Tips to Getting a Disney Professional Internship

Disney Professional Internships. Highly sought after, and highly competitive! Similar to the Disney College Program, this is a program for students to work for the Walt Disney Company. However, unlike the DCP, these internships allow you to work within the company's professional offices and segments! Through a Professional Internship, or PI, you have the opportunity to work for Disney Corporate, Disney Parks and Resorts - World and Land, ABC, Marvel and all the segments that fall into those areas. They have internships within marketing, engineering, production, management and so much more. Of course, with an amazing opportunity, such as these, comes inane amounts of competition.

After completing my DCP, I knew I wanted to be a PI. My entire senior year of college, I buckled down and did as many internships, clubs and activities as I could to make my resume stand out. In April of 2016, I was lucky enough to be offered a role as a Client Services Coordinator for Walt Disney World Parks and Resorts. I moved back to FL in June of 2016 to begin my journey. After the conclusion of my first PI in January of 2017, I received another PI offer as a Global Human Resources Associate with Disney Corporate. If you would like to learn more about my specific roles, feel free to message me on any of my social media!

For those of you who are looking to apply for professional internships with Disney, here are a few tips!

1. GET EXPERIENCE

These internships are SUPER competitive and having a degree in a specific major alone will not get you an interview. Intern at your school, local non-profits or summer programs! It's definitely hard work to juggle school and work, but it's necessary to stand apart from others. If your serious about working for Disney, I would recommend finding internships with companies similar to Disney. For example, If you want to be a manager in a hotel at Disney, get experience managing in a hotel near your college. If you want to get into marketing, try interning at a tourist attraction or tourism company in your area. While it is completely not necessary to tailor your experience like this to get a PI, I feel that it can greatly increase your chances and give you a competitive edge!

2. TAILOR YOUR RESUME

Make sure that you make your resume caters to each position you are applying for. If the application lists "budging" as a skill they would like, make sure to include that in your resume. These internships get THOUSANDS of applicants, so recruitment uses a program that aids them in finding qualified applicants. The program does this by finding keywords and phrases that closely align with the job description, so you want to make sure that your resume lights up like Christmas day for each application.

3. DO YOUR RESEARCH

If you land a phone screen, do yourself a little happy dance and then get to work! Phone screens are the first step in the interviewing process. This is done by a Disney recruiter and not someone from the actual department you are interviewing for. The recruiters job is to get a feel for your personality and qualifications. They will then determine which applicants move on to the second-round interview with the actual hiring managers. Phone screens are definitely less intimidating than a second round interview, but still very serious. Make sure you learn as much about the position as possible! Sometimes the job descriptions are really vague, so you want to find out more about the position so you can prepare yourself. Facebook has a lot of groups for interns that are super helpful for gaining insight. I also like to use LinkedIn. I usually look at the job descriptions of people in that department to get an idea of what I may be asked about.

4. PREPARE REAL-LIFE EXAMPLES

It is SO important to have examples ready for each interview! In my experience, it works best for me to print out the application, look at the job responsibilities and jot down a work experience next to it. For example, if the application says, "Manage conflicts with positive resolutions" jot down a time you had to fix something, or think outside of the box to resolve an issue. Also, try to make these examples fairly universal so that they can be used for several situational questions. For instance, try to come up with examples that could cover conflict management, program/software issues, multitasking, and deadline management. This may sound crazy, but trust me, you'll be happy you did when you're asked a question you weren't expecting!

5. USE NAMES

During your interviews, make sure you casually use the interviewers names through out the conversation. It's just polite and it shows that you're engaged and listening to the conversations. Tip - have a notepad near you so you can jot down their name(s) in the beginning of your interview. I also use the notepad to jot down key notes from the call.

6. ASK QUESTIONS

At the end of your interview, you will have the chance to ask the interviewer questions. DO IT. Don't be a know it all and think you have all the answers already. Even if you do know everything, still ask questions! It shows you are eager about the position and want to learn. Some of favorite questions are:

- What will my day-to-day tasks look like?

- What is a project you are currently working on?

- Is there room for networking/growth?

7. WRITE THANK YOU EMAILS

I don't actually know if writing a thank you email makes a difference to managers. In fact, I did not write one for any of my interviews during my interview process for my first PI. However, now that I am involved in the professional world a bit more, I definitely feel that writing a thank you email is important. Thank you emails should be sweet and to the point. "Thank you for your time, I enjoyed our conversation," etc. For your phone screen, you can email the general professional internships email - wdpr.professional.interns@disney.com. They will forward your message over to your recruiter. Just make sure to include your recruiters name in the subject line. If you get a second round interview, but don't have the managers email, you can, again, email recruitment and ask them to forward it to the hiring manager. Just make sure to include all the details they will need to find the manager!

8. KEEP CALM AND HAVE PATIENCE

This process is daunting. You can get a phone screen and not hear anything about second interviews until MONTHS later. That's normal! The best thing to do is to keep calm and stay positive. If you don't get an internship this time, try again in the future. Not getting a PI does not determine your worth. Know that you are a strong and accomplished young professional and be proud of your success! Good luck!