Today I had my assessment day and whilst I was getting ready to go to the hotel where it was being hosted, I didn't really feel nervous. I did on the drive there and when I was waiting outside the conference room but once we got inside it was fine. I met my new friend from the Open Day (yay!) and we were all called in at 9am. We were given a name and a number (the number was said to you during the telephone call after the OD) Sorry it's upside down!
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The room was split in to two circles of chairs. Half of us sat in one circle and the other sat in the second circle. We were divided in to groups of three and we were given a card which had the name of a City on it, as well as three photos from that City. We had to, in our threes, discuss the city and think of three points to tell the rest of the group - we had to say one point each. We got... Istanbul. I've never been to Turkey in my life! I ended up talking about mosques. Whilst we were discussing what we were going to say, both Recruiters were asking us individually to come up and do our reach test. I was panicking about that but I'm 5'5" and reached it no problem. The RO asked me what I'm doing at the moment (she hadn't seen me yesterday at the CV drop off - I spoke to the other one) and then she said "oh that must be challenging at times" and I went on to explain a situation where it really was challenging and how I overcame this. She was asking people different questions though. Others got "why do you want to work for Emirates" nb - saying "i love to travel" will NOT GET YOU ANYWHERE. Culture, culture, culture! Say you enjoy meeting people from other countries, how you want to work for "the world's best airline 2013", how the training you'll receive at the aviation college is high quality, how EK are constantly expanding their destinations and are at the forefront of aviation technology with new aircraft being added every month etc and how you'd love to be a part of that. "i love to travel" is the most obvious answer to give.
The girl on my right introduced us with a funny opening line and the girl on my left went on to talk about Turkish mud baths. I then said that "As Turkey is a mainly Muslim country, once you've enjoyed your mud bath you can enjoy visiting one of the many mosques in Istanbul and take in the rich religious and cultural history while you're there." MAKE SURE YOU LOOK AT EVERYONE. NOT JUST THE RECRUITER. AND NOT THE FLOOR. The girl to my right went on to talk about how you can buy counterfeit watches and handbags from the markets... not a good move. Needless to say she didn't get through to FI.
We were all told to leave the room for 15 minutes and when we came back, we were given that slip of paper.
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We said goodbye to about 7 people. One girl had to leave because she had a tattoo on her wrist. So horrible when you're excited and relieved and you see how sad other people are. It made you feel bad!
Half of the group went back in to the room to do a group exercise whilst the rest of us waited downstairs and had a coffee. Half an hour later, we were called up to do the same exercise. We were sat in two smaller circles - about four/five people per circle, and we were given a scenario. Ours was that we were the manager of a hotel and there were only two rooms available. We had a list people who had booked a room:
a travel writer
a newly wed couple on their honeymoon
a party girl who is in a fashion show in the hotel
a politician addressing a conference in the hotel
the general manager of the hotel chain
a couple with a child they take on regular trips to the local hospital
a visitor who stays in the hotel once a month
a visitor whose bathroom is flooded and is demanding a new room
in our groups, we had to decide who could stay and who couldn't. DO NOT LEAD THE GROUP. Emirates are looking for people who can listen and work as a team. The RO's are watching you at all times and are walking around you. You are very aware that they're there when you first start but once you get in to it you just forget they're watching. Make sure to say "I agree with your idea" "that's a very good idea" "well we could do this but do you not think..." etc. SMILE. Laugh. Take turns in talking. If you accidentally talk over someone, apologize and stop!
After we had decided who could stay and who couldn't, the Recruitment Officer turned in to a character from the list who wasn't able to stay in the hotel. We took it in turns to explain the situation and offer something else instead e.g. a free stay in another hotel slightly further out the city, free transport to and from the city centre. They don't care about your solution - they care about you coping under pressure and how you approach the situation. Apologize profusely, tell them you understand why they're annoyed etc.
We were sent out the room again and called back in fifteen minutes later for another slip of that paper.
When we were called back in (there were about 15 of us at this point), we were told we had made it to the final interview stage and were asked to fill in different forms etc. My final interview is on Tuesday. Nervous? Yes. Excited for the future? YES!
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