Most people I talked to expressed their surprise over the fact that Walt Disney World actually offers job opportunities for Indonesian citizen and so many other countries. While out there a lot of lovely program participants from UK, Germany, Norway, and Canada actively recording their journey through their blogs, indeed it is quite hard to find South East Asia’s representatives (Indonesia, India and Thailand) blogs. I wonder if the limited number of SEA’s representatives is also due to the fact that not so many people have heard about this amazing opportunity.
I sincerely hope that you come to this blog and find useful information or that you gain something new about Disney CRP (or that you go “oh-there’s-a-program-like-that?”, yes, yes, there’s a program like that. Go on, apply now) and eventually decided to try your hands on it. Right now I don’t know that much either about the program and frankly, I still have many questions too in my head about how things are going to work, but I’ll try my best to write about all the coming epic adventures.
Walt Disney World
Might as well start with Walt Disney World. Known also as WDW, or simply Disney World, the 11.031 hectares amusement park affectionately called “the happiest place on earth” opened its doors for Guests for the first time on October 1st, 1971. This is not Walt Disney’s first amusement park. The first one was Disneyland Park, located in Anaheim, California. Disney envisioned WDW to be the greatest attraction in the history of Florida, emphasizing the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT) as a futuristic city within the amusement park. There are four parks, The Magic Kingdom, where you can see the Cinderella castle, EPCOT, with its famous world pavilions, Disney Hollywood Studio, where you can see the glamourous world of movies and movie making, and of course Disney Animal Kingdom, where you can see exotic animals, do safari ride and experience Asia and Africa culture.
I have never been to Disney World before, but I did go to Disneyland Japan once and it was amazing. Rini and I was too busy admiring the place and plotting how we would explore the park with FastPass and everything so although we did see some characters like Pluto and Mickey, the interaction was minimum. I’d say that Guests should maximize interaction with characters and Cast Members because that’s where the magic is. By the way Cast Member (CM) is the term used to refer to Walt Disney company’s employee.
Now, about the CRP.
Cultural Representative Program
So you’ve read all about the Disney Cultural Representative Program
here, you’re sure you are eligible for the program by double checking the
requirements. You’ve proven your fandom by scoring 100/100 on various Disney knowledge quiz, like this
one and that
one too. You actually found the questions are way too easy. You’re dying to experience the current and previous cast member’s typical day (and their
day off when they play in the park) like you’ve read here and you’re drooling and obsessively watching the videos from Disney’s Youtube feed
here.
You also, ahem, realized that if selected to participate in the program you will be away from home for a year. I’m talking to you, Indonesian, because we are literally going to cross half the globe to get to Orlando. It’s frikkin faraway. You’re cool with that and have already put this face on
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| Sorry. Can’t help. I’m also on LOTR / The Hobbit Fandom. Haha |
Dashboard
Okay what’s next?
Luckily, your next step is as simple as it can be. When applying for any job with Disney, applicants are required to set up an account on a portal called Dashboard. All you have to do is to access
http://ip.disneycareers.com/ and you’ll see Disney International Program homepage.
Here you choose Cultural Representative Program, read all the description and if you feel this is the right program for you, apply by clicking the Apply Now button. The page will direct you to Disney’s jobs and careers listing. Think of it as an international-and-specific-to-one-company Jobstreet or Jobsdb page. Proceed by clicking the Cultural Representative Program, and then you will have to set up a Dashboard account. Create your login information, my advise is to use your email address as your user name, it helps a lot to avoid confusion especially if you have more than one primary email as there will be at least two other portals you have to signed up to later if you proceed to the next stage.
You will basically need to provide your personal information, education background, work experience upload a CV and also a cover letter. Save yourself time and energy and don’t even think to upload a fancy CV with pictures, borders or beautiful template. Because I’ve tried that and then realized Dashboard will eliminate any design element (including tabs) and retrieve only texts from your CV and cover letter. So stick with the basic KISS (keep it short and simple) and shoot Disney your most direct, straight-forward, no non-sense CV. I was kind of frustrated because of that so decided to just went ahead telling them I’m half Merida/Mulan and half the bouncy Tigger, and that is a legit reason to consider me as a Cast Member hahaha. Of course then you add your skill and motivation but really, just stay true to yourself and let your personality seen through your CV. They can easily tell whether you are truly excited or not. After you’d done this, proceed with the questions (lots of it) Disney ask you and then when you’re ready, submit your application.
Then we wait.
.
.
.
.
.
.
to eternity.
I’m kidding! But it does feel that way. Applying to Walt Disney World involving a lot of waiting game. It’s uncomfortable, because, well, human being’s psyche is not built to tolerate uncertainty. Uncertainty raises anxiety and our default mode is to perceive anxiety as a threat. But really, there is not much you can do at this point beside waiting. Your Dashboard is your best friend. It allows you to keep track with your application status, and any communication sent to you through e-mail will also be available on your Dashboard.
You probably seeing a lot of e-mails on my Dashboard right now, but believe me, for a long looong looooooooong time, it stubbornly displays just one email and the progress blue bar sat at the second bar (Application in Process) for what feels like forever. This marks the first phase of CRP application. In the meantime we can really use our time by learning more about the program. I’ll list some of the fabulous blogs and useful resources on the next post.
See you around~
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araramse 