So it was at 2pm and I hit traffic at 1.30pm! Nightmarrre! I was furious. I got in to the hotel at 1.55pm where I saw a girl standing outside the interview room who had already had her interview. She said it was hard!
I'm a bit stressed at the moment because I didn't put my referee's e-mail addresses on to the form as I didn't have them handy. I got home and had to call the hotel with the information so they could pass the message on to the RO's but I don't think the guy on the phone wrote them down correctly as he seemed sick of his life, so now I'm e-mailing Emirates HR with the information before the RO's have even flown back to Dubai! Good idea? I hope this doesn't jeopardize my chances of being successful. Fingers crossed eh.
So anyway back to the FI. I got to outside the room and one of the two RO's (who were both lovely!) told me to wait in the little foyer further along the hall just so they could get prepared. I waited and fixed my make-up whilst I was there and recited the motivational speech about the lions which I posted earlier in my head because I had butterflies. I made them roar!
About 15 minutes later one of the ladies came and took me in to the room where I handed over my completed paperwork and photographs. They accepted them all! Wooo! So nothing wrong with any of 'em. Lovely.
One of the RO's was writing my answers down and the other was asking the questions. They were on one side of the table and I was on the other, but they had a glass of water on the table for me, all prepared. Wooo!
Anyhow the first question came! "Tell us what you do currently". So I talked about my work - what I do and why I enjoy it.
They asked if I'd had any challenging customers, and what did I do to resolve their challenges. I explained and then she said "so why did you go the extra mile for that customer when they were just one person? surely they wont make a difference to your work" and I explained that every customer is important and if we give a bad service then bad news travels faster than good news. Then she asked if I'd had a customer who was challenging and I couldn't really resolve their issue and what I did to stay calm in that situation.
They asked if I'd broken a rule at work to benefit a customer (Don't say you don't break rules! Everyone breaks rules once in their life. I said that at my current work place I don't because I wouldnt do anything to jeopardise my colleagues of passenger's safety however this one time in a previous place of work I helped a customer by...) and then they'd asked me how I came up with the solution to the customer's problems and this led me to admitting to them that I was a perfectionist hahaha which ended up being a running joke throughout the interview.
Remember to make eye contact with both of them - even if one of them's not looking at you. The other one will be and will know if you're looking at just her or at both.
I got asked when was a time I made a mistake at work and how did I feel, when was there a time a colleague wasn't doing their best at work and what did I do to sort it out. I got asked how I dealt with a difficult customer and why was customer service so important in the role I work in.
To be honest I'd prepared for every question so I didn't have a problem answering them. My mouth went dry a few times and sometimes I forgot what I wanted to say so I took a quick sip of water to gather my thoughts. This is my revision - I made sure to think of a scenario for each kind of question they could have possibly asked me:
They didn't ask why I wanted to work for EK or why should they choose me - they were just customer service based questions - so don't go revising how many aircraft EK have or how many A380's are on order.
She then said she had no more questions but then asked if I had any for them. I asked them how they got in to Recruitment and if they've made life-long friends from working for Emirates. I asked what the training was like (I said I was looking forward to SEP training and I don't know if they were surprised to hear that because they looked at each other after I said that lol) and whether they'd move back home from Dubai (I got a firm NO! lol!). It was really interesting to get to know the two ladies even for just five minutes.
They had allocated an hour for the interview and we ran over the time so we had to end the interview quickly ('cause another lady was waiting to be interviewed outside) but I think it went well. I shook their hands and asked where I should put my empty glass and apologised for getting red lipstick on it! lol. Then I said goodbye and left! There's a lot of gossip on the internet which says "oh it should only last 20 mins" "40 mins is an ideal time" "most people answer all the questions in 30 mins"
I'd sayyy if you have your FI coming up - revise, smile and make a lot of eye contact. My heart was pounding before I went in to the room (try focusing on something and counting to 10 - it worked on me and my blood pressure went down lol) however it soon felt like a normal chat about my past work experience so I was relaxed. Don't be nervous - this is your chance to shine.
I'm tired. I need a nap. I hope I've helped some of you guys - now I'm in for an agonising four-six week wait. Fingers/toes/eyes crossed I get AIP/YWBC/GC xx
