Cabin Crew Interview

The Final Recruitment Hurdle – What should you expect?

Worth a Mental Note!

It is not always the case that where you get called to attend your interview will be where you would eventually work from.

It is often the case that you do not necessarily get to choose your preference for the type of flight you would be on i.e. long or short haul.

As with most aspects of the recruitment process, each airline will conduct a slightly different interview but there will be a lot of similarities between them as well.

The more traditional style of interview will probably include fairly standard questions about; why you want to become cabin crew? and what you think your strengths and weaknesses are. This more ‘traditional style’ of interviewing, covers biographical information, things you probably covered on your CV or application i.e. how old you are, where you have worked, where you went to school type questions.
You may be asked some specific knowledge based questions, so it would be wise for you to do some general reading/ research beforehand to make sure you are prepared and informed about the airline, i.e. knowing the destinations where the airline you are applying to flies, or company latest developments and news would all be helpful.
The third aspect of your interview, which is also a very important, is the latest approach of asking ‘competency’ or ‘behavioural’ based questions.

These Competency or behavioural types of questions are much harder than you might first think. This is where most candidates slip up.

Recognising these tyupe of questions is crucial in order for you to demonstrate your suitability. You can recognise competency questions by the way they are worded:

‘Please provide an example of a time when you have….?’
‘Please describe a time an occasion when you have…..?’
‘Tell us about a time when you….’

You will need to draw on your own experience for these types of questions and describe a situation (usually in work) where you have performed a task or carried out an action yourself.

The most common mistake when answering competency questions is for people to hear the question what they have done and answer that question with a what they think in reply. That is crucially how a lot of candidates are caught out.

Example question

‘Tell us about a time when you have worked well in a team’

Example – poor answer

‘I think team working is important because…….I know I work well in a team because I always…..’

Example good answer

‘Last year I was involved in xxxx. I was part of a team responsible for xxxx. One of the things I had to do was xxxxxx. I made sure I was working well with the others in the team by xxxxx. We did xxxx and achieved xxxx. I focused on doing xxxxx. I collaborated with others by doing xxxx. The impact of this was xxxxx…’

Can you see the difference?

These competency questions are valuable as they rely on self-reporting of past events which provides evidence which helps predict your potential future performance. The interviewers believe that by asking you to provide a real life example of what you have done in the recent past you are providing a clear indication of how you are likely to behave in the future. That will help them decide if you are right for the job or not.

Spotlight on: Structuring your answers

Use the STAR technique to prepare both your application and interview answers to questions which ask for an example from your personal experience.

S– describe the situation i.e. set the scene
T– what was the task or activity you were involved in?
A-What action did you take?
R– What was the result?

The majority of your answer should focus on the ‘A’- the action you took. Describing what you did is the most crucial part of your answer so do make sure you give this aspect priority. It is a common mistake is to spend too long on scene setting.

Our Cabin Crew Assessment Day eBook is packed with interview hints and tips, to ensure you’re fully prepared.

You’ll discover what the interview panel are looking for, and there are practice questions and example answers included to help you along.

Learn More

Next Page: Cabin Crew Interview Questions

Do you want to know the best way to prepare for your important Interview? Firstly, think about what you think is important to the role of cabin crew and then research around what the airlines consider to be important.