Failed the Emirates final interview after passing everything else. The feedback said 'not enough depth'. What does that actually mean?
-
#1 Cork, 22, retail supervisor, and I did the Emirates open day in Dublin in July. Passed the reach, passed the English, got through both group cuts, did the final interview that afternoon, and then eight weeks later got the email saying not this time and that I could reapply after six months.
I emailed politely asking for feedback and, to be fair, I got a short reply. It said my competency answers 'lacked depth' and did not give 'enough detail about my own actions and the outcome'.
I have been turning that over for a week. I think I know what it means but I want to hear from people who have sat in that chair or been on the other side of it.
What I did in the interview: I answered every question with a real example. I kept them short because I thought that was good. When she asked about a difficult customer I described the situation, said I calmed him down and that he left happy. Maybe 45 seconds. I did that for all six or seven questions.
What I think went wrong, reading it back: I described what happened, not what I did. 'I calmed him down' is not a method. And I never said what I learned or what changed after.
So my questions:
- Is that the right reading of 'not enough depth'?
- How long should a competency answer actually be? I was told 'keep it short' and I think I over corrected.
- Is the six month wait a real chance or a polite goodbye?
I am going to reapply in January regardless. I would just like to reapply having fixed the actual problem.
-
#2 Your reading is right. 'Not enough depth' from an Emirates recruiter almost always means the answer stopped at the situation and never got to the specific things you did, in order, and what happened because of them. 'I calmed him down' needs to be 'I moved him away from the queue so he did not have an audience, I let him finish, I repeated the problem back, I offered the two things I could actually do, he picked one'. That is depth. Two minutes per answer is about right. 45 seconds is a summary.
-
#3 @joshdxb92 that example is exactly what mine was missing. I did all of those things and said none of them.
-
#4 Five years in and I failed my first final interview for the same reason, different wording. The six month reapply is a real chance, I am the proof. What changed the second time: I wrote each story out in full, then cut it to the actions and the result, then practised saying it out loud to a friend until it took two minutes without rushing. The recruiter the second time actually said 'good detail'.
-
#5 This is so useful. I have my Joburg open day next month and I have been preparing 30 second answers because every guide says short. Rewriting them tonight.
-
#6 Sat in on final interviews as a purser a few times. What we wrote down was actions and outcomes, nothing else. A candidate who describes a situation beautifully and then says 'and I sorted it' gives us nothing to write. A candidate who is a bit clunky but tells us four things she did gives us four things to write. Depth means writable.
-
#7 Failed a BA final for almost identical feedback last year. Reapplied, got through. The advice above matches what fixed it for me. Also: say what you learned at the end, even one sentence. It shows you reflect, and they like that.
-
#8 Waiting on my Emirates result right now and this thread has made me replay every answer. I think mine were two minutes but I am not sure I said what I learned. Fingers crossed. Thank you for sharing the feedback so openly, most people hide the rejections.