The Interview

The following information is based on my own interview experience and the interview experiences of several other applicants I have spoken with.  Please note that every recruiter, applicant and interview is different.

As you should already know, you will have pre-booked a window of time for your interview with one of the Disney recruiters.  These windows are one-hour in length and you need to be available for that entire hour.

Once again, I would recommend getting to the interview room 15-20 minutes before your window of time begins, just to be on the safe side and also on the very rare chance that they are running early.  Use this time to take an opportunity to breathe, rink some water, go to the toilet, freshen up your makeup – whatever you need to do to get yourself calm and centred.   At this point you should also put your mobile phone on silent or just plain turn it off.  Nothing says ‘unprofessional’ like a text message ping cutting through your spiel about how reliable and hardworking you are!

Each interview location is different, but there should be somewhere for you to wait – a hallway or possibly even another room.  There will also be other applicants waiting there.  Once again, chat, smile, be friendly!  Because Disney takes many people from Australia and New Zealand, you’re not all fighting for one position so there’s less of a feeling of competition and more of a sense of camaraderie.   This is really rare in interview situations so make the most of this unique experience – You never know, you might just meet your future roommate!  It also helps distract you from your nerves if you’re chatting with people.

Eventually, the recruiter will come out and call your name. 

Try your best not to freak out.

Smile.  Walk forward, and shake their hand.  Make sure your handshake is firm and professional; it may sound crazy but a weak, floppy handshake isn’t a great way to start.

During your interview remember to smile, sit up straight, smile, speak slowly and clearly, smile, listen to what the recruiter is saying/asking, and SMILE!  Seriously, Disney are not about to hire someone who looks sad or grumpy or bored.  Don’t plaster on a fake, cheerleader, beauty queen smile though.  Be genuine and let your love for Disney and your excitement shine through.

The recruiter will most like start with some questions about what you’re studying, what your career goals are, where you live etc.  The recruiter is trying to get a feel for your ability to chat and be friendly.  Smile, relax and stay calm.  DO NOT do what I did and begin rambling.

They will then most likely ask you some variation of the question “Why do you want to work for Disney?” or “Why do you want to do this program?”  Stay calm and answer like you’ve practiced.  Take a second to breath before you answer if you need to.  If you’ve read about my interview experience you will know that panicking and rambling on and on is not a great idea.  Try to keep your points concise and simple but show your passion too.

The questions after this will vary for each person.  The questions may centre around your top role choices, how you keep people safe in the workplace and even about how you feel about living out of home or how you might deal with a roommate conflict.  Have a look at the list of potential interview questions HERE for ideas.  If you have selected Character Performer as a high interest role, the recruiter will most likely measure you.  This is because your height will determine which characters you can be friends with and therefore will need to be something the recruiters have to take in to account when allocating people to that role.

At some point you will get asked a series of questions that will generally just have ‘yes or no’ answers.  These are I guess the ‘official’ questions they have to ask everyone such as if you are ok with working indoors and/or outdoors in various types of weather, are you ok working with cleaning chemicals and doing heavy lifting and if you have any tattoos or piercings. 

At the end of the interview, the recruiter will ask if you have any questions.  I strongly recommend you have one or two questions prepared – it makes you appear interested and the depth of your questions can also indicate how much you’ve researched and thought about the program already.  If you want to request a specific role or location, this is the perfect opportunity to do that too.  There is no guarantee that you will get a role simply by requesting it, but it can’t hurt to put it out there.

And then, before you know it, the recruiter will be thanking you, shaking your hand and pointing in the direction of the door.  Make sure you thank the recruiter and I don’t mean just a mumbled “thanks”.  Say something like “Thank you for talking the time to meet with me” or “Thank you for this opportunity” or some variation of that.  You want to make sure they realise you are genuinely grateful for the chance to interview with Disney.

If you’re anything like me, you will walk out of the interview room and immediately start obsessing over what you could have done better or what the recruiter meant when they asked you such-and-such.  I’m not going to tell you not to worry; I say get the obsessing out, give yourself time to freak out and then move on.  If you can go and have a coffee or ice cream with a friend to debrief then that’s also a great idea – you’ve worked hard to get to this point so go and reward yourself and try not to think about how long you have to wait to get an answer!

Next up I’m going talk about ways to deal with Waiting For aResponse or you can return to the Masterlist.