We didn’t expect this to happen – at least not as quickly as it did. A few weeks ago, an eagle-eyed reader pointed out that the official Emirates Group careers website still made reference to Open Day’s on its dedicated cabin crew recruitment page – after Emirates had itself said it would no longer be running Open Day’s.
Instead, recruiters had decided to implement a new recruitment process whereby all applications would have to be submitted online. Candidates would then complete a short pre-recorded digital interview and those lucky enough to be shortlisted would be asked to attend an invitation-only Assessment Day in a city close to them.
In fairness to Emirates, their careers website had undergone a fairly major redesign before the new recruitment process was launched just over a month ago, so a few mistakes or snippets of outdated information still remaining online probably wasn’t unsurprising.
But that one line: “You may choose to attend the Open Information Days as advertised” still had plenty of aspiring Emirates cabin crew wondering – Will I have a chance to attend an Open Day rather than facing the dreaded video interview?
And it turns out the rumours were true. In the last couple of days, Emirates has announced a slew of Open Day’s which will be held in March and April. At the moment, the Open Day’s are only being held in Lebanon and the UAE.
Lebanon:
- 7th April (09:00am): Mövenpick Hotel & Resort Beirut Address – General De Gaulle, Beirut, Lebanon
United Arab Emirates
- 30th March (09:00am): Career Centre OR Auditorium, 2nd Floor, Emirates Headquarters
- 31st March (09:00am): Career Centre OR Auditorium, 2nd Floor, Emirates Headquarters
- 07th April (09:00am): ABU DHABI – CANCELLED
- 13th April (09:00am): DUBAI – Venue TBC
- 20th April (09:00am): ABU DHABI – CANCELLED
- 28th April (09:00am): DUBAI – Venue TBC
It’s still unknown why Emirates has decided to suddenly start arranging Open Day’s again. The airline had invested a significant amount of money into the new recruitment process and it was designed to reduce costs in the longterm by helping recruiters shortlist only the very best talent.
We had been hopeful the new system would also make the recruitment process fairer – putting more emphasis on tangible skills and experiences that could be proved through a candidate’s resume and video interview.
It would appear, however, that for whatever reason the upgraded application system hasn’t worked out for Emirates – although there is some speculation that the newly announced Open Day’s are only a short-term measure to recruit desperately needed Arabic speakers at the airline.
That rumour is backed up by the location of the Open Day’s so far announced but it will be interesting to see whether similar recruitment events are held in non-majority Arab countries.
As it stands, the Emirates careers website still makes reference to an “updated application process” whereby candidates are required to create their applications online and attend an online video interview.”
“Due to the large volume of applications that we receive, only shortlisted candidates will be invited for assessment days at various locations.”
Do you have to wait for six-months between applications?
Of course, the question on everyone lips is: Do you still have to wait for 6-months before reapplying or attending an Open Day if you weren’t shortlisted via an online application?
The official answer is, yes, you must wait for the whole 6-months before resubmitting an application or attending another Open Day. The reason being is to allow you to work on your skills and experience so that you can show you have developed when you resubmit your application.
If you were to apply again via the online process then we would definitely recommend waiting for the whole 6-months – the recruitment software can automatically weed out multiple applications from the same person even if you use different email addresses.
But attending an Open Day is a different matter altogether. Candidates have been known to attend several of these recruitment events within a short period of time before eventually being shortlisted. And from there they’ve sailed through the process and been hired by the company.
Of course, there are still so many unanswered questions about this new development and only time will tell how this might progress.
