An unrelated London visit and some unexpected panic!

Ok, so as mentioned previously, I had another trip to London very shortly after  my interview. This time I was going with a big group of hospitality students from my college. No comfy flights this time, we pretty much lived on a coach for 2 days! On the 21st we travelled down, did some boring stuff and then went to the O2 for dinner... while the Brit Awards were also on. After a day cooped up on a bus, pretty much zero sleep and all hyped up, we hit the vino/cocktails/anything alcohol related pretty hard.

Then all of a sudden my phone started going crazy with notifications. Myself and my fellow Disney-interviewees had thought that we would find out really quickly about the results of the interview and had all been driving each other nuts. I also had a Yummy Jobs email notification come through!

"Dear Jennifer,

Greetings from Yummy Jobs and Walt Disney World!

We hope that you enjoyed your final interview for Disney’s Cultural Representative Program.

At this time we are still reviewing applications and will bring you your result within the next two weeks."

Gahhh! Even after this we were all still hopeful about hearing back sooner rather than later. But the waiting was draggggggggggged out!

Final interview stage part 2!

Ok, so I decided to split this up a bit because it really would be wayyyyyyy too lengthy!


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!

Final Interview Stage! part 1

Knowing me, this post will be lengthy so you have been warned!!!

My final interview was scheduled for the 14th Feb - Valentines Day! I had to go to my boss and explain, sorry but I do need one of the restaurants busiest nights off, oops! Then it was back to getting everything organised again. Yet again I booked the same flights and booked another Premier Inn Hotel... yet again A LOT of money spent. If I was travelling with friends for drunken fun then I wouldn't care how I got there or where I stayed but this is important so I really wanted to be as chilled as possible. I went back to my lecturer again for some more grilling sessions and random hallway handshakes (lol!) and took some abusive from less enthusiastic lecturers for needing to miss a day or so of classes. Boo hoo.

By sheer weird luck, I would be returning to London AGAIN the week after with my college as part of a hospitality trip/nosy round the Olympic sites so I was really starting to clock up some travelling time.

I prepared much in the same way as before, and lots more people had been added to the facebook group so it was all getting really exciting to talk to them about meeting up. The interviews were to be held on the 13th and 14th at the Disney Attractions Office in Hammersmith which is a big deal in itself if your a big Disney geek! It was agreed that a group of us would meet up at Costa Coffee in Hammersmith Station before the interviews and then make our way in. 

There is an online Disney application form that Yummy Jobs will provide to you once you've been accepted to the final interview, this needs to be fully filled in, sent back and a copy printed off to be brought to the interview. A lot of people were having problems with this, the pages would time out and other various issues. There are boxes to be filled with details of employment but only allow for a very small amount of characters so there was a bit of pressure to get the right information in there! Luckily the form worked for me first time, and you can go back and print it out ... I made about five copies! There was other bits and pieces to be brought along as well so that all went in a plastic folder in my carry on, wasn't taking any chances!

The day arrived and I went to college in the morning, got some last minute advice and "good luck's" , then I headed home to get ready for the airport. And then I got a bit distracted! My younger sister is pregnant and at this point I hadn't seen her since Christmas when she had no bump. She arrived at the front door with this pretty substantial bump and I flew down the stairs for some bump prodding... which kind of wasted time so I grabbed my suitcase and my mum started off for the airport. Got to the airport to realise I'd left my fricken phone on my bed!!!!!!! Annoying much?!? In all the excitement I had thrown down my phone when my sister came in and never put it in my bag. My mum gave me hers so I had it for emergencies or whatever and I headed off to drop off my bags feeling just a little bit stressed out.

Did my usual sit in the bar with my Kindle, still cursing myself for not having my phone then went to get my flight. In the other flights there was never anyone sitting next to me but this time there was two foreign guys, one of which had two prosthetic legs. Got talking to them over the flight and it turned out that the non injured guy was bringing the other for treatment, he'd been in injured in one of these never ending wars. He had a beany hat on but I could see scars down the sides of his face and head which was shaved. He got hurt in a bombing and had been in hospital for a long time and hadn't seen his family in a really really long time. Was trying to not get emotional as I was talking very broken English to this guy while he was showing me photos of his wife and kids, he must have only been 30years old if that. He kept saying "thank you for talking with me/you are very beautiful person inside" and the other man (who spoke perfect English) explained that he'd experienced some negativity from people because they just saw this dark skinned, Eastern European guy and judged him without thinking that maybe he was on our side?

Random photos from pre-selection trip :)

Little Nemo's & Dory at the Aquarium

Look at the weather... in January?!!

First night, jumped out the hotel to take this :)

Pretty. Meanwhile back in Glasgow... it was snowing...

Yay!

Feedback from pre-selection event....

"Many thanks for your application and time taken in the pre-screen interview for the Walt Disney WorldÔ International Programs.  We were impressed by your performance and are delighted to invite you to the final interview stage."

The pre-selection event was on the 26th January and this email came through on the 30th, with my interview scheduled for the 14th February .... all seemed to be happening so fast! ....

Pre- Selection Event

After bouncing about the house after finding out that I had got to the next stage in the application process, I had a proper google search to find out what that meant! This year for the first time, Yummy Jobs had decided to do away with the telephone interviews and do a pre-selection event instead. Mines was in London at Chez Gerard on the 26th January. I spoke to some people on WDWIP, got invited into the *secret/private* facebook group and then got invited into another group of girls who were all planning to meet up before the event. 


