So where to begin! The past couple of days have been a whirlwind at the pre-screen interviews for the cultural Representative Program at the Yummy Jobs office in Epping. So here's a run down of my experience the past few days.
So Wednesday the 21st I hopped on a plane at Inverness airport at 7am (which meant waking up at 3am) and landed at London Gatwick at 8:40. I then headed straight for the Gatwick Express which got me into Victoria Station before 10am. I thought my check in at the hotel wasn't till 4pm (turned out to be 2pm) so I had hours to kill around the city. Since I'd been up since 3am all I wanted was food, I started walking and ended up at Buckingham Palace. Took off again and found Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the London Eye before finding a Tesco. After eating a sandwich looking onto the River Thames, I headed for Trafalgar Square and chilled there for a bit before heading to Piccadilly Circus. I find it very difficult to sit and relax so I made my way to Oxford Street for some shopping via Shaftesbury Avenue. It was roughly 4pm by this point so I got on the Subway at Bond Street and got the central line to Epping which took about 50 minutes. I had arranged to stay at The Bell Hotel which was supposed to be a 10 minute walk away from town with 2 other girls. It ended up being about a 25 minute walk from town but that was the least of my troubles with this hotel. Since the other girls were driving and arriving a little later I went to check in where I was told that the room I had booked was double booked so they had to give me a different one as well as the fact they needed a £100 deposit! I had already spent £170 on this room and no where online or in any email was I told that a deposit would be needed so I was pretty annoyed. So I went up to the room and just crashed until one of the girls arrived. We arranged to go have dinner with other applicants so we went to a restaurant called Wildwood, I think there was about 10 of us so it was great to get to know everyone before the pre-screens. So after we had filled up we went back to the hotel to get some sleep before the big day!
So most of the applicants arranged to meet at the Starbucks across the road at 8:30 as we had to be at Yummy Jobs by 9:15. The majority of girls wore skirts or dress but I opted for black jeans as I'm not much of a skirt person and I wore them with a pale pink blazer and a light blue shirt with black boots. I also opted for a Disney necklace and a Disney pin just to add a bit of 'magic' to my outfit. Once we entered the office, we signed in and received a label with our name, group name, group interview time and individual interview time. We were told there was about 120 applicants over the three days so about 40 each day. I was in team Baymax at 10:30 till 11:30 so my group interview was right after the presentation. There's not much to tell you on the presentation, they show a bunch of videos that get you really excited, they give you all the information on living out there and costs etc.
So the group interview began with 9 of us in a semi circle facing our interviewer, we were asked do an ice breaker so we turned to the person beside us and asked their name, an interesting fact and their favourite Disney memory. Once we had all been we were separated into two groups and asked to do small presentations. One group was asked to come up with a day event celebrating all things british and my group was asked to come up with a presentation focused towards 12 year olds on all the things there is to do in the UK. Once we were finished we were given an image of a British item that we had to sell to the group. Some of these items were roast dinner, Cadbury's, The Beatles, beer, Twinings, Manchester United football shirt, victoria sponge cake and tartan fabric. Finally the last part of the group interview was we had to show our item that represented our home town and talk about it to the group.
We finished just after 11:30 so we headed to get food at Pizza Express to kill time before our individual interviews. This wait made everyone even more nervous, at least having the group interview straight away meant we had no time to freak out but before long each one of us were heading back over to the office. My interview was at 1:45 and each interview was scheduled to last 15 minutes so we sat on the sofa at the back of the office and waited to be called forward. When I sat down we first had a little chat which set my mind at ease and we then got into the questions. Here's a list of the questions I was asked along with questions other people were asked:
What is your availability date?
Do you have a preference of a role - food & beverage or merchandise?
Why do you want to do the program?
Do you have any tattoos/piercings/ would you be willing to dye your hair for the program?
What would you do if your colleague at the Rose & Crown was struggling at work but you also lived with them?
How will the program benefit you towards your goals?
How would you find living with others?
Where would you like to travel to after the program?
If I contacted your manager what would they have to say about you?
Any Questions?
How do you feel about living with people from other countries?
How will you cope being away from your family?
What Disney character best describes you?
What would you find difficult about living in Florida?
The latest interview of the day was at 4pm I think just to give you an idea of how long they can go on. We were told it will be a maximum of 2 weeks for the results and the final interviews will be held at Disney Headquarters in London on the 4th of November.
I'm trying not to think about it too much or worry, the interview has happened so there's nothing I could change if I wanted to. Plus I've convinced myself I haven't go through just so i'm not as disappointed when the results come out. There isn't many things I would change, I am still really proud of my answers, I am however worried that I didn't speak up enough during the group interview but I have no idea how I actually did until the results come out so I've got my fingers crossed!
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