The wait after the Final Interview!

I thought the wait from pre-screen to finding out about the final interview was bad enough! This wait was worse!!!

On Monday and Tuesday people were getting emails to ask for them to send a particular document again since it wasn't correct the first time. Then some people were getting phone calls to ask them what their availability was. So we were all kind of freaking out a bit since not everyone was getting phone calls etc

Also on the phone/emails Louise was saying that they would be in contact "very shortly" and we were all like when is "very shortly"!?

Anyway Friday the 2nd of November came and I was absolutely exhausted after another week of uni so I ended up having a nap before dinner (which I never do!), so I woke and had my dinner. After dinner I checked my Facebook and I seen that there were 20+ notifications from the Disney group and I looked on the page and there were people going "I got it!" and I was like ahhh! the emails are here!

So I went onto my email, my heart was thumping so loud!, and I opened the email to find...

Dear Rachel,

Greetings from the Yummy Jobs Team and the Walt Disney World International Recruitment Team!
We very much enjoyed meeting with you during our recent recruitment trip throughout the UK.  We met many fantastic students during the trip and Disney was very impressed with the quality of all applications.

After reviewing your application and interview we are delighted to be the first to say
 

Congratulations

You have been offered a place on Disney’s J-1 Cultural Exchange Program.

Your role in the show will be Quick Service Food & Beverage. 

Your Cultural Exchange Program will commence on 10th June 2013 and conclude on 16th August 2013.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I GOT ONTO THE PROGRAM!!!!

To be totally honest I was a bit disappointed to be put into QS F&B but then I seen other people who I had met who had not gotten onto the program and I decided that no matter what my job I would still be having an amazing time because it's Disney!!! And to be picked out of the original 1700 that applied is just an amazing feeling :D

Another amazing thing is that my 20th Birthday is on the 9th of June so I get to celebrate my birthday then go to Walt Disney World for the Summer! How incredible is that!?

Have a Magical Day!!!

218 days to go!!!

The Final Interview!

Friday morning came and I was so looking forward to my Premier Inn breakfast but my nerves wouldn't let me eat anything but 2 sausages and a yoghurt :( Anyway we got the bus back to Heathrow where we then got our tube tickets and got on a tube. I was very impressed with the tube system it was so easy! And it only took 30 minutes to get to Hammersmith station!

A load of us from the Facebook group were meeting in Starbucks at 8am, I ended up there at 7:20am lol So I had plenty of time to relax :) After meeting up with everyone we walked round to the HQ entrance, or where we thought it was lol, it ended up there were 2 entrances so we had to walk to the other one haha!

Once we got into the building we had to give our name and they took our picture before giving us our event guest passes for the day! The building was amazing! They had a glittery statue of Mickey in the reception area which was over 5ft tall! There were hidden Mickey's everywhere and movie posters upstairs where we spent most of our time in the building! They also had a bust of Walt Disney and the original Iron Man suit!!

We had to give the Yummy Jobs some documents and sign in before going into a mini movie theatre where 3 Disney representatives gave a presentation :) The presentation was brilliant! Again it made you even more eager to get onto the program! The 3 Disney representatives were Sue, Janet and Jim. Jim was a legend! He is a manager in Epcot including Soarin' and this is just a perk of the job that he gets to fly over and interview us!  Also during the presentation, I can't remember what they were talking about, but next thing you know Jim starts dancing Gangman style!!! It was funny and he seemed a right laugh!

After the presentation a long list was read out followed by times that we would have our interviews. Mine was at half 1 but we had to arrive about half and hour earlier. This ended up to be great since I had enough time to meet up with my mum, have an early lunch at Weatherspoons and then walk back to Disney HQ.

When we got there we waited before being let upstairs again and then we all took seats at the sofas and we were then called up to check all of our paperwork. We were also asked what name and hometown we would like on our Disney name badge!! This was very exciting even though we hadn't even had our interview yet lol

I was about 4th or 5th to be interview and I got interviewed by Jim!! I was glad to have him, it ended up just to be a bit of a chat about the roles I picked really. At one point he said about Quick Service Food and Beverage that I would have to handle chemicals obviously to clean the tables etc and I said "It's ok I'm a Physicist, I deal with radiation all the time!" And we had a bit of a laugh about that lol

The interview was only about 10 minutes long and I thought it had went well but again I wasn't sure if it was good enough to even get onto the program. We were told that we would hear by the 9th of November at the latest so it was another waiting game!!!

More about the wait next time!

Have a Magical Day!!

The wait after the Pre-Screen!

