Hi All,
Firstly - this is my opinion and only my opinion. Secondly, I am not defending Virgin Blue, just because I am an employee of Virgin Blue.
The Virgin Blue recruitment day that I attended was in the exact same format as recruitment days that I have attended with Qantas and the Flight Centre group. The Virgin Blue staff that are at the workshops/group interview days - whatever you would like to call them are a mix of HR Staff - all with Formal Qualifications in the Human Resource area and Virgin Blue staff that are from the area that is employing, ie. The Cabin Crew group interviews have current online Cabin Supervisors and Inflight Development Supervisors attending and the group interviews for Ground Crew - including; Guest Services, Pit Crew and Reservations Agent - are all attended by either Team Leaders from these areas or current online staff.
Each of the three airlines, whether they be Qantas, Virgin Blue, Jetstar - or any other carrier for that matter are looking for an individual quality that makes you you - in Virgin Blues case - it's called Virgin Flair - it's the common quality - yet an individually different quality that all of DJ's team members have.
I was start up staff with Virgin Blue and they have a fantastic team member base - with team members coming from all kinds of different fields - and yes we have people that have worked for other airlines including, Qantas, Ansett, Ansett New Zealand, Air New Zealand, Origin Pacific, Flight West, Alliance, Freedom Air, Southwest, British Airways, Singapore Airlines and Air Pacific - just to name a few.
Please don't bag us out - or generalise - Virgin Blue, like Qantas and now Jetstar is staffed by a dedicated team that believes in the product that we are and is proud to be a "Virgin".
If you've applied and missed out - give it another go - heaps of people miss out on the job the first time they apply - never lose faith in your abilities and you'll get there eventually.