Interviews are always nerve-racking. I always think the more nervous you are, the more you want the job. I was desperate to work for Steiner and had planned my whole life around getting this job. So, when I turned up for my interview I knew the nerves had to be put away and my game face had to be put on.

My interview took place at the Steiner Headquarters in Watford as this was the closest interview location to me, but, depending on where you are in the world will depend on where the interview takes place.

The drive down took about 3 hours which is a really good amount of time to over think everything and make yourself crazy, so when I arrived at the Steiner training academy I was quietly freaking out.

I waited in reception as all the other hopefuls filtered in and we all sat in silence looking around the room eyeing up our competition. We were then taken upstairs to a conference room where we all sat in rows facing forward and waited for the interview to start. 18 of us, all sat in silence.

The first portion of the day was taken up with a presentation from a lady called Denise who described what ship life would be like, what a normal working day would be like and just a general overview of every aspect of the job.

After this presentation, Denise gave us all an option to leave, if during the presentation we had changed our minds about the job. To my horror, someone did leave. I couldn’t believe it. You’ve come all that way, surely you may as well finish the day.

For the second portion, we had to stand up in front of everyone and tell them about ourselves. Now, this sounds relatively easy, but if you have never done any public speaking before this is actually very daunting.  34 eyes watching you, waiting for you to slip up.  Well, they probably weren’t but that’s what it felt like. I watched a few do their little ‘shpeel’ and some of them were painful to watch because they were so shy. When it got to me, I decided to try and bury my nerves and fight through them. I actually came across very confident, but that was definitely not how I felt.

The object of this exercise was to see how you were with public speaking as you have to do a lot of it on board. Sometimes in front of 10 people, sometimes up to 100 people.

Finally, we had to do a trade test. We paired off and took it in turns to give each other a back massage. As we were doing this the interviewers would come around and watch what you were doing and ask you questions. I was asked where on the back I was massaging and what massage technique I was using. They were looking for the professional names, my reply was “around the scapular using petrissage to break down tension”.

I overheard other girls say stuff like “ I’m using my hands to massage the upper back to relax them”. Now whilst this was true, that was what they were doing, it was not what they were looking for.

This is your opportunity to show off your knowledge on the human anatomy and massage terminology.

Once we had finished with the trade test we were free to go.  I left feeling confident and satisfied that I had done my best. 

Once home, 3 hours later I opened my emails to find I had been offered a position. Thrilled doesn’t even begin to describe it.  I was absolutely overjoyed.

I hope this has given you a helpful insight into what to expect at your Steiner interview.

If yours is coming up, I wish you the best of luck.