About Us

    Stargate Crewing is an ISO certified, MLC compliant crew manning agency based in Constanta, Romania, a premier centre for maritime education on the Black Sea coast. We provide talented crew and repair teams for all types of sea-going vessels, drawing our recruits from some of the best trained seafarers and technicians in the business today.

We are a leading manpower provider to the maritime sector in East Europe recognized for exceptional results with clients around the world. Our emphasis is on building long-term client relationships with success in this area measured by the number of talented new crew members we can add to our pool for our clients.

Stargate is responsible for thousands of professional placements each year and since our establishment in 2004 we have developed the ability to tailor each search to our client’s specific needs and take pride in the thoroughness of our methods in selecting candidates. Our selection and recruitment services are based on the best practices in the Human Resources industry, and all our recruits are carefully vetted before being signed on for a voyage so that our clients can rest assured that they have the best possible candidate working on their vessels.

Our responsibility is to present the very best talent available from which our clients can make a decision. A critical component of our recruitment strategy is our ability to draw top flight professionals by attractively presenting the challenges and opportunities of the position and the company.

Stargate embraces diversity and inclusion and will forever remain committed to a multicultural work environment in the maritime industry.

We pledge to diverse crew teams based on merit and performance, and thereby transform the role of human capital in shipping.

Stargate’s performance and ethos drive better business results. We are unique in our approach to crew manning and continue to redefine the seafarer recruitment experience through the use of accurate market data, customer feedback, precise communication, and continuous learning.

We strive to be a sophisticated, reliable, and trusted recruitment partner bringing better value to each engagement through efficiency and responsiveness.

With the phenomenal growth in cruise travel, we recognize the need for developing a robust pipeline of recruits for every kind of cruise brand in the market today, keeping in mind their meticulous quality standards and operational demands. Our clients have highly reputable product and service norms and expect candidates to match the company’s exacting standards. Stargate Crewing provides full complement recruitment solutions for cruise lines, including all ranks of navigation, engineering, maintenance, hospitality, housekeeping, and kitchen staff. Cruise recruitment is handled by a specialized department with considerable experience in working with top brands. We employ the same rigorous quality standards used in our maritime recruitment for our cruise clients.

Over the years we have built a solid reputation for recruiting the vacancies that most other recruitment agencies find difficult to fill. Applicants are carefully chosen to meet the service and safety standards of the company, its professional expectations and brand culture. Our recruits are selected to deliver exceptional service quality so that they may be able to offer memorable travel experiences to the vacationers on board. Our commitment to higher quality service standards is the driving force behind our recruitment of cruise staff. We believe the product and service quality that every cruise line offers to it client depends largely on the quality of its onboard personnel, their professional skills and personal conduct. As with our maritime crew manning operations, we insist on continuous learning and personal improvement to prepare our people for the challenges of a career in the cruise industry.

Stargate Crewing is recognized for exceptional service and support to the boutique cruise sector for over the past 12 years. Among our clients is Sea Cloud Cruises of Hamburg, Germany, a market leader in luxury cruising since 1979. We are the primary staffing agency in East Europe for Sea Cloud Cruises, and we provide full recruitment support for the company’s personnel needs since 2008. Sea Cloud is a premium luxury brand and offers boutique services to an exclusive clientele in Europe. The company’s ships have a 5-star rating and are regularly recognized by the Berlitz Cruise Guide and the Condé Nast Traveler as the top boutique luxury ships in the world.

Stargate Crewing offers tailor-made recruitment solutions to repair and conversion yards, newbuilding yards and shipmanagement companies for sourcing qualified and experienced technical personnel, engineers, tradesmen, mechanic and repair crew. We have recruitment packages for repair and conversion jobs, maintenance and installation missions, refitting and retrofitting projects and long-term newbuilding projects at different yards worldwide. Our welders, pipe-fitters, electricians, metalworkers, mechanics and painters are employed in various marine workshops around the world, while our temporary workers and apprentices are engaged in various short and medium term projects.

