We weren’t aspiring crew. We were passengers.

The room felt less like a recruitment event and more like a departure gate during a delay — restless bodies all elbowing for early boarding. And the recruiters moved through the crowd with the same elegant detachment as cabin crew dealing with a flight full of entitled business-class upgrades: swift, polite, professionally disinterested.

Smile, nod, next.

So I stopped watching the hopefuls and started watching them — the real crew. The ones holding the boarding passes to our futures.

What made them perk up. What made them tune out. I looked for the tiny cues: a flicker of a wince, a smile that didn’t quite reach the eyes. A smile so sharp, it slashed a name off the roster.

Not that we had names.

We didn’t even have numbers.

And it dawned on me — the anonymity went both ways.

I’d been operating under the grand illusion that this was all about me.

I’d spent so long thinking about my answers, my dream, my bloody outfit — that I’d never once considered the people behind the clipboard. I hadn’t asked what they might need, or how they make a decision.

Had there been a moment of breath to ask a question that day, mine probably would have been, Um, wait, who are Emirates?

Yeah, I’d never even heard of them before this open day.

I was failing because I was selfish and delusional

I knew all the so-called rules.
“No introverts.”
“Don’t mention travel.”
“Speak often — but not too much.”
“Dress like you work there.”

But I hadn’t researched the airline. I hadn’t asked what the job really entailed. And if I’m honest — I hadn’t asked if I was even right for it.

The silly rules I’d followed seemed ridiculous, and I felt ridiculous.

I wasn’t wearing that awful blue scarf this time. No, no. I’d upgraded my delusion. I’d dressed like I already worked there alright.

I’d done it all, all the way down to the cream parchment resume with red headings. I was one sewing needle away from embroidering an Emirates cartouche onto my interview lapel.

This wasn’t authenticity. This was impersonation.

I was trying so hard to be someone else, there was no space left for me.

If I didn’t walk out now, I’d be escorted out — by legal with a cease and desist stapled to my rejection slip.

Whilst applicants queued for the CV handover, I slipped out the exit.

I succeeded whilst wearing my school shirt

Then 9/11 forced my career hold.

For two years, I tested. I peeled back the polish, poked the soft bits, and found out where the system bends and where it snaps. In dismantling the system, I learned how the system is designed to dismantle us, to find out where we bend and where we snap.

So, I changed my habits and shaped my instincts.

I stockpiled a variety of customer service experience. Learned to swim (or so I thought). Researched the airline. Validated every rumour and regulation. Binge-watched Airline. By the end of it, I had a revamped CV and 400 pages of rejection notes turned interview prep.

It wasn’t fast. It wasn’t sexy. But it worked.

When I approached Emirates for a mock interview — forever immortalised as interview number twenty — I stopped playing by the imaginary rulebook. I showed up as someone no one else could imitate: Myself.

No red lipstick. Hair long and loose, trailing past my waist. And because it was “just” a mock, I let myself have a little fun — a little rebellion.

I reached into the back of my wardrobe and pulled out my old school shirt.

Yes, really. Powder blue. Collars so wide they looked like they could generate lift.

Those ridiculous collars made me smile — Not that brittle, compliance-coded Pan Am smile I’d been straining to perfect for years. One that came from knowing who I was.

It didn’t transform me. It restored me. And that’s when I made it through the first elimination round — and took my most humbling walk of shame: past a line of 30 or so rejected applicants flanking the exit.

Even though it was the first time I’d been truly myself, I felt like a fraud. And by the looks I got, I wasn’t the only one who thought so.

One woman even muttered, “Why did they make it?”

And honestly — fair question. She was right to ask and be confused because I’d broken every “rule” they tell you to follow.

I managed only one half a comment in the group discussion. Wore the “wrong” clothes.

Yet I got through that round. And the next. And seven more after that — all the way to the Golden Call. Where I had seven sets of photos rejected, then nearly drowned in Emirates ditching pool. Turned a training exercise into a real-life rescue op when it became clear I couldn’t swim, after all.

And still I graduated.

If you’ve polished your shoes, memorised your answers, scarf ironed and angled to perfection and still heard no…

If you’re scratching your head. Exhausted. Frustrated. A little peeved.

Wondering why you’re doing everything “right” and still going nowhere. And how come others, like me, seem to be doing it all wrong but succeed, it’s time to recalibrate what you think you know about the recruitment process.

The truth is, most of what you’ve been told isn’t just incomplete — it’s misleading.

And the sooner you learn to see it clearly, the sooner things start to shift.

We’ll get into that next.