The open day and the assessment days were in Sofia, Bulgaria on the 13/14.09.2015. I applied online first, on the official website. They invited me via email to submit my CV, passport copy and photo at any time between 9-17h and I thought it was a good idea to arrive there on time, later on it turned out it does not matter. They told us to wait for a call until latest 18h the same day to see if we are invited for the assessment day. When I gave my CV the HR representative (altogether there were 2) went real quick through my CV and started filling out an invitation for the next day already - I did not have to wait for a call. She told me it is confidential in order not to share it with the people standing in the queue.
The next day we had to arrive on time and in formal business attire. Time was 9 a.m. sharp - failure to arrive on time results directly in cancelling your application. You need to look like you would be on a flight - boys should shave and have a decent hair style, girls, you know :) Altogether we were less than 20 applicants, apparently there was not a huge interest this time. The HR representatives were very friendly and gave us stickers with number + our name, we had to wear them all the time. Then we all entered into a small conference room where they asked for our expectations, told us not to worry throughout the process and the environment was pretty much friendly and calm, we, the candidates, were talking to each other and felt comfortable there. They showed us couple of short videos, some of them are already on YouTube, so I had seen them, they did not ask at all if somebody has seen them or not. I prepared for this interview a lot - I knew about the CEO, name, profile, role, etc. I knew about their airplanes, including the newest ones, the destinations, the new cabin crew manager, regulations, etc. but nobody asked anything, so I could not really show I had prepared and I thought this was important...
After the videos, they gave us 40 mins for a really easy English test - if you are reading my text here you will not have an issue completing that test. They told us some had mistakes, but they would give chance to everyone (I think it was just bull sh).
Second phase was each candidate alone with both HRs in a smaller room - touching the 212cm sticker on the wall with both hands, girls with no shoes on. Then they give you a word to talk about, mine was "Cabin crew", lots of people received "Qatar" as a word. You should just say whatever comes to your mind and just talk until they stop you. For me it was only 20 seconds. They said it was because they need to see after the test how we speak, so obviously I could speak.
After that out of a sudden 80% of the candidates, including me, were eliminated for no clear reason - you know they do not give feedback, because they cannot possibly tell everyone if there are 200 people why they were not chosen, but everyone was so surprised to fall out after such easy phases. It was just way too easy until that moment, so I personally had no doubt that I will go at least a bit further.
Maybe they had a given number of people to hire, although they said they would like to take us all back to Doha, all boys were out as well as super beautiful and awesome girls. I think they could not really get to know us that well during those two phases and just randomly eliminated most of us, because they had to. I know I did look good, I took care of that including all small details, and I know I have enough soft skills and manners to do this job so for me the reason is a quota they had or some internal other reasons.
I am having my job now, so for me it was not the last chance ever, but I am rather sorry that they set the wrong expectations - at the beginning they could simply say that some people might be eliminated, because the company is now looking for a certain type of applicants and the reason might not be your personality or how you did during that day, but simply their HR needs. Now you will say, of course it is like that, but they told us something else at the beginning, so that is why we were kind of disappointed.