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Emirates Cabin Crew – this is a true story

Hello

Today I’d like to tell you a story. It’s a story about Luisa. Luisa is 23 years old and grew up in the Argentinian city of Buenos Aires.

Ever since she’s been a small girl, Luisa has dreamed of being cabin crew. She would watch in wonder as planes flew overhead and dream of the day she could take to the skies. When she was 7 years old, she flew for the very first time and when she met the friendly flight attendants on-board, she knew this was the job for her.

Luisa’s cousin, Valentina, also dreamed of becoming a flight attendant and, when she become 21, she applied to become cabin crew with Aerolineas. She was turned down at her first attempt, but being very determined, she worked incredibly hard on her application and at last, she was successful!

She flew with Aerolineas for a couple of years and then decided to apply for Emirates. She was successful and headed off to start her new life in Dubai.

Valentina attended the Emirates Aviation College in Dubai

Luisa loved it when her older cousin came home to visit and would sit rapt as Valentina regaled them all with tales of walking on the Great Wall of China, shopping in Fifth Avenue in New York or snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef. And, as for the photos! Oh my, they were amazing! Luisa knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was the life for her.

So, she decided she would apply for cabin crew with Emirates as well. But, she encountered a problem as Emirates were not recruiting at the time! No worries, she knew from Valentina that it was important to get a lot of customer service experience, so she would focus on that until the day came when Emirates started recruiting again.

And, so the day came when Emirates re-opened their cabin crew recruitment and Luisa knew her time had come. She applied online and waited. And waited. And waited. She read blogs and joined Facebook groups to try and work out why she hadn’t had a response.

She reached out to Valentina who told her there were technical problems with the recruitment process and it looked like Emirates would return to open days.

So, she waited. And she waited. And waited some more.

Then the day came when Emirates announced that they were going to hold an open day in Buenos Aires. This was it- her very big chance! She rushed off to buy a new suit, some new shoes and the all-important red lipstick.

Luisa bought a whole new outfit including these shoes

She had a CV she had written in school, so she knew she had that covered.

So, she booked herself an appointment with a local photographer and got her formal and casual photos done. My goodness, this was costing her a lot of money, but surely it would be worth it to get the chance to wear the famous red hat?

Imagine her horror when that evening, Luisa got a message from her friend, Sofia- who had planned to attend the Emirates open day with Luisa- to say the open day had been cancelled.

Surely not? With a sinking feeling, Luisa logged on to Emirates website and sure enough, where just the day before the open day for Buenos Aires was listed, was now a total blank. This was a nightmare!

But Luisa, was not anything if not determined. She looked at all the open days that were still available and one caught her eye- Madrid. Luisa knew she could get a flight from Buenos Aires to Madrid so decided to go for it.

Surely Emirates couldn’t help but be impressed that she had flown across the world to attend an open day? Seeing someone this committed had to work in her favour right?

So, she went on to the Aerolineas website to book her flights. Unfortunately, the open day was only 4 days away, so the flights were very, very expensive. She had some savings, so she decided to go for it. After all, Luisa was convinced no-one else would do such a journey, so this had to put her at the front of the queue. Right?

Luisa quickly realised, from reading cabin crew blogs, that the assessment day was often the day after the open day and the final interview the day after this. So, she was going to have to stay for at least 4 nights in Madrid. My, this was all starting to add up, but It was all going to be worth it right?

Luisa was going to need to spend 4 nights in Madrid

So, off Luisa headed to Europe. She had never left the Americas before, so it was a big adventure, but nothing ventured, nothing gained right?

The following morning, Luisa made her way towards the hotel where the open day was being help (thanks Google maps!). It was due to start at 9am, but she couldn’t sleep for excitement, so she arrived at 7am. She was pretty sure she’d be the first one there, but no, there were hundreds of people there already. All of them dressed in a navy suit, a white blouse, hair in a bun, wearing the all-important red lipstick.

The exact same as Luisa in fact!

She started to feel worried. This wasn’t going to be as easy as she thought it was.

She joined the very long queue and two hours later was in front of a recruiter.

