Welcome guys! So before I actually talk about the actual programme I will fill you in on a bit of the application process for those interested. So I applied for the programme through Yummy Jobs back in January 2014. It is an online application including uploading your CV, work experience and also a few questions you have to write about in quite a lot of detail about what being a cultural representative means to you etc. After this you get an email to say whether you have been successful or not a couple of days after the applications close and I got the date of my first interview in February in London. This took place at Brassiere Blanc on Southbank but quite a lot of us met up previously in the Starbucks round the corner. If I could give you any advise about the application process is join the facebook groups. Joining the groups means you don’t make the journey alone especially as I kept the fact I had applied very quiet! It was a great way of keeping track of how people are getting on, who got dates and getting to know the people I interviewed with and now living in Florida with! So, back to the actual interview! This was done in two groups and I was in the second in the afternoon. We all went in to a room where Louise from Yummy Jobs did a presentation on the programme, did a fun quiz and then told us what times to come back for our small group interviews. Luckily I was in the first group so I didn’t have to wait around and my interview was led by James. There was I think 5 of us and it was a sort of open discussion/going round the group sharing thoughts on the questions answered. The questions were mostly scenario based i.e. If you were told to do this what would you do.. etc. Then we went through the menu of The Rose and Crown (the main restaurant in the UK pavilion) and we all had to describe a dish in an interesting way as if you were describing it to a customer. And then we had the ultimate question: If you were a Disney character who would you be? I tried to think a little out of the box on this one because as I guessed what might happen is we had like three Ariels in my group! I chose Sully from Monsters Inc because he always tries to do the right thing and is a great friend! Haha! I got to know some really great people in this interview and quite a few will be sharing my time in Florida! So the waiting now began and a couple of weeks later I received an email to say I had been successful and got to book my next interview at the UK’s Disney Headquarters in Hammersmith, London. I was pretty lucky as when the email came through it was on my day off work so I managed to pick a really great time for my individual interview. So this interview was at the end of March and I headed up to London the day before at stayed in a hotel overnight with my family who then dropped me off the next day. Of course we all met in Starbucks again and headed to the headquarters together. Even just going to this place was really cool it was full of movie memorabilia and posters etc! We all came in together in the morning and went through to a screening room where Sue from Disney recruitment and a man from ESPN did another presentation and it all got very exciting! We were split into time groups which we had booked online and we all went off and did our own thing till we had to come back. I picked to go in the second lot so me and the other girls went for a hot chocolate in Costa and got to know each other. We headed back for the interviews but they were running really late because they were also interviewing for another programme at the same time. The whole time I was just getting more and more nervous and of course I was the last in my group to go in! So, my interview was with the man from ESPN who was absolutely lovely! It was a lot of the same type of questions as before plus things like where would be convenient to fly from, start dates etc. I came out thinking it went thinking it went really well and was really pleased and inspired. Now for the painful bit!!! So probably two months passed and we heard absolutely nothing apart from a thank you email and some people got nos and it was horrible. Then sometime in May really late on a Friday night a handful of people got emails to start on a few random dates around September time but that was it. Months passed and just a few random people got dates filling in for dropouts and meanwhile it just got harder and harder for everyone else because we had no idea what was happening all we knew is that we were on a waitlist. At around the six months mark I went on facebook on my lunch break and saw that pretty much everyone apart from 4 of us had got their dates and my heart was broken I was absolutely gutted! This wait was incredibly hard I can’t even describe what it was like apart from saying I was stuck in a job and life I was really not enjoying and couldn’t make any plans cus I was still holding out for Disney but at the same time worried it was going to be a no I had been waiting so long and every time my phone went off with either an email or phone call my heart stopped, surprised I didn’t have a heart attack or something to be fair haha! Eventually, after 8 longggggg months I had been working away for a week and we were sat in the pub at the end before getting the train home and my phone went off and it was the last thing I was expecting…an email from Yummy Jobs!! My heart was absolutely racing and I wanted to cry but the hardest thing was I couldn’t even say anything to the people I was with because I couldn’t tell work yet. I read the email quickly under the table and it said congratulations for my offer and to accept it on their website. So I went on and clicked confirm but still didn’t know my date so I was very confused! I made some excuse about needing to make a phone call ran outside did a mini happy dance haha and then called Yummy Jobs who explained Disney should have already emailed me with my date and that it was 7th April Food and Beverage and I was over the moon!!!
My Magical Year, Disney CRP Blog 2015/16 