Lauren Beck is the former editor of Dockwalk and was with the publication from 2006 to 2023. At 13, she left South Africa aboard a 34-foot sailing boat with her family and ended up in St. Maarten for six years. Before college, she worked as crew for a year, and then cut her journalistic teeth at Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies’ Home Journal online. She loves traveling, reading, tennis, and rooting for the Boston Red Sox.
Finding a new job or your first crew job can be, well, a full-time job. But there are options out there that can make the process easier. The latest is Crew Pages, which was founded by Gracija Matijevic, a former yacht chef last on board 46-meter M/Y Rêve d’Or.
“Every crewmember knows how hard it is when you are seeking a new position on board any vessel,” he says — and not only in yachting. “Crew Pages is an all-maritime platform that aims to revolutionize crew’s access to the job market and currently available jobs and help them strengthen their industry relationships,” Matijevic says. “The vision is to cater to maritime crew to apply for any job worldwide with one account and one simple click.”
Crew Pages launched in 2021. It’s free for both crew and recruiters, and it will remain free, Matijevic stresses. He aims to help crew by collecting all maritime jobs in one place and offering “equal opportunity and visibility as Crew Pages’ motto is ‘Every CV deserves to be seen.’ But not only that, we believe that every open vacancy needs to be seen too, which is not the case now.”
Matijevic believes his process will make an easier recruitment process for both crew and recruiters and eliminates the need to register at various platforms or recruiter’s sites. “In the yachting industry, I noticed a massive discrepancy between what we need in terms of the workforce and how accessible it is or is not,” he says. So he’s changing it and believes with his specifically tailored site search engine, the process will be “effortless.” Crew Pages works with recruiters and hiring representatives to help with job promotion, and also offers communication tools and allows crew to collaborate.
While the platform welcomes all crew across the maritime sector, Matijevic says a large focus is on new crew coming into the industry as they need more support. “However, as we believe in mentorship and synergy and working together, we love seeing senior crew joining the platform too, allowing for meaningful connections and shares.”
The idea for Crew Pages came to him during his crew career. “I vividly remember the frustration we faced when trying to help a few friends board a ship,” he says, explaining that he had seen several people struggle to find a position in the recruitment system. “It all started with me saying it shouldn’t be that hard. We need to find a way to make all crewmembers visible to recruiters. That thought stayed with me, and I realized that if it should be done, why not simply do it? And that is how it all started.”
So he started building Crew Pages while working on board, spending his days cooking, then the rest of his time talking to developers, recruiters, agencies, and other crew to best understand how to create a “truly useful” platform. He loved the excitement of doing it all, but when the opportunity arose to support his wife, who runs A+ Yachting, and build up Crew Pages, he jumped. The team is currently working on user upgrades, so stay tuned.