The time she had spent queuing had made her increasingly nervous and she felt her legs shaking as she took a seat in front of the recruiter.

The recruiter asked for Luisa’s CV and then asked her why she wanted to fly with Emirates.

Oh no, Luisa had not been prepared for this question.

She mumbled something about them being a brilliant airline and waited for the next question.

It didn’t come.

The recruiter simply thanked her for coming and told her results would be posted in next two hours.

Luisa simply couldn’t believe it.

This was it?

No-one has asked her how she got here, what job she currently held, and she hadn’t had an opportunity to tell them that she had flown all the way from Argentina to be here.

Luisa did not even get the chance to say she’d come all the way from Argentina

She felt sick to the stomach as she left the room and prepared to wait.

However, when she thought over it all, it hadn’t gone too badly.

After all, she knew she looked well-groomed, her teacher in school had told her her CV was good and ok, she had made a bit of a mess of the question, but that wouldn’t matter would it?

The two- hours felt interminable as she waited for the result, but then the moment came when the recruiter came and posted a list of those who had been invited to attend the assessment day.

Luisa waited until the crowd had dispersed before approaching the list. Her heart was hammering in her chest as she scanned the list desperately for her name. It wasn’t there- she had failed to get through.

She had flown all this way to spend less than one minute in front of a recruiter.

And she wasn’t due to fly home for another 2 days.

Luisa spent the next two days wandering morosely around Madrid, taking in nothing as she despaired over her situation.

She flew back to Buenos Aires the following day, feeling deeply saddened and several thousand dollars poorer.

Luisa had literally wasted thousands of dollars

Had it been worth it?

Not at all.

And, do you know the saddest part of Luisa’s story?

It’s actually a true story and Luisa did fly over to Madrid from Argentina to attend an Emirates Open Day.

Luisa reached out to me after discovering my blogs last week and asked for help.

I was so saddened by her story and asked if I could share it with others and Luisa was happy to let me do this.

Why do I want to share Luisa’s story?

Simple, really.

I don’t want ANYONE else to make the same mistakes that Luisa made.

You see, here’s the thing. Emirates simply DON’T CARE that you have travelled many, many miles to see them.

They are only interested in TWO things.

ONE- that you look the part.

SECONDLY, and far more importantly, that you can do the job and the way they decide this is by looking at your CV and noting down your answers to any questions that they ask you.

Now, I want to give you a bit of a reality check here.

#realitycheck

It’s easy to book flights and hotel accommodation. It’s fun to go shopping for a new suit and shoes. It’s enjoyable to spend hours in front of the mirror checking out different colours of red lipstick.

It’s exciting to have your friends round and practice putting your hair-up for the big day.

But, and here’s the reality check for you.

Doing these things will NOT get you the job.

Remember, Emirates have a HUGE pool of candidates to choose from.

In fact, over 97% of those who apply to become cabin crew with them will ever be successful.

So, of those 1,000 people who attend an open day, only 150 will be invited to an assessment day and only 30 will be offered a job.

Those other 970 will be rejected!

And, here’s the thing!

I know why those 30 will be successful.

And you probably won’t like the answer but here it comes!

The thing that makes these 30 stand-out from the others is simply

HARD WORK

Yep, that’s the secret.

They know that there is more to getting this job then shopping for shoes or trying on red lipstick.

They know that the secret of success is working on their CV, practising for the group activities, preparing SAR answers for the competency -based questions they know they will be asked at the final interview, or improving their video skills in preparation for their Skype interviews.

They know that competition to become cabin crew with Emirates is fierce and they know that they have to put the work in to ensure success.

They’re prepared to put the work in.

Are you?

Speak soon

Pauline x

Pauline leads an Emirates training session in Glasgow — Pauline Park

PS- wondering what happened to Luisa?

Well, she decided to become a member of New2Crew Academy. We have been working hard on her new CV, she’s stuffed it full of Emirates keywords and it’s looking good. She’s spent ages in our Emirates Executive Lounge learning all about the airline so next time she’s asked about why she wants to work for Emirates she’s got a sure-fire answer at the ready!
In short, Luisa is now putting in the work she should have done the first time round and next time, we’re determined to give Luisa the happy ending she so surely now deserves.

