Emirates, Etihad and Qatar cabin crew open days 2022 and how to prepare for them. Know their selection criteria.

Emirates, Etihad and Qatar talent acquisition managers and recruiters score candidates based on their answers to questions showing they are a good team and cultural fit within the airline. Hiring decisions are not based on first impressions or hard skills.

Emirates, Etihad and Qatar have recruited top qualified talent acquisition managers last summer and trained them on aviation recruitment before they embarked on the massive recruitment spree as the world recovers from the 18 month long covid pandemic, and travel slowly returns to the skies.

Recruiters attending the open day and assessment days are aware that candidates may look good on paper but who lack the essential qualities for the cabin crew role.

They invest a lot of time in the group assessment exercises to determine and select those who are able to show they have the aptitude for teamwork, show strong evidence of problem solving abilities that comes across naturally in their interactions, they show leadership skills as the airline is also looking for future leaders. Finally, interpersonal, communication skills and time management skills are also assessed in group exercises.

During the final interview, the interview questions are focused on how candidates react in given situations, points awarded for how they demonstrate through their examples that they collaborate well in team work and how they interact with clients.

A behavioural interview approach is adopted which help recruiters choose between candidates, who at first glance, may seem ideal for the role, but perform poorly at the final interviews when they give bad examples -where they have not done the right thing or unable to resolve the problem despite them convincing the recruiter otherwise. If the recruiter dis-believes your story, then take that as a sign that you have not performed well in the example that you have given.

The cabin crew role involves meeting tight deadlines and working under pressure, so naturally all recruiters will include behavioral based questions that assess how candidates handle stressful and difficult situations.

Culture fit and situational interview questions are also very popular. When asking situational questions for interviews, recruiters are finding out how candidates would handle a problem that is likely to arise on board the the flight. Situational questions cover decision making skills and problem solving skills. It is critical that your examples show these two traits or it will be a bad example.

Most candidates list down a set of these skills on their CV. They are meaningless and do not add to your ATS score as candidates have not given evidence based examples to show how they acquired these skills.

With situational questions, recruiters have the chance to see how they use these skills to solve work-related problems.

Examples of situational interview questions:
If you discovered your co-worker was dishonest, what would you do?

If you undertake multiple projects with tight deadlines, how do you monitor and stay on track.

If you had two tight deadlines coming up, how do you prioritise your tasks?
If an angry customer demanded to speak to your manager, would you get them in touch?

Evaluation by the Recruiter

  1. When you present an example to the recruiter, the recruiter will, pay attention to the way you approach problem solving in general. The way you think will tell the recruiter a lot about your work style. Do you value feedback from coworkers? Do you collaborate and ask for help when you are unsure? Are you methodical?

  2. The recruiters will see how open you are to following guidelines.

  3. Some red flags shown by you - you take too much tome to come up with a satisfying solution. If you go out of point, they take it as a sign that you will struggle to stay focused or are trying to make excuses.

  4. If you lack the core soft skills, then this is quite obvious in the way you answer these situational questions.

It’s normal to get nervous during interviews, especially if you are challenged with situational questions. If you struggle to answer the questions, please do your best to ask for some clarifications or more details. Otherwise, if you don’t answer at all, this will mean you can’t easily identify problems and you don’t seek out help. You will not get the offer.

Other behavioural questions that are required for the cabin crew role are:

  1. Tell me about a time you had to deliver bad news to a manager or team member. How did you do it? What was the other person’s reaction?

  2. Tell me about a time you had to deal with a difficult colleague. How did you communicate with the colleague effectively?

  3. What’s the most stressful or difficult situation you’ve faced at your previous job? How did you handle it?

  4. Tell me about a time your team didn’t meet a goal. How did you give feedback to your team members and how did you present the situation to your manager?

  5. Give me an example of a time you made a process more efficient. How did you do it?

Behavioural questions are the hardest to answer well.

We can provide one-to-one training for you to answer these difficult behavioural questions. Once you know the technique and the best examples to use that do not show your weakness, then you can practise and refine your answers.