Interview Adventures

One of the things I love in life is having adventures, and when  my interview day finally arrived on Tuesday, I was definitely in for an adventure!  A word of warning: It was a long day so this may be a long post!

I went to bed early the night before, setting several alarms so I would wake up in time the next morning.  Now I use the term 'morning' very loosely here because I actually woke up at 2:45am on Tuesday!  So I got up at this ungodly hour and got myself showered and dressed up in my Disney Look compliant business wear.  Stupidly I forgot to get a full shot of my outfit so I can show you that.  Sorry!

I left for the airport about 4:15am even though my flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 6:05am because I wanted to have enough time.  I parked my car in the long-term car park, which is a little distance away from the airport terminal but they have a shuttle bus that will take you from the parking area to the terminal.  The weirdest thing for the day was catching a plane without checking any luggage - I've never done that before!  I went straight through security and found my gate, which was conveniently right next to a cafe, so I grabbed a coffee and sat down to wait.

The plane was on time so we boarded but it was packed!  I'm pretty sure it was a full flight, but luckily I had my trusty window seat so I could sit back for the 56 minute flight, rest my head against the wall, close my eyes and listen to Disney music.  Once we landed in Melbourne, I made my way outside to the Skybus, bought a ticket and jumped on for the 25 minute ride into the city.  It was about 8:15am at this point so after messaging my friend Lily to let her know I was on my way, and then called my parents to let them know I'd managed to get up on time (My mum was worried I'd sleep through my alarm!) and had made it safely to Melbourne.  When the Skybus dropped me off at Southern Cross station, I started to get a bit nervous.  Melbourne public transport is much more complicated than Adelaide public transport, but I took a deep breath, remembered that I lived for 8 years in Sydney - an even bigger city - while growing up, and found my way to the boards where all the train schedules were.  Thanks to a bit of internet research the night before, it wasn't too difficult to work out which train I had to catch and, despite getting caught in a massive crowd of high school kids and nearly crashing into a commuter while trying to read one of the screens whilst walking, I found my train easily enough.

Two stops later, I got off at Melbourne Central and followed the signs to the street I was supposed to go to, except I cam out at a different point along that street than I thought I had, so I was a little bit turned around for a minute until I worked out where I was.  Lily had messaged me to say she was at the cafe where we were meeting, so I was pretty excited to get there.  Lily and I met through a facebook group for the program and even though we had talked heaps, we'd never met in person.  So when I came around the corner and we saw each other, we both ran up and hugged like long-lost friends, squealing with excitement.  It was definitely a special moment and made me feel even more excited about all the new friends I would make and people I would meet if I get accepted into the program.  I got another coffee and a bagel ('cause they always remind me on America) and after spilling some coffee on my jacket (classy) we sat and waited until Nichola and Lauren (both also from the facebook group) arrived.

Lily and Me!  Sorry that I took such a terrible selfie!

Eventually it was time for the presentation (well ok, it was about 10:10am and our presentation was at 10:30am but we wanted to be early) so we made our way to the building and up what felt like an impossibly long ride in the lift until we reached the presentation room!  There was a lecture going on inside, so we waited outside and met even more people.  There was this guy there who was really loud and funny, but it turned out he wasn't actually applying!  I think maybe his friend was or something, but he just joined in for the fun of it.

This was on the screen outside the lecture theatre - I couldn't resist taking a photo!

Eventually, after a bit of a late start, they let us in.  We all showed photo ID and signed in before taking our seats.  Then the presentation began, and I was a barely controlled bundle of nerves and emotions throughout the entire thing!  My heart was pounding, my hands were shaking and yet I couldn't stop smiling.  At one point my lip was trembling from excitement!  The presentation was run by Jill, who is the Disney international programs recruiter who is in charge of the Australia & New Zealand recruiting and also Delinda, who is an Adelaide girl (yay!) and works for the Disney cruise line.  The presentation went for about an hour during which Jill went through all of the details of the program, almost all of which I already knew, but it was good to hear it all in an official capacity.  As part of the presentation, they asked some Disney trivia and gave out Disney International Programs luggage tags as prizes.  Aaaannd...I won one!  I knew all of the answers except one but I got chosen to answer "How many people does the Walt Disney World Resort employ each year?"  I said 66,000, which is what I thought the answer was but apparently I had old information because the answer is actually 70,000 but Jill still let me have the prize anyway, which I was super excited about.

Me with my luggage tag - look how excited I am, haha!

After the presentation we went and found the interview room because Nichola was in the first group of interviews, then we said goodbye to her and Lily, Lauren and I headed off to get some lunch.  While we ate we talked Disney and musicals (I was seriously in the best company!) until Lauren had to head off for her interview.  Lily and I did a bit of window shopping, stopped by the bathroom to freshen up (where I proceeded to poke my finger through my stockings and had to abandon them in the bathroom trash can!  Could I be any clumsier?)  and make sure we were looking our Disney Look best and before we knew it, it was time to head back for our interviews! When we got there, there were still a few people waiting to be interviewed, so we just chatted and made friends and proceeded to get even more nervous.