British Airways Jobs – Cabin Crew

Ok, so British Airways are currently recruiting for cabin crew, so I thought I would write you a blog telling you all about their application process. I completed the online application and was invited to THE NEXT STAGE OF THE SELECTION PROCESS JUST ONE HOUR LATER
In this blog I’m going to cover

British Airways Video questions
British Airways Qualifying questions
A perfect British Airways CV
Using British Airways Keywords
Why People Fail at the British Airways CV Stage

British Airways Jobs — British Airways are recruiting at the moment

Now, for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Pauline Park and my passion is helping people like you become cabin crew. I have extensive experience as I have been teaching Travel and Tourism for 23 years now and, in this time, I have helped 1000’s of students get their dream jobs (including British Airways Jobs in the travel industry.

And, now I would like to help YOU.

As I’ve been teaching for such a long time, I’m (ahem) pretty old!

I’m Pauline Park and I’ve helped 1000’s of people get cabin crew jobs

So, I applied for a job as cabin crew with British Airways using one of my alter-egos called Stephanie and I would like to share our experience with you. Oh, and just so you know, here is the email I got just one hour later inviting me to the online assessment

Within an hour of submitting an application I was invited to the online assessment

British Airways Video questions

So, first up you have to watch a series of 10 videos and then you are asked a multiple choice question after each one.

This isn’t actually part of the application process but it’s been added in there to make you more aware of what the job of cabin crew actually entails.

So, for example, you are shown a video of someone having to get up at 3am to get ready for work and you’re then asked how you would cope with this.

You’ll be asked about how you will cope with early rises

Or, you see someone realising that they can’t go to their friend’s wedding as they are on duty and again, you are asked how you would deal with this.

So, in effect, what they are doing is giving you a range of typical scenarios to help you decide whether the job is really for you or not.

And, it’s not a bad idea as the reality is that the job is not for everyone and these videos highlight a lot of the more challenging aspects of being cabin crew, like the early starts, missing out on important engagements, having to deal with difficult passengers, having to sit yearly exams and having to work with different crew every time you fly.

So, whilst you are watching these videos, do have a good think about whether this is the job for you.
You are asked to answer a question after each video and you are given feedback from your answer.
Read this feedback carefully and take notes of what it says as you may find it comes in useful later in the application process.

So, then the application process begins!

British Airways Qualifying questions

You are asked to answer a range of qualifying questions.

These are the BASIC requirements that British Airways are looking for, so if you are unable to meet these requirements, then the airline will not be able to take your application any further.
You can see some of their qualifying questions below:

British Airways Cabin Crew Interview Questions

Some more British Airways Interview Questions

ONLY if you meet these basic criteria will you be able to move on to the next stage of the process.
Please DON’T lie as all of these requirements will be checked and verified before you are offered a contract of employment.

These requirements are quite detailed, so read them through carefully and do not proceed with your application until you know that you meet them all.

And, if you can’t for example, swim?

Then don’t apply at this time and go and learn to swim!

Remember, if you are unsuccessful with your application, you have to wait 6 months to apply again, so why not prepare well and pass first time instead?

Anyway, once you have answered all of these basic requirement questions, it’s time to create an account on their careers site:

British Airways Careers Portal — British Airways Careers Site

You will then be asked to upload your CV.

A perfect British Airways CV

Now, I have written many a blog about CVs and you can access them here, but all I will say is that once you have uploaded your CV, there’s not much more to this stage of the application process.

So, they are deciding to invite you on to the next stage of the application process based ONLY on your CV.

So, your CV has GOT TO BE GOOD

In fact, I’d go one step further and say that your CV has to be FANTASTIC!

You really can’t afford to get this stage wrong, because if you do, that’s it for you and you will have to wait another 6 months before you can even try again!

So, don’t upload a bog-standard CV- this simply isn’t good enough.

98% of applicants who apply to become British Airways cabin crew are rejected.

And, the MOST COMMON REASON IS THEIR CV IS RUBBISH!

I see this all of the time and it drives me mad!

