''Emiratesgirl'' attended a Emirates Open day, Assessment and Final interview and this is her story::::
http://emiratesgirl.tumblr.com/
Open Day
I applied online in February, and shortly after that
i spoke to a girl who i know from high school that has worked for Emirates
for a few years now. She told me to go to an open day since they get something
crazy like 15000 applications online per month. (wow)
I asked her for some advice, and she told me in BOLD
letters: if you go to the open day make sure that you are IMMACULATELY groomed
and always smiling. She told me to dress as much as i could like an Emirates
girl (the pearl earrings, perfectly groomed hair, red lips), since the
recruiters enjoy seeing what a person would look like in their uniform.
Also, the open day invitation specifically said : please
dress FORMAL, ladies wear a knee length skirt with skin colored stockings. So
i bought a black skirt and blazer, got all the accessories, and off i went,
perfectly groomed.
The Open day was held at a hotel. I made sure that i
was about 20 minutes early, since punctuality is a HUGE deal for them. When i
arrived, there were about 200 other people waiting in the lobby. Some
girls looked well dressed but they didnt follow the instructions and i think it
counted against them.. for example, they would wear a suit pants instead of a
skirt, hair wouldnt be tied up, no make up, no stockings, some guys wore
jeans or had beards… if you think about it.. theres 200 other people, and your
first impression is what is going to take you to the next phase… if you look
good, they will remember you.
Anyway so after about half hour of waiting they opened
the doors to the room where the information session was going to be held. Just
a simple set up: a big screen at the front and a table with two recruiters. We
all grabbed a seat, i made sure to sit in the front row haha, shows initiative.
Some older woman sat next to me, well dressed, very nice, 10 years airline
experience.
They started off telling us about Dubai and also the job
and the airline. Then they showed us some videos and then allowed us to ask
questions. I made sure to ask a couple of questions just so that i could make
my presence known. I always made sure i was sitting with a good posture and a
smile on my face… theyre definitely watching us ALL of the time. After about an
hour they gave us a quick coffee break and then we had the opportunity to hand
them our CV and a picture. The picture had to be in colour, and a clear
impression of your face. (smiling of course). We literally each had about 4
minutes to give the recruiter our CV, say hi, answer one or two questions, and
off we went… They also made us take off our shoes and do the reach test against
the wall before they took our CV. They are very strict with the reach test… to
them its black or white… no grey area. I felt so bad for some of the girls
because if your finger was JUST under the line you were too short.. your finger
tip HAD to visibly cross the line. Luckily i didnt really worry about it since
i am tall already (5'9") … so anyway, you have to be able to reach at
least 6'8" on your tip toes.. it seems very high but its not as intense as
it sounds. Most of the girls who were around 5'5 could still reach.
So i gave the girl my CV she asked if i was currently
working and that was about it. When i left i felt so scared because i barely
had time to say a word and how was she supposed to judge my character in such a
short time? They told us that the successful candidates would receive a
call that evening between 4pm and 6pm, and if we missed the call they wouldnt
leave a message, so we all had to cling to our phones… it was the most agonizing
thing ever haha, like waiting by the phone like a sad ex girlfriend waiting for
her boyfriend to call her. By 5pm i still hadnt received a call. I was starting
to lose faith because an hour had already gone by and i just had no idea what
to think or expect. about 5 min after 5pm my phone rang and my heart sank into
my chest… i looked at the phone and thought YES unknown number this must be
them… and it was!!! i as SO HAPPY! she told me to come back the next
morning at 9am (we had to dress formal again) and she said that my number is #7
and its important to remember it because that will remain my number for the
rest of the time until i get hired… and we would use the number to communicate
with Dubai as well.
I went to the store to buy a new blouse so that i
didnt look exactly the same as the open day. They wanted us to wear a knee
length skirt again with a blouse that shows our neckline and hair tied in a bun
or a neat ponytail. I was so happy that my 17 hour drive for the
interview was well worth it… i drove in the day before and had slept a total of
5 hours in those 2 days so i was just mentally exhausted.. some girls flew in
from Seattle and Calgary and all over the place to attend the open day… I
decided to go to bed early that night since i knew the assessment day would be
way more intense.. and i was curious how many people made it to round two…
Assessment Day
I arrived back at the hotel for Day 2, the assessment
day. I was so curious the whole time to see who made it through to the second
day… and i was kind of surprised that there were only 19 people. 18 girls and
one guy. All of the girls looked perfect, and perfectly groomed
and dressed, and were all very nice. Seems like it was all young pretty
girls in their 20s, and none of the girls have had previous airline
experience.. so it goes to show that although it seems a bit shallow, they do
base a large part of their hiring on looks, and personality, and not so much
experience… then again, it could just have been my group, but that was the
impression i seemed to get.
They gave us each a name tag with our name and number to
stick onto our clothing. Then we went into the room and they made us split into
two groups, #1 to 10 at a table and #11 to 19 at a table.. as we sat down, one
of the girls came into the room late because she was in the bathroom, but i
could tell the recruiters werent impressed since on the open day they expressed
a few times how important punctuality is as a cabin crew…
PHASE ONE:
We were asked to sit in numerical order around our
table. On the table was a pile of papers, some paper clips and some rubber
bands. Then they gave us a laminated sheet with instructions on it for the
group. I decided that I would read it out for my group. It said that we were a
group of architects and we had to build a structure that represents a building
in our city, out of the materials provided on the table. It had to be
structurally stable as well as appealing to the eye… hmmm, tough one. So we
started discussing what would work best… oh and also on our structure we had to
create a symbol that clearly represents our city and it also had to be at least
one meter high.
