After five months of applying, interviewing and travelling, Carrie Proctor is heading off to the wonderful world of Disney.
Carrie Proctor, a 27 year-old former University of Lethbridge student, spent the last couple of months going through a lengthy application process to become employed at Disney World in Florida. She says the process was long, but worth it when she got the call.
Since she took her first trip to Disneyland, Proctor says she was determined because of how much she enjoyed the place and the all-around atmosphere.
“Since then I’ve been trying but my citizenship always gets in the way because they don’t hire international students,” she says.
She came across the opportunity when she searched online and found that the park was looking for recruiters from Canada to work in the Canada Pavilion in the Epcot Theme Park located in Disney World.
“They have all these different countries they represent and Canada happens to be one of them, so they hire people from those countries to work.”
Including Canada, there are 11 other countries in the attraction including Japan, Morocco, Germany and Italy.
“What happened was they had all the Canadian applicants do like an online thing and then they called you and told you that they got it. Then they had somebody call for an over-the-phone interview with you. If that goes well, they let you know when and where the face-to-face interview was going to be.”
Proctor followed through the process, which took several months but eventually got the call.
“This time most of the applicants were from eastern Canada so they held it (the interview) in Toronto. They said I could wait for about six months later when they would be recruiting once again and have it in Vancouver or somewhere closer.”
“I was like ‘Um, no. I’ll fly there.’ So I got to go there with my mom and it was really cool. I found out at the end of October that I got the job.”
Though she isn’t due to leave until June, you could read the excitement across the huge smile that never left her face.
“It’s the only thing on my mind now. Everything I do I’m like how’s this going to help me in Florida?”
Being from the small town of Raymond, Proctor realizes that this is a big opportunity and is even going to be missing her 10-year high school reunion to start her job.
“I knew almost everybody in the entire school and probably where they lived,” she joked.
When it comes to her family, Proctor says they couldn’t be closer.
“My family is super-duper musical so we always like to perform and hang out and sing together,” she says.
“I’ll just go home and start playing the piano and I’ll get my sister and my dad and everyone else comes in crowding around the piano and we just like sing like a picture-perfect family moment.”
Proctor and her family spent this past summer in Disneyland in California. She says it was a long trip driving straight there throughout the night.
“It was great, I always ended up being the one driving at 3 o’clock in the morning but it was so worth the drive.”
This was her third time visiting the Disneyland theme park and it was just as she remembered.
“What we noticed was the rides were super fun but I think the best thing was the performances and the quality of talent that they have there is out of this world.”
Being a musical person, Proctor could really appreciate the level of talent.
She has been playing the piano for over 20 years. She was even asked to play and sing while she was in Disneyland with the Dapper Dance, a barber shop quartet. Besides piano, Proctor has experiences in playing the clarinet and tenor saxophone. She was also in a band where she played keyboard and did back-up vocals.
“Somebody asked me what I thought which Disney Park was better and I don’t know. I said ‘I will tell you when I’ve been there for a year so I can make an educated decision.’ ”