Our people are engaged in numerous retrofitting, refitting and installation operations, helping owners to meet new regulatory, emission, safety and efficiency standards required by international policy and conventions. We are currently engaged in a project for retrofitting and installation of scrubbers on vessels for the engineering company Temika of Greece. Our people are engaged by Temika for full installation and retrofitting of scrubbers as well as staffing its Riding Teams which carry out mid sea retrofitting and installation while the ship is on sail, thereby reducing off-hire time for owners. We support Temika in deploying highly qualified and trained service engineers to carry out retrofitting riding jobs.

Tradesmen

We understand how important is the quality of our recruitment policies in determining the end product and so we encourage people who share the same values and commitment to client satisfaction. All applicants for available positions go through competency based evaluations and interview. This is the first stage in the selection process. Depending on the position, eligible candidates go through an aptitude test and a final interview before selection. Our people are subject to periodic performance evaluation exercises and advised on what they could do to keep up their competence levels. We support our staff on their self-improvement initiatives, and regularly put them though training and workshops related to skilling.

Riding Teams

We send in fully equipped riding teams capable of dealing with practically any kind of malfunction on vessels in voyage. Our riding teams carry out repair, maintenance, installation and refitting jobs on board, ensuring reduced layoff time for vessels. Our technical crew help owners minimize downtime and save on maintenance costs. Our repair personnel are capable of carrying out complex maintenance and repair operations on engines, generators, boilers, pumps and hydraulic systems. Our technical people are mission-oriented and have a reputation for completing the job within the deadline. Our fitters and welders hold Class Certificates and our repair teams provide quality at very competitive rates.

Seafaring continues to be a popular career choice in Romania even when the rest of Europe continues to see a decline in the number of students each successive year to marine colleges. Romanian seafarers come from a long-established European tradition of rigorous academic discipline and sound technical training. They receive some of the world’s finest marine education because of the long history of professional seafaring and reputed marine colleges staffed with teachers having years of experience and some of the most sophisticated teaching equipment and training simulators available anywhere in the world.

Romania’s engine crew and electro-technical officers (ETOs) have acquired a reputation for being some of the best professionals in the business and worth every dollar spent on employing them in a commercial fleet. Hundreds of foreign students come to Romania every year to get quality marine education, returning home as marine officers after completing their four-year degree in deck or engineering faculties.

There are two native characteristics in particular that Romanian seafarers stand out for, their intelligence and their technical troubleshooting skills. Years of vocational and technical education under the communist system of industrialization has endowed Romania with a huge pool of engineers and industrial workers, including a sizeable segment of professional seafarers and shipbuilding technicians who are valued the world over for their knowledge and technical skills.

Professional seafaring in Romania probably began with the establishment of a Fleet School at the Danubian port of Galati in 1872, shortly followed by a Naval Officer’s Academy in the same town in 1896. Early in the 20th century the Naval School moved to the port city of Constanta, and today it counts itself among the premier marine schools of Southeast Europe, the MirceacelBatran Naval Academy, putting out marine graduates and naval officers in both deck and engine departments each academic year.
Marine education in Romania is largely provided by the two premier professional schools, viz. the Mircea naval Academy and the Constanta Maritime University (CMU). Both are largely government-funded institutions. A third school has come up in the private sector that provides short-term diploma courses in deck and navigation, the Nautical College, which focuses on vocational training for those who cannot afford to do full-time four-year degree courses.

In the marine engineering stream, the CMU offers Bachelors, Masters and doctoral degrees in marine engineering, navigation, electro-mechanical and electro-technical studies as well as maritime economics. The medium of instruction is English. The navigation and maritime transport programmes at the CMU conform to European instruction standards, combining a curricula approved and recognized by the Ministry of Education, the Romanian Naval Authority, as well as recommendations of the International Maritime Organization and the European Agency for Maritime Safety. Romania’s competency certificates have international recognition.

