directly whether they would consider having you do a trial or daywork tomorrow. It moves you from a name on a call to a body on the deck.

What gets you cut in the first two minutes?

Talking over people. Ask hiring captains for their top red flag and that is the one they name, ahead of turning up unprepared, asking only about pay, time off and cabins, and inventing credentials that one phone call would disprove.

Never criticise a past captain or a past crew. Yachting is a small world. The stew you rubbish on a Tuesday is my chief stew's old bunkmate.

Dress is a solved problem, so solve it:

• Crisp polo or blouse. Plain dark shorts, trousers or skirt. Ironed.
• Deck shoes, clean. No flip flops.
• Hair neat and secured. Minimal makeup.
• Visible tattoos covered, ear piercings kept to a minimum, beard neat or gone.

That is also just what the crew you are joining looks like at 08:00. If your CV arrived looking sharper than you do, that is a gap I will notice. There is more on that in the chapter on your CV being your dockwalk.

Is the trial day the real interview?

Yes. The call gets you the trial. The trial gets you the job. Daywork is how a foot gets in the door before a permanent position exists, and that is exactly how it works from my side of the passerelle too.

As of August 2026, daywork pays EUR 120 to 160 a day in Antibes, EUR 100 to 150 in Palma, and USD 150 to 200 in Fort Lauderdale. So the trial is paid work, not a favour you are doing anybody. Some yachts ask to see your ENG1 before you board, and every yacht hands you the worst job on the list to see how you take it.

One legal point that ends more trials than a bad attitude does. If the yacht is in US waters, non US crew need a B1/B2 visa to work aboard, and that includes a single day of daywork. ESTA and B2 tourist status do not allow it. The B1/B2 fee is USD 185 as of August 2026. This is not legal advice. Check the official page before you act.

For the wider picture of how these calls fit into a season on the dock, read the free guide, then the chapter on landing your first job. If you have not started walking docks yet, start at how to dockwalk.