Recorded interview, followed by virtual one-on-one interview, followed by interview in Atlanta requiring 2 days of PTO from current job to attend, and paying for my own hotel accommodations and transportation to interview.
This experience was the worst interview experience I have ever encountered, void any kind of depth, humor, or thoughtfulness. It was mechanical, and completely lacked equity. Throughout the steps we were continually reminded “not to share the answers of the test”, to not say anything on social media, or tell anyone what happened at the actual interview. So, the reason for my review is strictly to create EQUITY. It was clear that many people knew exactly what to do throughout each step of the interview, creating an unfair advantage to those that did not.
Upon arrival I sat in a lobby with couches. It began with a long wait in the lobby for candidates to show up. I am pretty genuine and friendly, have gone through inflight interviews before and usually really enjoy the process. This was different. No one would sit by me or speak with me (candidates). Later I realized I was one of the oldest candidates, and one of the only white candidates. I was outwardly shunned by several candidates. This probably kind of set the tone for me, and led to my less than stellar “performance”. The interviewing team was flight attendants and they soon showed up to check us in, shushing us and not telling us anything, even where we might find bathroom.
We were ushered into a large room with flight attendants standing around that we were basically told to go in. The first thing I did was ask to find a bathroom, which I am sure was detrimental. But, being one of the first people to check in, I had been there about 2 hours. I talked to some flight attendants, most of them pretty friendly, but I found it difficult to tell the flight attendants from the candidates, and difficult to break into conversations with those already talking to someone. My advice would be to pair up with another candidate as I saw others do.
We were then divided into three groups for three separate activities I will describe in the questions section. As the activities ended while we waited for other groups to conclude the flight attendants asked questions of us such as where we wanted to travel It was very much like being in a kindergarten class being asked your favorite color. During this time a young, unknowing girl that did not follow the dress code for the interview and wore a white mask when the directions explicitly said black mask was discreetly handed a black mask by one of the flight attendant interviewers (yes she got a CJO and yes they were the same race, and yes I am sure I would have probably been asked to leave the event if I had on the wrong colored mask.)
In between each event we had “mingle”sessions. It truly seemed to be a stage in which those with the best fake conversations gained points. At one point, I approached a tall man of another race than myself. He refused to acknowledge I was there. I stood there for three minutes and he would not make eye contact with me. It was indeed purposeful. He had people he wanted hired, and I was not one of them. And, one flight attendant commented to me “I didn’t get the memo about the purple” because a couple of us had purple on.
At the end we were called together to be excused by groups. While we waited a video was shown about a customer that lost their ring in the lavatory toilet and held a party for the Delta employee that retrieved it. It was about the least inspirational thing I’ve ever seen. Now, a video about a life being saved or something else life changing might have resonated with me. But, a wedding ring in a toilet???? Then they came back to explain again how we had.to be excused in groups but that it did not mean anything. Wow. EVERYONE knew that this is where those offered CJO’s were left to stay, and those of us going home in the loser van were shuttled down a hallway and outside with no explanation as to where we were going. Why they chose to lie and say we will hear something in 7 days, is beyond me, because as soon as you get on that van you realize that you were just dismissed in front of everyone that remained. (I later verified this by someone that did stay and he was 1 of 23 that stayed, 17 of us were sent home). To add insult to injury, several of the flight attendants came out around the van, almost as if we were prisoners that had to be transported under watch.
Once at the airport, I tried to standby for an earlier flight home since it was 5 hours until mine departed and there were several other flights to my home. I was told by two different people that I would have to pay a $75 change fee for this. I finally got put on standby by someone on the phone and she told me all the flights were wide open.