At the level of working seafarers, Romania boasts of a highly competent and well staffed training institution in Ceronav, the Romanian Maritime Training Centre, established in 1976 and the most recognized agency for the training of maritime, river and port personnel. The centre operates out of four premises, three in Constanta and a fourth in Galati, and conducts diploma and certificate courses in six disciplines – maritime navigation, river and inland water navigation, marine engineering, tanker specialization, ratings training, and practical training.

Ceronav houses state-of-the-art training facilities, laboratories and simulators, along with fire fighting, life-saving and survival training infrastructure. It is a quality certified institution offering the latest training programmes in compliance with the STCW Convention and other international conventions.

At Stargate Crewing, we understand the value of immediate customer service turnaround and we provide this round the clock to all our clients. We have the shortest reaction time you have seen to any client request. Our Constanta-based office staff consists of trained and experienced client-handling professionals, who take each call with adequate dedication and are constantly available over telephone, e-mail, video conferencing to provide non-stop customer support.

Office Hours and Telephone Availability
Besides the usual office hours and weekly holidays, Stargate people are available for client related emergencies 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  All calls and client requests are meant to be answered and closed within a 24-hour turnaround period, and office staff is expected to address late calls for the next working day.

Our office staff is trained to working non-traditional hours because we understand that business continuity is important in an ever-connected world. Our staff is sufficiently skilled in the English language and some can speak other European languages (French, Spanish, Italian, etc.) fluently.

Stargate customer support is available throughout normal business hours on weekdays, while during weekends and national holidays and seasonal festivals we have a skeletal staff available to deal with emergencies.

Customer service response
We live in the age of immediacy, where the speed at which information travels from one consumer to another has conditioned us to expect instant results. We are constantly trying to reduce the turnaround time for customer service and make it a point to respond of client emails within 24 hours of receipt. In fact, we believe that customers are more irritated by poor or non-existent communication than anything else, and they expect us to get back to them with a satisfactory response quickly every time they make a request for assistance. At Stargate we have established a standard procedure for customer response and periodically monitor and upgrade these procedures to evolve with the times.

Stargate advantage
We pride ourselves on asking the right questions, and in asking the right questions we often convey the assurance that most of our customers are looking for in a professional crew manning agency. Our customer-facing executives are adequately trained and experienced to understand what solutions are available to him/her and the competence to match solutions with customer requests. However, each customer request is treated as a new task and given a specially tailored response depending on the situation.

Finalizing and onboarding quality seafaring personnel have never been more critical to the global shipping economy. Competition, economic uncertainty, higher costs and officer shortages mean that shipowners and managers have to recruit the right people for their vessels, and get it right every time. Since new recruitment involves substantial cost, higher crew turnout needs to be limited through effective selection and recruitment strategies.

Intelligent sourcing is an important component of our manning solutions for clients. Every time a new onboard position needs to be filled, there is time and cost involved that must be factored into the operational cycle. This is as relevant when a new position is being filled for the first time as when an existing position is refilled due to turnover. Much of the cost of acquiring talent is on crew sourcing, including crewing agency fees and travel and embarkation costs for new recruits.

These costs typically add up to agency fees and agency handling fees as also payroll expenses, and may not be readily visible to an organization’s account books. Using intelligent sourcing strategies, Stargate Crewing not only offers faster recruitment from a wide pool of qualified candidates, build stronger relationships with active and passive job seekers, but also provide vessel operators of all sizes with the same talent recruitment advantages.

Crew manning is increasingly about sustained communication with qualified people who possess better seafaring skills. Managing relationships with candidates takes time, and it is important to engage meaningfully or risk losing them in the process. Establishing a candidate communications process makes it easier for candidates and employers to engage in a constructive way. This communication can also be a powerful tool to further the brand objectives of a ship management operation. At Stargate, we put considerable stress on managing candidate relationships and candidate communications to develop and sustain long-term relationships with the talent pool.

We use a smart selection procedure to identify the right candidate for a job by prescreening candidates and applicants against a set of criteria and asking targeted questions. We value the need to cut down on recruitment time and quickly narrow down the most-promising candidates for each opening.

