I shuffled off the plane in London feeling a bit guilty for being so moody about the phone situation and made my way to my hotel. Sadly my hotel room was a million times smaller than the last one which was a bit annoying, and the heating wasn't working properly so I unpacked, headed for bed with my notes and set my alarm for bright and early the next morning! Got up the next day and had no alarms this time thankfully! Headed down to Costa to meet the facebook peeps for a chat and much needed caffine then headed round to the Disney offices. Which are AMAZING! There are Mickey motifs everywhere and some really cool things like the original Iron Man suit! We all had to sign in individually and have photos taken for security and then got issued with our guest passes before we could go upstairs.
Oh yeah... upstairs.... There was a security woman (dragon-lady-gatekeeper) that took her job mega seriously. Basically there's a sort of spiral staircase to take you upstairs and at the bottom of it is a little electronic gate. This woman was all about the gate! If you went up or down the stairs then she wanted to escort you, she would only let so many people through at a time, and generally wandered around looking scary. Oh the power she must have!! :)
Once we were also safely escorted (ahem..) upstairs then we made our way into a little movie theatre type room. Very cool! There we met Jeff and Jill (the people that had came from Disney to interview us) and they showed us some more video footage. Normal people would find this horrifically cheesy but if you are a big Disney nerd then it adds some excitement. Although the people in the footage kept saying things like "If you're thinking of applying - just do it!", and we were all a bit like "WE DID ALREADY! WE ARE DESPERATE WANNABES ALREADY!!" The whole time, Jeff and Jill were in the room and Becky and Nick from Yummy Jobs were in and out, so use your common sense - smile. All the time! Look enthusiastic, converse with the people around you (although not during the presentation, that would be a big no-no) and generally look like your happy and comfortable to be there. Thanking the interviewers for their time, saying hello... its not rocket science but when your nervous these things might not come naturally! After the presentation and some more triva questions for little prizes, they gave us the time of our interview and the name of the person who we would be teamed up with.
The final interviews are held with two interviewees to one interviewer. Again they can see how you converse with others. Lets face it, they've probably got all the answers they need from your CV, application forms and the feedback from the pre-selection interviews, unless they have a specific question they want to ask, the questions are still pretty general. My advice would be to chill and just try to be as natural as possible. I got really annoyed with myself about this....
Between the presentation and the actual interviews, everyone split into groups and my group headed to get some lunch at the nearest Wetherspoons (word to the wise, don't drink alcohol, there's no need and it would leave a VERY bad impression!) There was a few people that had done the ICP before so they were telling us stories about their time there. I have to admit, I preferred the pre-screening because I went straight from the presentation to the group interview so I was all geared up for it, on this occasion I think I had too much time to let the nerves get to me. I was originally meant to be grouped with Chantelle who I met at the pre-screening (and went to The Rainforest Cafe for dinner with) but a change in timings or whatever meant that I actually ended up interviewing with Elle instead.
The interviews were being held in a sort of big room that led from the stairway (and the gatekeeper) to the theatre room. At one end are some couches where we waited and had a bit of a chat before we were called up. Becky and Nick had checked all our paperwork and given us back forms that would be filled in by our interviewer. At the other side of the room (its a large space so its well seperated) was a couple of areas where Jeff and Jill were doing the interviewing. Finally our names were called and it was Jeff that was taking our interview. In the same style as before, he asked a couple questions and gave us both the chance to answer. Before I was really confident and concise in my answers but I felt that I let myself down as I kind of rambled on a bit. Jeff was really lovely though and he does his best to put you at ease by assuring everyone that they did really well already, and that he just needs to go through this formality, etc.
Once the interview was over (its pretty quick, only four questions max), I headed back to the couch area to wait with the rest of our little group till we were all finished. Then myself, Chantelle, Bryony and Emma all headed for dinner. We had all gone together for dinner the first night so it was quite fitting! We got the tube and went to Planet Hollywood. Totally forgetting that it was Valentines lol! Surrounded by heart shaped balloons and couples haha! It was another fun meal though and a really good chance to unwind. After that we were all pretty tired or needed to catch trains so we parted. Heading back to the hotel I kept passing all these restaurants with couples and lot of Valentines theming going on, so I just went back to my wee room for the night. Got up the next day and packed up my stuff then made my way back to the airport to get my flight home again. Thankfully there was no drama or car accidents on this occasion!
Security ID from the Disney Offices that we had to wear. Sadly they made us return them but at least I managed to get a photo!
No comments:
Post a Comment