It’s possibly one of the most nerve-racking moments in the cabin crew selection process. You’ve submitted an excellent resume, been shortlisted for an assessment day and made it through all the stages to the cabin crew final interview. This is a moment of celebration but you’ve got one more hurdle to jump.
With this simple but effective interview hack, you can ensure success in your cabin crew final interview.
Although daunting the final interview doesn’t have to be stressful. Of course, nerves can be a good thing and are a sign of just how much you want the job as cabin crew. But there’s no need to panic. Many people who make it to final interview describe the recruiter as putting their minds at ease.
Remember, if you’ve made it this far the recruiter has seen something in you that they like and they’ll want you to perform well.
By using the following interview hack, called SOAR, you’ll be able to answer many of the behavioural questions in a structured style. Your answers will be clear, concise and hit all the competencies that you need to prove you possess to the recruiter.
SOAR to success in your interview. Describe the situation, your objective, the actions you took and the final result. This method works for nearly all competency based questions:
Situation
First things first, take a deep breath and briefly describe the situation you found yourself in. This is just a sentence or two that sets the scene and will give the recruiter an immediate idea of what your example is about.
Such as:
“When I was working in a clothing shop a customer came in to return a faulty product. The customer had bought the item as a gift and was really upset that it wasn’t working and had been inconvenienced”.
Objective
Now, another sentence or two to tell the recruiter what you intended to do. This can work in lots of different situations from providing excellent customer service, problem-solving, team-work, problems with colleagues, stressful situations, a mistake you made etc.
By specifically mentioning your objective you’ll stay focused on the actual question and how your answer addresses the competency the recruiter wants to be answered.
You might have an example from your previous work experience that can be used for several different questions. By talking about your objective you are demonstrating to the recruiter that you have listened to the question and not trying to shoehorn any old example into the question.
Actions
Here’s the good bit where you get to describe everything you did. Think of this like short bullet points in your head. You’ll want to ensure that these bullet points cover all the key competencies required of cabin crew:
- Customer service
- Team-work
- Problem solving
- Safety and security
- Resilience
- Professionalism
- Friendly and helpful
The actions you undertook should be the longest section of your answer so don’t feel shy about going into detail. But remember, it’s short bullet points – Don’t labour a point.
Result
Finally, it’s really important that you describe what the final result. This is the moment to tell the recruiter how your actions made a customer feel really good or how you got good feedback from your manager for solving a problem.
The result doesn’t necessarily have to be one of success. But even when things have gone wrong you’ll need to demonstrate to the recruiter that you’ve learnt from your mistakes and made changes to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Where possible focus on examples that finish with a ‘feel good’ ending.
Prior preparation is absolutely key. Develop your answers to key competencies that are likely to come up in your final interview ahead of time. As a recap, these competencies will generally fall under the following categories:
- Customer service,
- Team-work,
- Problem-solving,
- Resilience,
- Cultural awareness.
Write out the four headings – Situation, Objective, Actions, Result – and then bullet point your answer for each category of question. Choose a different example for each category to ensure you show the recruiter a wide breadth of experience.
Prepare your answers way before the date of the final interview and remember to practice your answers with a friend or family member. If you feel silly doing interview practice with a friend try downloading an app such as ‘LikeSo’ that acts as a speech coach.