Really good candidates with amazing work experience and who would make really good cabin crew, but are let down by using a terrible CV.

It’s simply not enough to use a CV you wrote in school or college.

Your CV has to be absolutely tailored to the job.

And, if it’s not?

Then it will be rejected

Simple as that!

I run a FREE Facebook group called the Departure Lounge (and if you’re not in there you’d be mad not to join, as there are loads of current cabin crew- including BA- in there who would love to help with your cabin crew journey) and some of the posts in there make me laugh (or scream depending on my mood!)

There are SO MANY posts in there asking what colour scarf to wear to the assessment day or if their shoes are too pointy, of if they should wear red or pink lipstick on the day?

Reality check here guys!

#realitycheck

The simple fact is that if your CV is no good, you won’t even make it to the assessment day so all of your worries about lipstick or shoes or make-up are completely pointless!

Focus on what’s important and here, the most important thing is your CV.

So, as I said, I have written a lot about CV’s and I recommend you check it all out, but if there was only ONE piece of advice I could give you, it would be to make sure your CV is stuffed full of keywords.

Using British Airways Keywords

What are keywords?

Simple- they are the skills and characteristics that British Airways are looking for,

And, do you know what’s so amazing about keywords?

British Airways actually GIVE THEM TO YOU!

Say, what?

Yep, British Airways actually tell you their keywords.

Isn’t that incredibly kind of them?

Yes, indeed it is!

So, where are these keywords?

Well, they are found in the job specification.

So, anyway, we uploaded Stephanie’s CV and sent it off.

What happens next?

Well, we sent off Stephanie’s CV and got this email one hour later…

Woo hoo- Stephanie had got through the first stage of the application process.
Go Stephanie!

Remember, this is the stage of the application process that THE VAST MAJORITY OF CANDIDATES FAIL AT.

So, this is the stage you MUST FOCUS ON.

Don’t let yourself become distracted with lipstick colours, skirt length and shoe height.

FOCUS ONLY ON YOUR CV

Because if you don’t get that correct, it’s game over!

The reality is that if you get through the first stage of the application process, you’ve actually got a much higher chance of becoming cabin crew.

The numbers get smaller and smaller as you move through the process, so conversely your chances of becoming cabin crew become higher and higher!

Research has shown that over 80% of applicants will not move on beyond the CV stage.

So, if 1,000 people apply, only 200 will move on to the testing stage.

Approximately 100 will then be invited to an Assessment Day.

And approximately 20 of them will be offered a position as cabin crew.

Why People Fail at the British Airways CV Stage

So, if you’re any good at arithmetic, you’ll quickly realise that 800 people (out of 1,000!) will FAIL at the CV stage.

Yep, that’s 80% of applications will not even make it past this stage.

AND ALL BECAUSE THEIR CV IS RUBBISH!

So, this gives you an amazing opportunity!

Why?

Well because you now know the importance of having a brilliant cabin crew CV.

I’ve also given you all the keywords British Airways are looking for.

So, you’ve no excuse now!

Go and get working on that AMAZING British Airways CV.

Emirates video interview

UPDATE June 2018. Emirates have stopped using video interviews and are now back using open days.

READ ALL ABOUT WHAT IS GOING ON AT EMIRATES AT MY LATEST BLOG POST HERE

Oh no, an Emirates video interview ?!

Yes, I’m afraid so!

You will need to be prepared to put in a LOT of work to pass this stage of the application.

Now before we begin, I just want to make sure that you understand that this is an INTERVIEW.

So, you may not be meeting anyone face-to-face, as you are going to record your answers and then send them on to Emirates.

But this doesn’t matter.

You must treat it as a formal interview and that starts with you looking the part and being well-prepared.

Emirates use a company called HireVue to conduct video interviews on their behalf.

You can choose to do your video interview on a PC or you can download the HireVue App and complete the video interview on either a tablet or a smartphone.

People have asked which one is best and no-one is better than the other. So choose whichever one you feel most comfortable with.

HireVue has a webpage available to learn more about their video interviews, so you can check it out at:

https://app.hirevue.com/learn-more/on-demand/

It really is well-worth checking out the information on this page.

