You have passed the Crystal Cruises interview!

My recipe for a successful interview!

For those who do not know, 4 days ago I had a major interview for Crystal Cruises, the position of Trainee Stewardess.
2 days ago I received an email with the words “You have passed the Crystal Cruises interview!” with instructions on how to proceed.
I’m happy that it’s finished, and I am thrilled I to realize that my way of preparation for the interview was a big success! The time invested in preparing for the famous main interview is actually the time I would have wasted on having coffee and chatting with my friends, reading books, listening to music. And I’m not sorry that I’ve been reading this forum up and down, collecting information for over a year! The last 5-6 months I began serious preparations for the interview.
And now it is time for me to share my experience that will (hopefully!) help someone else to sail as experiences and stories of other people on the forum have helped me!

I’m a person that does not go to a job interview unprepared (here, in Serbia, I went to at least 15 such interviews).
The first thing you do is to find information about the company you want to work for. I went to read and remember when the company was established, which is its main activity, how many employees it has, who are their goals and plans – everything I could find, not only on the official website of the company but also in forums and other sites.
Right before the interview, that was the last thing I did, because I did not know which company I was going to have an interview for.

Second, I set down and searched at the Internet what is required from a person for a particular position. In this case, I asked for and read about room stewardess duties and requirements – what kind of personality they need, which skills should a candidate possess, which tasks should be able to perform, how much time should he/she spend cleaning a room or apartment, how many hours on average is a work day long …

Third, and most important to me, I spent time talking in English. As I wrote earlier, I have never had a deeper conversation in English because I did not run into many foreigners. I listen to rock music, but the best singers sing this type of music in English (that is my opinion) so I searched for each songs its lyrics/text on the internet, and for the words that I didn’t know the meaning, I asked for a translation. I learned a lot, to say the least.
Then, films and series. I downloaded many movies and TV series off the internet and watched in English. When I heard a word I didn’t know, I would stop the movie / series and went on to find out the translation. I would repeat that word aloud and continue to watch. I paused some movie no less than 50 times! Gradually, I began to watch without translation, and to repeat whole sentences. Maybe this is funny to people who speak English, but I didn’t have money for lessons in English and I found a way to teach myself for free.

Fourth, the interview questions. Many questions from my interview I found here, on the forum. I wrote them in my notebook every time I ran into them reading someone else’s experience written in the forum. Then I read on the web sites (in English) what kind of respond employers like to hear. Now that was a show!
Some answers were so stupid that I was not sure I would be able to say them aloud. But at least I faced potential issues with the interview so I added that to already existing questions found in this forum.

Fifth, writing real answers (at least I think they’re real!) to all these questions. When I read all the questions, I realized that a lot of them were repeated. There were a total of some 100 questions in my book. Of these, about 50% were repeated, here’s as an example. “What are your plans for the future?” and “Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?”. I had much the same answer to these two questions, so I shortened my list of questions to 55.

Every day before or after work (depending on the shift I worked) I wrote the answers to their questions. This went on for 3 days. So every day I asked myself these questions and responded to them. Sometimes I caught myself drifting off and adding or changing my answer and then I would sit down and read the answer which I have written once again, just as it was written in my notebook!
This lasted until the day before the interview!

I had earlier a preliminary interview at the local agency working for a cruise line, and it was to check my English (where are you from, why you want to work on the ship, tell me something about yourself, where do you work now). But I did not want any surprise at the main interview and I took it as something very serious. I told my brother not to think I’m crazy if he hears me talking to myself in English!
Indeed, every day I asked myself questions form a notebook and if I started to wander with the answer or to change it, I would re-read the response and repeat it out loud.

That’s what I was doing. It maybe nothing special, but it has helped me.
A day had not passed in the last 5 months without me asking myself those questions and answers. Sometimes I would quit after 3 questions, and sometimes would cross the half. It depended on my mood. The worst was when I answered a question like “What is your name?” because I know the answer from when I first heard the English language! But I did not give up and every day I repeated the question that at any moment I knew the answer!

Continues here … Crystal Cruises interview