I applied online. I interviewed at British Airways
Interview
I attended an assessment day for BA mixed fleet back in February and to be honest it was not a great experience. The day started by filling out a few forms after arriving and signing in, followed by a height and cabin seat test (this is where they ask about any holidays booked and tattoos). Once everyone had completed this we all went into a room and listened to a presentation about BA and were told info about the day ahead, and the job role itself. Firstly I went in to do my 1:1 role play. It began by me reading out a script. Following this I was given some information and was given a few moments to read through before being asked to carry out the role play. Now, i can fully admit my role play was terrible and I knew i wasn't going to get through to the interview based on my performance here. However, when finishing I shook the guys hand and thanked him, he had totally lost interest in interacting with me probably due to my poor roleplay, he gave me a very fake smile when shaking my hand and rolled his eyes as he turned away from me and walked out the room. This completely disrespectful behaviour is what ruined my entire experience. After this, I went in to do my group activity which was pretty straight forward and i felt like i did ok. As i fully expected, i didn't get through to the interviews and i was pretty upset about it at the time. I was upset because I was rejected from the career I wanted to go into, however I was not at all upset about being rejected from BA as from my experience both as a customer in the past and as a potential recruit, BA staff are very rude and disrespectful and are certainly not a good promotion for their company. Despite this, a few months down the line I accepted a job offer with Emirates and am now due to fly out to Dubai in a couple of months. Moral of the story is don't be put off by a rejection, as the chances are it didn't work out to make way for something better!!! (PS if you attend an assessment day for BA, take food with you as there is no where to get food throughout the day, other than chocolate and crisps from a vending machine)
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
(roleplay) I played the role of an employee at a car hire service, the customer came in to collect his car that wasnt available and we didnt have a car available for him to hire and i needed to fix the problem.
I applied online. The process took 8 months. I interviewed at British Airways (Heathrow, England) in May 2019
Interview
I applied online and was then invited to take some tests based on your personality and problem solving skills. I then got an email the next day inviting me to an assessment day at Heathrow which I booked on to. When I arrived I had to do a height and reach test, and we then went to do a group exercise. After this we waited around and were called for our 1 to 1 customer service roleplays. We then waited some more and were split up into 2 groups, one got sent home and the group I was in got kept on to do a final interview. I then had my 2:1 interview which concluded the assessment day. A long anxious wait later and I got an email to say I got the job! After about a 4 month wait I received a start date for the following year.
I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at British Airways (Heathrow, England) in Mar 2019
Interview
Initial stage was simple video interview questions as is standard for most these days. The Assessment centre consists of 3 stages, a presentation for which you have 15 minutes to prepare from material given, a 2-1 interview mostly competency based questions and a business meeting simulation in groups. Each group was 6-8 people and I believe overall there was around 40-50 people being assessed for each stream, in my case Finance. The day was well organised and over in 4-5 hours which was good as there was no time wasted sitting around.
As has been mentioned previously there is no compensation for travel costs etc which is a huge downside. This is possibly understandable given the number of candidates they invite to interview but still not great if you happen to be travelling from far away.
If you pass the AC you are invited back for a follow up interview with the higher ups, this is where it all goes a bit wrong. My interview was in the morning so due to my journey time being over 8 hours I had to stay overnight as I did the previous time. The interviewers themselves were 45 minutes late, then proceeded to ask me almost the same questions as in the first interview. Very odd and a complete waste of my time for something which could have been accomplished over Skype. Again the travel costs are not reimbursed despite there only being 10-12 candidates making it to the final interview.
I was told I would hear the outcome by the end of the month, that month being March. I have not received any communication from them since and we are now in August. I did email a couple of times and received a couple of standard HR ‘we are dealing with this’ responses which were a great help...
All in all I can accept having to pay the best part of £300 to attend the interviews, after all that’s the chance you take, but not being able to send a quick ‘thanks for your time but no thanks’ email, particularly when I made it to the supposed shortlist of candidates, is very poor. Sadly I found very little information on the stages after the AC hence my main reason for writing this.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Competency based questions and situations you’ve encountered in the workplace and university mostly