And then the time arrived.  Jill stepped out into the hall and said "Rebecca" and I just about jumped out of my skin.  For some reason I'd gotten confused and thought that another girl was in the interview time slot before mine, so I wasn't expecting it to be my turn when I was called.  I quickly rushed forward to shake Jill's hand and made my way nervously into the room.

What I did next was just about the stupidest thing you could ever do in an interview short of ripping off all your clothes and setting the furniture on fire: I let my nerves get the better of me.

I am sorry to say that I completely panicked, and it took about half the interview before I managed to get myself back under control.  My answer to the question "Why do you want to do the program?" was not the lovely, heartfelt and well thought out response I'd planned.  It was more like me rambling on about why I loved Disney so much.  Jill even had to repeat the question because I was doing such a rubbish job at actually answering it!  Yeah...not my proudest moment.

I do think that by the end I managed to get my brain in gear, even if I did forget some words (like when I spent what was probably five seconds but felt like three hours trying to remember the word 'retail'), and I made sure to end off with a nice solid handshake and even got to say what my absolute top choice for a role would be.  For the record, my questions were something like this (I may have missed a couple and these probably aren't word for word but it's the general idea).  I've added my own commentary on some:

• How are you?
• Where are you studying?
• What are you studying?
• What are your future career goals after your study?
• So you've been to a Disney park before? (this was in response to something I'd said about Disneyland)
• Have you worked in America before?
• Why do you want to do the program? (asked twice because I'm such a dingbat!)
• I see your top role choices are Operations/Attractions and Merchandise.  How would you keep guests safe in these roles? (I think this was my best question/answer.  I gave examples for both roles, but then also talked about how I would keep people safe as a Character Attendant because she'd somehow missed that it was one of my top roles - actually my number 1 role!)
• How do you feel about living with other people?  Do you currently live with others or at home with your family?

At this point she asked me a series of rapid-fire questions which I guess are questions they have to ask at all interviews.  They were very much 'yes or no' questions, and there wasn't really time to elaborate on them:

• Many of the roles involve working with cleaning chemicals and heavy lifting.  Are you ok with this?
• Are you okay working indoors or outdoors in high pressure environments?
• You may be working in large groups or independently, is this okay?
• Do you have any tattoos or piercings? 
• What colour are your glasses? (Obviously you won't get this question if you don't wear glasses.  Also, this probably seems like a funny question since I was sitting right across the table from her, but the glasses I was wearing are a sort of dark plum colour and it can be hard to tell what colour they are.  For the record, she said I may need to wear different glasses for work, such as black or brown frames).
• Do you have any questions? (I did - I asked two questions and then said that Character Attendant was my top role choice).

My interview felt so ridiculously quick, that when I walked out the first thing I said was "That was so short!"  It honestly felt like five minutes, but the others promised me that it was at least double that.  I then proceeded to tell the others about my brain freeze and how I was sure I'd stuffed up my chances.  Lily was called in soon after me and I continued to chat with the others while we waited.  We waited for the last couple of people to finish their interviews so we could say goodbye and then that was it!  After all the months of waiting and planning and preparing and struggling, my Disney interview experience was over!

Lily walked back to the train station with me and helped me work out what train I was supposed to catch (it involved going two stops and transferring to another train but it wasn't too complicated) and then we said goodbye in the hopes that we will get to catch up again soon when and if we have to go to the American Consulate for our visa appointments.  It was cold and wet and rainy and I was starting the really feel my 3am wake up time (It was about 3:30pm at this point) so I was feeling a bit emotional on the Skybus shuttle ride back to the airport.  Once I got there, I found a quiet spot near the international gate and called my parents to tell them how it went.  I was still feeling pretty teary and at this point I was almost sure I'd ruined my chances in my interview.  I tried to stay as positive as I could but I was feeling pretty disappointed.

After I got off the phone I got some dinner and found a place to sit where they had phone recharging stations because my battery was nearly dead.  By the time I had eaten something I was feeling a bit better but still ridiculously tired and I just wanted to get home.  Unfortunately there was a storm in Melbourne so the airport shut down the runways for a bit, which meant my flight got delayed by about an hour and a half.  I wandered the shops for a while and even found this awesome Disney luggage and neck pillow!

Eventually, after more coffee, chocolate, a wander through more shops, a phone call to my sister, some people watching and countless games on my phone, I was finally able to board my plane.  Once again it was full, but I had my window seat and I was so tired I didn't really care.  When I got back to Adelaide I had to wait a couple of minutes in the cold night air (cursing myself for not taking a spare pair of stockings because my legs were freezing at this point) before the shuttle bus picked me up and took me back to the car park.  I called my mum (legally, using bluetooth) on the drive home and arrived back at my place about 11pm.  I dumped my bag, washed off my makeup and put on some pj's before falling into bed and fast asleep.