Loyalty contributes significantly to successful shipping operations. When the crew is happy, they go out of their way to do a little more for their employers. They do this is many ways – shareexpertise, help co-workers, raise morale, save resources, suggest improvements, resolve conflicts, and much more. Such behavior makes operations more effective and cuts down losses. As human resource specialists, we take time to understand what your crew needs and try and provide it for them.

Perfect match: We invest more time in the hiring process, and we do this to find the right person for each job and company. Finding the right fit is very important in our line of work. If the selection process is tight, there’s lesser turnout in the future. Retaining well-matched employees takes less effort. We do this by ensuring that the applicant’s values match the values of the organization. A good match will blend naturally with the others on your team, rounding out their skills and fitting in with the overall culture.

There are other important indicators of ensuring company loyalty and Stargate Crewing has adopted personnel management strategies that make a difference not only to their clients but also to their crew.

Leadership: We provide a clear vision, goals and objectives so that our candidates understand their roles and responsibilities, and agree to work within the organizational culture for achieving satisfactory outcomes.

Involvement: Here at Stargate, we take special care to give our crew a family-like experience, engaging with them not only during their home leave but also keeping close contact with their family members to ensure they understand their welfare is our top-most priority and we are committed to looking after their needs at all times.

Fair and Ethicaltreatment: Today’s ship crew understands the working environment and seafarer protection laid down by various international maritime regulations and conventions. We strive to give them a voice and address their professional concerns while adopting a zero tolerance approach towards unfair treatment and discrimination.

Imparting values: We recruit crew whose own values match that of the company. This makes it easier to make the people understand and adopt the value set of their employers without much difficulty or resistance.

Championing champions: Our motivation as recruiters is to give everybody an opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to the employing organization and ensure that the organization in turn recognizes people for the contribution they make.

Teaming: Encourage a sense of belonging to a team with opportunities for lifelong growth and social interaction between staff. We have invested into building deep personal relationships with our crew and their families, frequently interacting with them and becoming a part of their everyday lives.

Empowering people: We inspire loyalty by giving our officers and cadets a sense of freedom and control. At Stargate we trust our people and demonstrate confidence in their abilities, and in turn we inspire their trust. Our crew feels they are valued and respected for what they contribute.

Stargate Crewing offers complete 360-degree crew manning coverage for all types of vessels, achieving higher quality standards with each passing year through stringent quality control measures and better relationship management with all crew. Our seafarers are like an extended family and we take care to build close and strong ties based on addressing mutual concerns and growth needs. No wonder we have some of the highest retention rates in the market and a very high promotion rate for our officers. For each client, make the effort to understand their manning requirements and then tailor our services to meet those needs.

We go a step further from what other agencies offer by not only concentrating on recruitment and retention, but also planning, engagement, and career development. Our office staff collectively have decades of professional experience in crew selection, HR management, maritime labour regulations, training, payroll and finance expertise, and we can take on any fleet size under our wings and create suitable manning solutions for them. Since manning is of critical importance to the client’s daily operations, Stargate provides quite a few services that add value to and help reduce the client’s expenditure in crew management functions.

Personnel database: We have a 20,000-strong database of active seafarers, most of whom are under 48 years of age, and we have four full-time staff in our office continuously engaged in data verification and updating of crew database. Considering the number of man-hours we spend on compiling and maintaining our database, and the fact that our database is compiled after careful pre-selection of candidates, we reduce costs and time for every candidate.

Selection & recruitment: Picking up the right candidate for an opening involves engaging considerable resources on the part of the crew manning agency, including job advertising, application screening, candidate interviews, final selection, and briefing. All candidates are put through a stringent verification and authentication process before being sent forward for personal interviews. Each principal comes with separate technical, financial and cultural criteria for new personnel, and we deliver solutions that are best suited to their operational requirements.