Well the next few days were torture! Hearing about other pre-screen interviews and thinking oh I could have said that!

Friday came and I was refreshing my email all day through uni! Eventually after 6pm the emails came...

I opened mine and this is what it said...

Dear Rachel,

Many thanks for taking time 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 next interview stage.

Your interview will be held on Friday October 26^th 2012, at the Walt Disney and Co Ltd Head Office, 3 Queen Caroline Street, Hammersmith and Fulham, London, W6 9PE

Transportation to the interview is at your own expense.

You will need to arrive at 09.00 am. The Disney presentation will start at 09:30 am. After the presentation your interview will be scheduled.  You must be prepared to spend the whole day and will be required to dress in professional / business attire.

AHHHH! I had gotten through to the final stage and I was going to Disney Headquarters!!!!!!!!

I looked up flight and hotel prices and lets just say it was ridiculous but it was all worth it to get to go to Disney HQ :D I ended up flying over from Dublin (since it was cheaper than Belfast) on the Thursday night, booked 2 nights in the Premier Inn near Heathrow, got the tube from Heathrow into Hammersmith which was 5mins away from Disney HQ :)

More about the final Interview next time!!

Have a Magical Day!!

Pre-Screen Interviews

So my pre-screen was scheduled for the 9th of October at Liverpool John Moore's University :)

On the 8th of October I finished university for the day and met up with my mum to catch the bus up to Belfast International Airport. We were dead early so we had loads of time to kill lol We ended up having dinner and then sitting in Starbucks watching the planes. Our flight was uneventful and was only about 30 minutes long! We then got a taxi from the airport to our hotel for the night, we had actually stayed in this hotel during the summer when we travelled around England for a week and it just so happened to be 10 minutes walk from the uni! I eventually got to sleep although I do remember hearing a group of women coming in from the pub and they were so loud!! Banging doors and everything but thankfully I got back to sleep!

After breakfast the next morning we started walking to the university at about 8am, I had my Iphone out to make sure we were going the right way lol We found the building and the room so my mum waited at the entrance to the building were there was a reception area (but there did not seem to be any staff there anyway lol) while I went into the room for the presentation.

We met Nick, Jason, Becky and Louise from Yummy Jobs and they gave a presentation about the program which included all the roles, where you would be living, costs of the program etc It just made you even more excited to go!! We were then asked if you had gotten in contact with them previously about getting an earlier interview to come up to the front. This was my case since I had a flight that day so there were about 10 of us who needed an early interview so we were the first interview group at 11am with Becky and Louise!

We had to walk to another building about 5mins away but it seemed to be that everyone walked over at once so it was ok :) In the building where the interviews were taking place there was a room where they had a cafe so most people gathered there to wait for their interviews :)

So we got into the interview and we handed over our CV's and our picture (which was just an extra copy of my passport photo) which they would write on during the interview. The room was set up so that Becky and Louise were sitting at a desk and we were all facing them in a semi-circle. Generally the questions were just thrown out and anyone could answer them but there were a few questions where they went round the semi-circle.

The Questions asked were: (in no particular order since it was so long ago lol)

Why do you want to do the program?

How would it benefit you from doing the program?

What are your top 3 roles?

Do you have any visible tattoos or piercings?

Are you available for both program dates or just one?

What is your realistic and dream job?

What challenges do you think you would face when you are out there?

And finally just for fun...What Disney character do you think you are most like?

For me I know I was too quiet for the first two question because I didn't get a chance to speak before they moved on, which was my fault because I didn't speak up quickly enough but then again you don't want to talk over people! Everyone was really nice and we had a bit of a laugh both before and during the interview :)

At the end it was really hard to tell if you had done well or not since you didn't know what they were looking for! But one thing I did notice was that Becky asked all the questions while Louise wrote down things on our CV's  and also Louise seemed to be looking at the other people who were not speaking at the time. So I made sure I was smiling and listening to other people and nodding in agreement. Although I was doing that naturally anyway! :)

So that was the pre-screen interview! We also found out that 1700 people applied, 500 got through to the pre-screen stage, about 300 would get through to the final interview and about 220 people would actually get to go to Florida! When I found this out I was so pleased to even get to that stage since the majority of people had been cut!!

We were told we would find out if we got through to the final interview stage on the Friday :O So it was a pretty short wait!

More next time ;)

Have a Magical Day!!

I know...It's been a while

I know...I've been a terrible blogger! University started, there was just so much work to be done and never got round to blogging again :(

Anyway I will be catching up today :) and taking you through the process of the pre-screen interviews!

Have a magical Day!!