Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen Emirates seriously ramp up its Cabin Crew recruitment drive with Open Day’s scheduled in multiple cities around the world. The airline is on a mission to recruit hundreds of new cabin crew but after ending a hiring freeze that lasted more than a year, recruiters have been unsurprisingly overwhelmed with applications.
The recruitment team has already been forced to abandon a brand new and exciting application process that saw candidates submit an online application and then complete a pre-recorded video interview. The recruitment process, that many other international airlines already use, was dogged with technical problems from the start.
Instead, Emirates very quickly brought back Open Day’s – allowing candidates to attend an event in whatever country was closest or most convenient for them. While recruiters generally schedule Open Day’s in country’s where they are seeking the home nationality, it’s not unusual for candidates to fly halfway around the world just to have an opportunity to present their resume to a recruiter.
But this presents an obvious problem – especially if you’re on a tight budget. How long should you plan to stay in the city where the Open Day is being held?
In the past, the Emirates cabin crew recruitment process would follow a very rigid schedule. On the date of the Open Day, candidates could expect to be given a short presentation before submitting their resume. Within an hour or so, the shortlisted candidates would be announced and the Assessment Day would take place almost straight away.
The lucky few who got to the Final Interview, would normally return the following day at a set time. Only in rare circumstances would the process take any longer – or an element scheduled to a completely different date.
But recruiters have got an incredibly ambitious recruitment schedule on their hands – this weekend, for example, five Open Day’s all took place on the same day. Later this month, there are seven Open Day’s scheduled for the same date. The recruiters are spread thin yet they’re trying to sort through unprecedented numbers of applicants.
At the moment, we just can’t guarantee that the Open Day, Assessment Day and Final Interview will take place over two consecutive days. In fact, the Final Interview could be scheduled for several weeks later – now that’s a serious predicament for both international candidates and recruiters.
Live Online Interviews
Luckily, it looks like the recruitment team have come up with a nice workaround which will make the process easier for everyone involved.
Instead of having a Final Interview in person, recruiters are now scheduling Live Video Interviews. The recruiters are utilising technology from Hirevue – which is similar to the tech they used for the on-demand video interviews. While you’ll be talking to a real recruiter in real time, there are also computer algorithms that monitor your performance and give the recruiter feedback about your performance.
The system works on both Microsoft and Apple operating systems, as well as on most mobile and tablet devices. All you need is a webcam, a decent internet connection and of course a quiet and professional space in which to sit.
Candidates who are shortisted for Final Interview are sent an email to complete the mandatory psychometric test and then schedule a Live Online Video. Unfortunately, we’re hearing some isolated reports of candidates not receiving emails after being told they’ve been shortlisted.
We don’t know whether this is just a temporary measure to deal with the large numbers of candidates the recruitment team are dealing with. However, the process has been successfully used by cruise lines for years so this may well become a permanent feature of the Emirates recruitment process.
Share Your Opinion…
What do you think about this change? Would you perform better if you could take the Live Video Interview or perhaps you’d prefer to meet the recruiter in person? Let us know in the comments below…
