If you are reading this email because you’ve been invited to final interviews for Disney’s cultural exchange programme then a massive congratulations is in order!! Pre-screens is the stage where most people are cut from the process, and it is (unofficially) thought that only about 30% of candidates from pre-screen interviews are then invited to final interviews at Disney Headquarters in Hammersmith.
The gap between being invited to finals and actually attending finals had a lot more preparation involved than I expected.
This year emails were sent out on Wednesday the 2nd of October, just a few days after the last pre-screens were held (mine!) on the afternoon of Friday the 27th of September. I received my email at 3:30pm with the very vague title “Your Yummy Jobs Application” however I didn’t actually see this email until I went on my fifteen minute break at work at around 5pm. I had over a hundred messages on the Disney group chat and many from Holly who had her invite and was keen to know if I got mine! I opened it while sitting on the sofa in the staff room and burst into tears, it was definitely the best email I had ever had.
About a day or two after being invited to final interviews Natalie from yummy jobs sent us a personalised link to apply for the programme through the Disney careers website . This is just a standard procedure so they have a copy of your CV, cover letter and other personal details etc, although I did update both my CV and cover letter, I don’t think that you have to and many didn’t.
After this has been done by everyone you will be asked to select a day and time for your interview at Disney HQ and to complete a role checklist for your Disney interviewer. This year we received these two emails (about five minutes apart in my case) in alphabetical order by last name about a week after the email telling us that we had been invited for a final interview. I scheduled my interview as soon as the emails came out on the 10th of October.
The interviews ran all through the day, for either a one hour or a one and a half hour slot. Unlike some previous years there was no presentation to attend so the slot we selected was the only time we had to be available to be at the office (however Natalie did say to allow about three hours just in case of any major delays in the running of the interviews).
This year the first interviews were held on Wednesday the 6th of November, with the rest being Tuesday 12th – Friday 15th of November, and alumni phone interviews in early December (2-5th I think?).
I don’t know of anyone who didn’t get the slot that they wanted so I think they had plenty spaces available, but would definitely still recommend selecting your slot as soon as you can, for peace of mind if nothing else!
The Disney role checklist is very simple, you have each available role (and some that you can’t actually do like housekeeping but they’re on there anyway, presumably this is just a standard checklist for all programmes and these roles could be eligible on others than the CEP, I still answered them just to be safe) and you just select either high, moderate, low or no interest.
As I’ve mentioned before, it’s preferable to show high interest in multiple roles but only if you would actually be happy to do them; there is no point in putting high interest for a role that you have no interest in, in the hope of getting on the programme. When you’re given an acceptance it comes with a job role and as far as I know you can’t change it without very good reason so be sure to take this into consideration.
The only roles that I put no interest for were lifeguarding and recreation as these both require strong swimming skills which I do not have. The other roles available were quick service food and beverage, costuming, full service seater, character performer, attractions, merchandise and custodial.
You will also gain access to Disney DOCS where you will upload a scanned copy or photograph of your passport, select your visa appointment location, obviously only relevant if you are selected (London or Dublin for the UK) you don’t have to do this until after you are accepted if you want to wait. You can also download a proof of student status form which must be filled in by someone at your university and stamped and pending confirmation from yummy jobs at your interview (in case there are any errors) you can then upload this onto your docs profile.
Once you have selected your interview slot you can go ahead and book any travel or accommodation which you may need, but I’m going to put this in a separate post if anyone is interested in my short trip to London!
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