Hello, my friends! Now that I’ve completed two Disney College Programs, I thought, why not share some of my best tips with you? I’m beginning a series of blog posts focusing on the three different parts of the application process & I'm hoping they will be super helpful for you! This first post is centered on the application itself. But, in each one, I’ll give 5 tips that helped me in the process. Hopefully these tips help you too.
To apply for the program, you must fit certain criteria: You need to be enrolled in college, meet your school’s criteria like GPA requirements, be 18 years or older, & be eligible to work. These are listed on the Disney College Program website.
Before I applied, I made sure my parents were okay with me applying and I talked to my adviser too. The most disappointing thing would have been to get accepted and then hear my parents say that they wouldn’t let me go…or my adviser say it wouldn’t work out. So, I made sure everything was okay (well in advance, like a year in advance) because I am such the planner!
It's important to note, there are three parts to the application process: the Application itself, the Web-Based Interview, and the Phone Interview. The Application is the very first step.
On the application itself, it’s really just like a typical application. It asks about your Personal Information such as your name, e-mail address, address, etc. Then it asks about your Education History such as your college, major, graduation year. Then it asks about your recent Work Experience such as the title of your job, the company, and description of what your job was. Then, it’ll ask if you want to receive Text Message Updates during the process, which I did, so I knew if my application status changed. It asks how you heard about the program. After that, you have to identify which park you prefer (WDW, DL or either) then if you want the Spring, Spring Advantage program, or either.
After that, you'll be shown a list of every single role, and you must state your interest level for each one, by checking each role you’re actually interested in. When ranking roles, you rank them based on High, Moderate, or Low interest.
For my first DCP, this is how I ranked my roles:
High Interest:
Attractions
Character Attendant
Children’s Activities
Merchandise
Convention Guide
Moderate Interest:
Bibbodi Bobbidi Boutique/Pirates League
Character Performer
Photopass Photographer
Recreation Attractions
Seater
Low Interest:
Bell Services/Dispatch Greeter
After it asks if you’re eligible to work, etc, you sign the acknowledgment and submit your application! From there, you just wait until you either receive a NLIC (No Longer In Consideration) e-mail or until you get an e-mail to take the WBI. There’s really not a certain time that you’ll hear anything. You could get a WBI within 5 minutes or as late as the end of the application process two months later. Getting NLIC’d can also happen whenever too. It’s just a huge waiting game for everything, and it’s super stressful.
With all of this being said, here are the 5 tips that helped me get a WBI:
1. Rank your roles before you fill out the application
On the DCP Website, they list the roles, so I knew what they were before the application dropped. I went through all of these roles and ranked each of them as high, moderate, low, and no interest in my word document. This made me feel a lot more organized and like I knew what I was getting myself into.
2. Don’t put every role as high interest
I wanted to get accepted so badly but I knew if I was placed in a role I didn’t like, then I would be miserable. I made sure I only marked interest in the roles I really would not mind doing.
3. Write out work experience in a word document beforehand
The application gave me space to write my 5 most recent jobs. I had learned from several DCP Alums, on both blogs and vlogs, that this was one of the most important sections of the application. Since I wanted this part to be perfect, I wrote out my experience for each job in a word doc before the apps dropped. I included about 4-6 bullets of the main responsibilities for each job I had. This made it easier to edit what I wrote ahead of time. That way, when the apps did drop, my work experience was already complete and all I had to do was copy and paste it into the text boxes on the application. Since that part was finished, I didn’t have to stress about it as I filled out the actual application.
4. Tailor work experience to high interest roles
For each of the roles listed on the DCP website, they have descriptions of what the job is like. These are written in the Disney language. If there is a certain role you want, such as character attendant, use some of the wording that Disney used in their description of Character Attendant in one of your work experience descriptions. Make sure you’re not just throwing in random words in a job description. It should flow with the actual experience of your job!
5. Have a DCP Alum read over work experience
DCP Alums went through this exact same process that I was about to go through. Although they’re not in the recruiting office, they had to submit an application too and they remember what worked for them. Lots of my friends on Instagram did the program so I asked them to read over my work experience and it made me feel a lot more confident in my responses. If you want to ask me, I'd be more than happy to look yours over!!
I hope this helps you! If you have any questions about the application, comment them down below. And make sure to check out my next blog post about the second part of the DCP Application, the WBI!
See ya real soon,
Danielle
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