Through to the F2F!

HALLELUJAH!

Many thanks for your application and time taken in the pre-screen interview for the Walt Disney World International Programs. We were impressed by your performance and are delighted to invite you to the final interview stage.

Thank goodness for that! I was honestly terrified that I wouldn't get through.

I checked Facebook on my phone and saw everyone posting saying they'd got through, but I hadn't had an email come through on my phone and I had a horrible sinking feeling. So I got on my laptop to check and, thank God, there was the lovely wonderful email telling me I've got an interview!

Most of us in the Facebook group have got through, and I think all of the lovely ladies I met before the pre-screens did too, which makes me really happy. Everyone deserves this.

Only 2 weeks to mentally prepare myself. Eek.

Pre-screen group interviews.

Yesterday was the day of the London pre-screen interviews. I'm really not sure how it went! I keep thinking about it, but I really don't know.

Nine of us girls who had been chatting on the Facebook group met up for lunch in Pizza Express beforehand. That was lovely. Definitely a good idea, as it meant we had people to chat to to kind of burn off the nervous energy we all had! It also meant we had people to walk into Chez Gerard with, so there wasn't that awkward 'oh God, so many strangers all looking nervous' moment!

We all signed in, then went and watched a Yummy Jobs presentation (they must save Valerie for the F2F!), which lasted about 40 minutes. It was different from any of the videos and presentations I'd seen before, so that was good. It was really informative, too - they told us things that, although I already knew most of them from being a WDWIP forum and blog stalker (!), we didn't find out until the F2F last year. So I think I approve of the new way of doing things.

I won some mini Creme Eggs for answering a question, yay! It was the simplest one - name all the WDW parks - and then Nick wouldn't let me answer the one about Aulani because I already had a prize, boo hiss.

At the end of the presentation Becky read out the names and times of what group everyone would be in, and we went and sat outside and waited. I was in a group with one of the girls I knew from the Facebook group, Chantelle, so that was nice. After waiting for what felt like AGES (the interviews were supposed to be half an hour to 40 minutes but most of them went on for almost an hour), the 4 o'clock groups went in.

Most of the questions that Nick asked were pretty similar to the ones we'd have been asked if we'd had a phone interview. I think I answered the questions themselves fine, but with 7 other people in the group it felt difficult to get my personality across as much as I'd have liked. Sometimes I wanted to join in with what someone was saying, but didn't want to seem as if I was interrupting them. I'm not feeling great about it, but I just keep hoping I did enough to get to the F2F.

We were told we'll find out by the end of Monday, which is so close! Definitely need to keep myself busy until then.

Pre-screen interviews!

YES. SCORE.

After review of your CV the Yummy Jobs Team is delighted to invite you to the next stage of recruitment for the Cultural Representative Program.

This next stage will be a pre-selection event where the Yummy Jobs Team will conduct a full program presentation and group interviews.

We found out a couple of days ago (by 'we', I mean all of us in our lovely Facebook group) that instead of phone interviews Yummy Jobs would be holding regional pre-screen events. I've no idea why they've decided to do it this way, and I'm not sure whether it's a good or a bad thing! All I know at the moment is that it's different to last year, which puts me feeling very much out of my depth! They've not done interviews this way for the CRP before (as far as I'm aware) so all those blogs and video blogs I've read and reread and watched and rewatched about the phone interview are suddenly useless! Well, no, I imagine the questions we'll get asked will be quite similar but the scenario? Totally different. I've never been to a group interview before! I've no idea what to expect!

Still, I'm so excited and glad to have got through. I had this horrible feeling of 'what if I got that far last time, but this year I'm just rejected straight away?' This is a good start! Really gutted for the people who didn't get through, though. I just kind of assumed that everyone in the FB group had the kind of enthusiasm that would show through in their application and that we'd all at least get through to the first interview stage.

I'm also excited by how much more quickly this year's applications are going than last year's! The applications only closed 2 days ago, and we've already found out the results! The next round is the 25th/26th, with the F2F interviews in mid February. So much quicker! I approve of this. Let's hope this bodes well for me, shall we?