help my friend get (positive) attention at a group interview!

July 11, 2012 11:28 AM

Asking for a friend. Anyone have experience in a group interview for a flight attendant position? Please share!
posted by jennstra to Work & Money (5 answers total)

Heather Poole's book Cruising Attitude talks about her own experiences, successful and unsuccessful, in interviewing as a flight attendant--your friend might want to check that out if she hasn't already.
posted by Sidhedevil at 11:30 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

I have never interviewed for a Flight Attendant position, but I have had multiple group interviews recently. I don't know how different it would for a position like that, but the most valuable piece of advice that I can offer is to be friendly, and confident. Smile. And even though all of those people are staring you down and asking you question after question, don't let them intimidate you. I found that each time, the more relaxed I was going into it, the easier it was to answer professionally and confidently. If you seem unsure about something they are going to pick up on it quickly and ask for you to clarify or be more specific, so trying to cover all of the bases in your initial response definitely takes some pressure out of it.
posted by Quincy at 2:45 PM on July 11, 2012

I attended a group interview for Alaska Airlines. They were hiring for multiple positions, so it wasn't specifically for flight attendants...

I didn't get offered a second interview and I'm not sure why. They basically asked each person an open-ended question and made them answer in front of the group.

My question: "You said you worked at Best Buy. Let's say you closed at 9:00 and a customer came in at 8:58 and started shopping. What would you do?"

My answer: "I would help them find what they needed and subtly get them out the door as quickly as possible. However, that's a retail store where schedules don't matter much. If I was working in a stricter environment, say as a ticket agent for an airline, I'd have to let the customer know that they were too late and wouldn't be able to make it to the gate on time."

Apparently they didn't like my answer.
posted by tacodave at 3:17 PM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

I did this like ten years ago when I was in college. They gave a presentation to a group of applicants about the life of a flight attendant and the logistics and also talked about safety and customer service. They then asked each of us to get up in front of the room and give a brief talk on our views of the challenges and perks of being a flight attendant and asked follow up questions-I assumed to check our ability to remain poised in front of a group of strangers. Every single one of us gave the same blah blah safety and blah blah friendly skies answer. I was a champion extemp speaker in high school and was very calm and collected but I did not get a call back. So clearly I was lacking in something.
posted by supercapitalist at 3:23 PM on July 11, 2012

Former flight attendant here. When I was going through the selection process for flight attendant trainees I had to do a group interview. I followed some advice I found in a book for people wanting to become flight attendants (I'm afraid I can't remember the name) and it seemed to have served me well enough to get me the job. It was basically: participate and give your own input but also make an effort to listen to and validate the other candidates.
posted by Jess the Mess at 11:46 AM on July 12, 2012