There is also a good video on the page as well which is worth a watch.

Why not pop-over there and check it out?

I’m happy to wait!

Oh good, you’re back again.

So, what happens next is that you click on the link to begin your video interview!

Deep breaths all round!

You are given a welcome and given an estimated length for your interview. Which, believe it or not, is only 5 minutes so you don’t have long to “wow”!

Then you get to watch a 30 second video of a cabin crew member advising you to let your personality shine!

Next up, the system will check that your webcam (or camera), microphone and internet access are all working well.

A small piece of advice. If you don’t get a green tick for even ONE of these, please don’t ignore it and hope for the best.

You need ALL three to be working correctly before you can begin.

If you are told there are technical issues, you MUST resolve them before you go any further.

Remember, this part of the video interview is NOT recording so it doesn’t matter if it takes you an hour to sort out any technical difficulties. DO NOT move on until they’re sorted!

Ok, so now you have the option to try some practice questions. You can see that you are given a prep. time for each question. This is to give you some time to plan what you are going to say.

Once your prep. time has run out, your recording will start automatically.

In the practice sessions, you have 3 minutes to complete a question.

I want you to treat this video interview EXACTLY as you would a final interview.

And I want you to spend a LOT of time preparing your answers.

There are a number of key areas that Emirates will question you about.

One is customer service/ hospitality. So, have LOADS of SAR answers prepared for this topic.

Another key area is cabin crew– why do you want to be cabin crew and why would you be good at it, so have answers for these as well.

Another key area is Emirates themselves- why Emirates, what do you know about Emirates- so prepare for these as well.

Another key area is Dubai– why would you like to live there and how would you cope living in a foreign country, so prepare SAR answers for these too.

The final key area relates to travel- where you have been and where you would love to go. This is a great area to be questioned in because you can really stand-out here. EVERY airline recruiter I have ever known laments the lack of passion candidates demonstrates for travel. Yet, the job is ultimately ALL about travelling.

So, use this key area to really show Emirates how much travel means to you and how much you love to travel.

You then get the option to try another practice question. Once you have done this, you get the opportunity to try another. My advice is to take as try as many practice questions as you can.

Once you have finished practising, it’s time for the real thing!

So, knowing you are looking your absolute best, it’s time to go!

You are given a set of instructions. Please read these carefully. Note that you only have ONE attempt at each question. You also only have ONE minute to record your answer.

That’s it- phew!

Your answers have now been submitted. You are told your interview has now been successfully completed and you don’t need to do anything further with your video interview.

So, what happens next?

Well, here’s where things get REALLY interesting and we are now going to delve into the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Yep, we really are!

May I introduce you to Emmy, the Emirates robot?

Now when we are talking about robots what I’m really talking about is a computer program that uses Artificial Intelligence to make decisions without a human being involved.

Now, Emmy works behind the scenes at Emirates recruitment and she’s going to help us understand what her and her other robot friends decide who gets to go through to the next stage.

Because, believe it or not, NOT ONE SINGLE real person will look at your application until it has been thoroughly assessed by Emmy and her friends.

So, how automated is the Emirates recruitment system?

It is, in fact, totally automated!

Yep, from the minute you submit your application until a decision is taken whether to invite you to an assessment day or reject you, EVERY decision is taken by robots!

Now these robots can be quite the devil, so we need to keep on their good side to make sure our applications make it through!

Ok, so here’s how it works…

It is all done by machine-learning (where the computer is learning every single time a video is uploaded) and when your video is uploaded, it is assessed by Emmy and her friends.

Now, this software was devised by a combination of incredible cutting-edge technology and a team of highly qualified psychologists, so it truly is quite remarkable in what it does.

It will assess your video interview based on a number of criteria such as keywords, body language and voice patterns. It then checks your score against the characteristics of a “perfect” Emirates cabin crew member.

Depending on your score, you are either invited for an assessment day, sent for further investigation or rejected. All without a human being involved- wow!

Anyway, I really hope this guide will help you prepare (and pass!) your Emirates video interview!

Many thanks to Emmy and her robot friends for all their help in compiling this guide- I couldn’t have done it without them!