4 Ways Disney Can Inspire Your Recruitment Drive

If you’re looking for a bit of magic to inspire your next recruitment drive, then The Walt Disney Company is a pretty good place to start!

Based in California, Disney has established itself as one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world.

From films and merchandise to high-street shops and theme parks, whatever this corporation waves its wand to seems to turn into gold.

So how have they achieved this?

Was Walt Disney granted three wishes by a mysterious Genie?

Or perhaps he has a magic mirror on the wall?

To help turn your recruitment processes into a success, we’ve searched far, far away to reveal how Disney find their latest batch of employees and how it’s helped make them into the empire it is today.

Get to know your candidates

Despite being a global corporation with thousands of employees, Disney prides itself on taking the time to give their candidates the opportunity to share a bit about themselves.

During the interview stage, the HR team at Disney often ditch the challenging questions.

Instead, they focus more on understanding who the candidate is and what sort of experience they have.

In fact, the hardest question you’ll be asked is to choose your favourite Disney character.

Common practice is for every candidate to complete a competency test.

This reveals what they know about the company itself.

You see, Disney wants their staff to live and breathe their philosophy and company itself – including all of the departments in their building.

This technique is a fabulous way of seeing who has done their homework and has the potential to adapt to different job roles within the business.

And as you’re probably aware of, upskilling is undoubtedly a brilliant way of saving money further down the line.

If your advertised job involves speaking with clients or customers, try making them act out a scenario.

This will make the candidate think on the spot and test their quick thinking skills.

Ideally, a candidate will forget about the programmed answers they have in their head and start to think more freely.

You may get a more honest and useful response as a result.

Show candidates the good, the bad and the ugly

The issue with a lot of businesses is that they only talk about the good things and never speak about the challenges or the less sexy parts in greater deal.

If you fast-forward a few months, it’s not uncommon to see a new employee leave or kick-up a fuss.

Disney HQ ditches the sunshine and butterflies approach by giving their candidates a real insight into their business.

Disney also has a relaxed dress code and let their staff work flexible hours, which is becoming more and more important in today’s society.

In your business, it’s definitely worth thinking about the covering these kinds of unspoken areas at the interview stage and during the onboarding period.

This way, you might just save yourself a lot of money and resource in the long-run.

Utilise local universities and job seekers

According to an article by Cosmopolitan, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts are regular attendees at university job fairs, offering graduates internships and part-time roles to help support their future.

This not only tells the local community that they’re willing to provide opportunities to the next generation, but it also means they benefit from some of the smartest minds around.

A lot of graduates are fresh, full of ideas and ready to learn new things, which can really have a positive impact on productivity and the buzz around a business.

It’s always worth attending your nearest job fair as well.

By doing this, you won’t have to spend a lot of money on advertising on multiple job boards and can start to build up key relationships with job seekers.

You can even conduct quick interviews on the spot to reduce any extra time usually spent conducting a full recruitment drive.

You can find out more about your nearest job fairs by visiting Job Fairs and Prospects.

Go into extra detail with the job specification

How frustrating is it when you post a job spec and a load of unqualified or inapplicable candidates apply?

Disney recently reduced the need for length CV sifting by getting extra detailed with their job spec requirements.

They were on the hunt for Princes and Princesses to play some of their most famous characters at Disneyland Paris.

But instead of just letting anyone apply, they clearly stated that the applicant must be over the age of 18, speak fluent English or French, be between 4’6”- 6’3” and willing to wear no make up for their first audition.

Just by being more specific in their job spec, they were able to drastically reduce the number of applicants and cut straight to the contenders.

So when you’re writing your next job spec, think about niche qualities which will get you a handful of perfect professionals or run the risk of hearing from 100+ underqualified ones.