Many will have experienced a yacht sale, some will have left a good job to study and climb the career ladder, some will have been dismissed, sometimes with little explanation, others will have left an unbearable job with no leadership or team spirit… initial feeling of elation (for those who experience it) from this new found freedom is bound to evaporate if you do not secure a new super yacht crew job in fairly short order.
I mentioned in the previous issue of ONBOARD that after a dip in numbers, the number of jobs available in-house at YPI CREW and stewardesses should make for a fairly relaxed job search experience as, after all, we are in a candidate-driven market, right? Yes, undoubtedly we are, and certainly, recruiters also witness a faster pace at which yacht crew are rejecting job offers; this is a clear indicator that crew have more employment options open level where often, the job search takes weeks and months.
So, how do you stay sane looking for work when you have to repeat over and over that "no, I have not found a job yet" or when you feel your partner's patience is surreptitiously wearing thin or even perhaps when recruiters don't revert back to you?
5,10,25,30 crew or more on a yacht, so obviously the demand is less at the top which is why it will take you longer to secure a job. Recognising and accepting this simple fact will help you put things into perspective. Of course, it's normal to experience various emotions from sadness and frustration to self-doubt; reminding yourself why you are a talented, professional, well-liked captain is a helpful mental exercise which will restore self-feelings do affect your body language and how you project yourself to others and this will show during interviews; nobody wants to.
It's important to get your whole network going. Most of the time, captain's jobs come from word of mouth, personal contact, past contacts, past employers, people you have worked with. Of course, recruiters have jobs too, but most of our activity is placing crew, not captains. Get visible, write or contribute to industry magazines and press: they are always looking for
Get back to basics: how good is your CV and how do you come
CV is one of the main reasons captains don't land an interview in re-crafting yours. If someone knows you well and introduces you directly to an owner, the CV is secondary. In every other, the ball is in your court. Clients expect a document which is to the point, easy to read, self-explanatory, with a good quality, the risk of repeating the same mistakes and becoming your own worst enemy, forget vague, approximate, unengaged answers.
In recruitment nobody wants to second guess and if a client has a doubt they will always choose the other Captain, the one you but who happened to interview better than you. How annoying is this? By the way, there is always a way to explain a reason for leaving a job, even if you were dismissed. Also, "Leaving for personal reasons" is never a good answer as it will never satisfy.
Relax, plan your days and weeks to allow for some real down time when you are not talking about work or worrying about your situation. Give your loved ones your full attention.
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