The latest round of Open Day’s for cabin crew recruitment at Emirates got underway in Manchester, Rome and Hamburg on Saturday but attendance at the German event couldn’t have been more different from that in the UK and Italy. So what made it so different and why could an Open Day in a German-speaking country benefit you?
Some reports suggest that as few as 50 candidates attended the Open Day in Hamburg – but in Rome, around 600 hopefuls queued for hours just to submit their CV. Some who attended the Open Day in Rome have complained the event was unorganised, with little information provided by recruiters.
In Hamburg, however, recruiters had the time to speak with each candidate individually. The event was calm and organised – with aspiring cabin crew given clear instructions about what would happen next. A far cry from the chaos witnessed at a recent Open Day in Dubai where estimates suggest 3,000 – 5,000 candidates lined up in searing temperatures.
The contrast is stark but its been like this for a long time. While Germany is an important market for Emirates, the airline has always struggled to recruit German speaking staff. That’s not to say there aren’t German’s working as cabin crew at Emirates but the numbers are below the representation that the airline would like.
The reasons for this aren’t fully known. Some people believe that German’s can enjoy better benefits working for Lufthansa while others suggest they just aren’t as attracted to the lifestyle being promised by Emirates as many other nationalities.
With Emirates having only organised a handful of Open day’s so far, it’s interesting to see the airline has gone to the effort of arranging two such events in Germany – in Hamburg and Berlin (scheduled to take place on the 28th April).
How could it benefit you?
The small numbers of attendee’s showing up, however, could benefit non-German candidates as well. While recruiters arrange events in certain countries to look for specific nationalities, the Open Day’s remain accessible to everyone. By attending an event in a location with a low turnout you can maximise your chances of standing out and being shortlisted.
In the past, we’ve even tried this by attending an Open Day in Germany (having been previously rejected in France). With less than 30 candidates attending the Open Day – the majority of whom weren’t German and had travelled thousands of miles to attend the day – we were successfully shortlisted for the Assessment Day.
Obviously, this is an expensive and time-consuming risk to take that has no guarantee of success. Just because you attend an Open Day with fewer candidates, doesn’t mean you’ll be shortlisted – the recruiters have been given instructions as to what type of candidate to look for and won’t simply select someone to fill a quota.
Nonetheless, clearly, there are many candidates who do choose to travel overseas to visit an Open Day – perhaps because Emirates rarely visits their home country. So if you are going to attend an Emirates recruitment event in a foreign country, you might as well choose a country with a traditionally low turnout.
Last week, Emirates won the award for the Middle East’s Leading Cabin Crew at the World Travel Awards 2018, beating stiff competition from Etihad and Qatar Airways. The airline’s international team of over 23,000 cabin crew come from over 135 countries and speak more than 60 languages