This is where all my un-prepared stuff went out the window and mega-prepared Jen came into play. Within a couple hours of the email, I had booked flights from Glasgow to Gatwick, two nights stay at a hotel and Gatwick Express tickets. As well as googling the area a million times to make sure I knew where everything would be! Fortunately I was doing not bad financially and so I could book myself a cushy British Airways flight there and back, setting me back about £160. Two nights at the nearest Premier Inn then set me back another £254! Working out to be an expensive process already!


I then went back to the lecturer who had originally told me about the Disney programs and all I said was “I have an interview for Disney..” and he cut me off, plonked me down in a chair and started firing questions at me. All of my answers he deemed “WRONG!” He then spent some time prepping me with questions and giving advice. Feel free to pay attention to this bit lol… These are people who meet thousands of people from all over the world and can tell in about the first 4 seconds of meeting you if they are interested or not. Appearance to these events is important. I did lots of reading up on the Disney look, etc and decided to wear a suit and shirt. I wear suits every day at work, so I feel pretty comfortable and confident in them. I’m not fond of plain black suits, mines are normally grey and a hounds tooth pattern or pinstriped. My shirts, while professional were bright in colour - the shirt for the pre-selection was bright red. Thinking of everything, I even cleverly pinned my shirt in all the right places. Disney does not need to see your boobies. I wore smart black court shoes with a slight heel, knowing that the day would involve lots of walking around. Hair was naturally coloured, pulled back from the face neatly and natural make up. I’m an all or nothing girl when it comes to make up, I friggen love to pile it on with big smokey eyes, etc. But again - not the time or place! I cut my nails to a suitable length and didn’t polish them, I filed and spent time buffing them so they looked clean and shiny. 


My lecturer would bump into me in the college halls and demand a handshake. Imagine, hundreds of students wandering around and a slightly crazed man is over enthusiastically shaking your hand, while I squeal with pain. Yup, this went on for MONTHS! He has a point though - no one likes a limp, sweaty handshake! You need to set yourself apart from everyone else, and just the smallest detail could do that, something as simple as a professional handshake. He also spent time correcting how I answered questions, and to wait a few seconds before opening my mouth and talking crap!


The time came quickly round for me to head to London so my mum took me to the airport and I bummed about with the executive types and then had a painless, quick flight to Gatwick and then got the Gatwick Express to Victoria and then got a taxi (could of taken the tube but it was getting pretty late and I just wanted to get settled). Checked into my massive room, unpacked my stuff and got settled then went to bed with my prompt cards with questions and answers on them. The next day I got up and everything was ok, but the fire alarm went off like 6 times while I was getting ready. Very stressful! Headed in the direction of Waterloo station to meet the girls and ended up being really early so went and grabbed a quick coffee to calm the nerves! Met everyone eventually and headed to Pizza Express (next door to Chez Gerard) for some lunch. Best thing we could have done! It was so much better walking into the event with a group of 9 of us than feeling awkward by myself.


Everyone watched a presentation, Nick and the team did some quick Q&A for chocolate prizes and then they split us into groups of 8, and the yummy team split so they could do two groups at a time. My group was first and I was amazed that out of the 8, there was 5 Scots in it. I’ve heard that Scottish people are much rarer on the program but there seemed to be a huge abundance of us that day. All my prep really paid off and I walked out the room feeling that I had done really well and wasn’t in doubt about anything I had said or wished I had. Becky would ask questions and then each person would have a chance to answer. A couple people seemed pretty stand-off-ish or moody and I really did wonder why the hell they came all that way??! I happened to mention that my lecturer had told me about the program and they all knew him and the head of my department! My college is a well known place of education for hospitality management so it shouldn’t have been such a surprise that their paths had crossed.


Once my interview group had finished, I waited with everyone in Chez Gerard till everyone was done. Then 5 of us decided to go for dinner and headed to The Rainforest Cafe to unwind a bit, and then have a bit of a wander about before calling it a day and heading back to the hotel.


That night was extremely random and highly entertaining… I decided to take my Kindle down to the bar as I was a bit bored in the room after all the excitement that day. Kinda started chatting to people, befriending the Portugese barman, watching a big blonde woman with a BAD mustache try to impress some drunken businessmen all while keeping up with my Kindle… and then got kind of propositioned by some small middle aged ginger drunk dude! Awkwardddd….. ick!


The next day I had time to kill between checking out and flying home so I had a bit of a wander then went and checked out the London Aquarium which was another good move. Headed to the airport, had another easy journey and then within minutes of leaving the airport, some asshole crashed his massive Mitsubishi truck into the back of my mums brand new compact car. Not good!

The Actual Application/CV

sigh....
I just made a full post about my application and my laptop crashed! Fail!!


A quick recap then of what I’ve just lost forever :(


My CV was already up to date, I just changed it a teeny bit and then created my Yummy Jobs profile. There is boxes to fill in with information and most people will say that they practised, and squeezed every last thing into those boxes, wrote a cover letter and had some amazing CV.


I didn’t. Lol!


My CV is full of experience and relevant qualifications, and I just have a fairly small passionate blurb at the end. I used to work in a recruitment agency as a resourcer and the main part of my job was to read hundreds upon hundreds of CV’s, picking out the good ones. If I did it all again, I would probably do some of the stuff that I didn’t but I know that I almost never read cover letters or big blurbs… YJ has thousands of CV’s so I would make yours stand out, in that its to the point, relevant and above all - grammatically correct! My spelling and grammar can get a bit shocking while I’m posting as I type fast and get a bit carried away lol…. but I would never hand out a CV or job application that wasn’t checked, then doubled checked!


I sent off the application at 2:47am on 15th December 2011, and I was completely taken by surprise when I recieved an email on the 12th January to say that I had been invited to the next stage!