Briefing & debriefing: Appropriate briefing and debriefing can be critical to the success of a seafarer’s on-the-job performance and willingness to return to the same vessel or employer after completing a voyage. Briefing should begin as soon as the candidate is selected, though it is not always possible to have more than a single session of pre-embarkation briefing unless insisted upon by the client. Proper debriefing helps put onboard events and experiences in perspective and prepares a seafarer to understand what can be shared with people back home. Briefing and debriefing is always accorded the utmost importance at Stargate Crewing and often conducted by our Managing Director himself or a couple of the senior executives.

Visa & travel arrangements: Stargate maintains close relationships with embassy staff in Bucharest and procuring visa at short notice is one of the many travel related services we provide for our seafarers on a regular basis. We also provide air ticketing services for destinations worldwide through partner travel agencies, who have been working with us since we started. Airport taxi services are also available at short notice for crew flying out of Romania on a voyage or returning to Romania after completing a mission.

Crew relations: We have always worked by the philosophy that our crew is our family and we treat every one of them like we treat our near and dear ones. We care for them and stand by them in times of need. When a crew member experiences a personal crisis, whether it is on board during a voyage or at home during shore leave, we provide every possible support to ensure that they remain stress free and focused on their coming assignment.

Competency mapping: Stargate maintains its own standards of personnel appraisal and competency mapping quite separate from the mandatory certificates that seafarers are required to obtain for their skills. This is based on employer feedback, co-worker appraisal, performance reports, social reputation, training scores, etc. Our records are frequently referred to advise candidates on where and how to improve their chances of consolidating their career track. We also advise clients on how to assess and accommodate individual candidates.

Training: Stargate has adequate conferencing and training space and facilities in its office to conduct training for up to 15 people at a time. We can provide high-speed internet access and video link for conducting remote training from a principal’s headquarters or another location. For training sessions with more than 15 people at a time, we arrange larger training facilities available in the city close to our office, as well as satellite video conferencing facilities for remote training.

Stargate Crewing runs a well-developed cadet placement programme which has, over the years, turned out to be the most economical and professionally rewarding recruitment solution for our clients. Our cadets are all honour students from the two premier maritime training schools in Romania – Mircea Naval Academy and Constanta Maritime University – that collectively put out 1,800 fresh marine graduates each year. We handpick each candidate for cadetship after verifying his/her educational record, extracurricular activities, attitude, motivation and even their social media history. Each candidate cadet is preselected through a standard vetting procedure by our office staff before appearing on a final recruitment interview.

Investing in a Romanian cadet is a lifelong commitment to our seafaring community. We do this as an investment in the future of young officers who will one day work with us, and become valuable assets for any ship owner. Fortunately, we have the pick of the lot from each academic session because of our excellent personal relations with the maritime academies. We can place cadets throughout the year because the Romanian marine education system allows students to enroll into a cadet program and sail from the second year of their usual four-year degree program. Moreover, since many of our cadets are the meritorious candidates, they manage to avail ERASMUS scholarship from the European Union for going abroad on duty.

Selection of cadets needs to be carried out in a controlled and methodical manner, carefully assessing candidates for their academic merit, their attitude and motivation levels, and preparedness for life at sea. Since selection remains a key component of ensuring the quality of cadets picked, the process and criteria involved are of great importance. Applications are invited throughout the academic year which are then reviewed periodically and screened for authenticity of information and academic record. Pre-selected candidates are then invited for preliminary one-on-one interviews with our crewing staff. Those who qualify are then screened on certain other criteria such as extracurricular activities, good references from teachers and peer groups, social media history and social reputation. Finally, each qualifying candidate is interviewed by the selection board and then approved for cadetship with our clients.

We  understand the importance of training meritorious officers who are loyal to their parent company where they start out their seafaring career, and we are committed to recruiting and training high achievers from each academic year and give them adequate training and opportunities to develop their career and become fist class officers of the future. Stargate’s current portfolio includes over 400 officers who all started out as cadets working for our clients, and quickly developed into officers with a 95% promotion rate and a 90% retention rate, a record that has few equals anywhere in the industry. We focus on developing the attitude, motivation and competence of our recruits with an eye on their training and growth needs.