I made sure to engage myself a lot within the group
discussion but i didnt take too much charge… i wanted to hear everyones opinion
and felt like everyone had to have a fair chance at expressing their opinion…
it sucks being part of a group and someone is trying to take all the shine and
you dont get a chance to show YOUR potential… I think that the purpose of
this exercise was to see how we act and interact around a group of people. I
dont think they like it if you are too controlling and over-powering, and also
if you are too reserved. You have to be polite and talk clearly and make eye
contact with everyone, but at the same time LISTEN and dont interrupt when
others talk, and acknowledge their input by giving them positive comments. It
was kind of scary because the recruiters were walking around the tables taking
notes.. we just kind of had to ignore the fact that they were there, otherwise
we would get way too nervous.
When we were done building our structure, we had the
opportunity to present it to the other group. After that we had a seat at the
table again and they gave us another assignment. This time we each got a sheet
of paper with a discussion topic (everyone got the same one) … we had to
discuss this topic within our group. It pretty much gave us a scenario: There is
12 passengers on a plane, which crashes in the water… the life raft only has
room for 6 people, who would you choose to put on the raft? The list was 1. a
couple who have been loyal fliers with the airline. 2. a mom and baby 3.
firefighter 4. engineer, 5. a woman who had been complaining all the way, 6. a
man who is sick, 7. a flight attendant from another airline, 8. a woman who is
on her way to meet her fiance, 9. a woman who is a first time flyer.
We discussed it among us for 10 minutes. The recruiters
came around to our table and asked us a few questions about our picks. They
then said we could leave the room and come back in 20 minutes for the first
cut. AAHHHH!!!
THE CUT:
We made our way back into the room. The recruiters said
they were making their first cut. They called out our numbers one by one and
handed each of us a folded piece of paper which we had to exit the room with.
We could read it outside, and they asked that out of respect for the people who
got cut, that we waited a few minutes before entering the room again. It looked
like this:
Phew, made it to part 2… i was shaking so much when i
opened that piece of paper, haha… Now it was down to 16 of us.
So we go back into the room and they've set up more
tables, on each table was an english test booklet. We had one hour to complete
it. This first part was a bunch of paragraphs, and they made us answer
basic english grammar questions. It was kind of tricky actually. The second
part of the test was an essay… its not a creative writing type of essay, its
more of a interview type of question. The topic was “name three things about
your personality you could improve on and why” . After that they made us leave
the room again and when we came back in we had all passed the test. They then
gave us our golden tickets!
They explained that we had all made it through to the
final interview and gave us our times. They also gave us a few forms they
needed us to fill out and bring with to the interview… and a list of stuff we
had to bring with, which was:
-4 passport photos, a full length photo with formal wear,
a full length and close up casual photo, 2 colour photocopies of our passport,
a photocopy of your highest level of education diploma / degree, proof of
employment (pay stubs, or employee card, or letter of employment), and an
updated CV.
since they had only given us a day to get it all
together, they gave us an email address to which we could send the pending
documents we werent able to bring along with us, since some of us had travelled
far from home to be there. Lastly, we had to complete an online questionnaire
(kind of a personality test) that night before we came to our final interview
the next day.
Final Interview
The next day was the Final Interview… to be honest, this
was the least terrifying part of the whole process… we already all made it to
the end and so we finally got the chance to chat to the recruiters, and
get all of their attention. We each had an hour with them.. and i saw it as
having a chat with a friend… The most important thing is to be yourself… dont
see their questions as TRICK questions because they're not there to trick you..
they just kind of want to get to know you a little bit more and see your real
personality.
One of the girls was asking most of the questions and the
other one was taking all the notes. It was pretty much just the typical
interview questions you would get asked at any job interview. I obviously cant
remember all of it, but ill list a few examples:
- name a time you had to adjust to the rules / way of
doing things at a job, to accommodate a customer’s needs.
- have you ever had an issue with another employee were
you disagreed on something, and how did you handle the situation?
- have you ever had a deadline at a job that you had to
meet, and how did you go about getting it done on time?
- tell us about the responsibilities at your current job.
- have you ever had a disagreement with a customer? what
happened?
after all the questions they asked if i had any questions
for them… i just kind of asked them bout the lifestyle in dubai.. and i asked
them what was the best piece of advice someone gave you before YOU started the
job. We ended up getting a bit off topic and had quite a nice chat and laugh..
one of the recruiters just recently married a man from my country so we talked
about how awesome my country is haha…when i left the interview i said i hoped
to see them in dubai soon and they said yes you better say hi! :) so i was
feeling happy and satisfied when i left.. i didnt think too much about it and
wasnt nervous at all… like i said, getting TO the final interview was the most
difficult… They reminded me to email all the rest of my documents i didnt have
with me, and then said that i will hear back within the next couple of months…
thats pretty much it… now im waiting…i want the job so bad… i feel that it
would be perfect for me, and im ready for a massive change and adventure, so
all i can do now is think positive thoughts and imagine myself as an Emirates
girl :) … like they asy, what you resist will persist, so im doing the opposite
:)
Its been 10 days since my final interview and i still
havent heard anything, and my profile online is still “under review” … but
every day waiting, is a step closer to the prize!
💗💗💗💗
