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Debenhams Thread

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I have to go a assessment and interview next Thursday for a xmas temp sales advisor. I was wondering how many people are at the group assessment and how many people get the job? This will be my first job so I'm desperate to get it since this is the only place I've got an interview from :frown:

I applied for a sales advisor role too but it's not a temp role but i'm guessing the interview and assessment would be pretty much the same. There's like 10 people in one group assessment but they might have more group assessments on different days for the same role. And i'm not sure how many people get the job, but i'm guessing quite a few. Good luck :smile:

Reply 321

lucciexo

Original post by RaHiNa

Thankyou

What did your assessment entail?

Reply 322

n_123

Original post by boivybez

Hellooo!! Hold on are you working at the debenhams store in bullring? what is your contract? and what date is your induction?

Yes i got an 8 hour contract (im going to ask for soo much overtime i swear) for an xmas temp job there as a sales adviser!! they put me in childrenswear and im so grateful i really am but when i went there i realised that i really wanted to work at the men's department but no big deal lool :biggrin:

! Yes my induction is also in october (i really wanted to start sooner but ey)i chose the 27th(10-5pm) and 28th(1-8pm) :biggrin:

Yeah I am!! But I don't know my contract and those are the induction dates I chose too! So I guess I'll be seein you there lol

And yeah hopefully they'll be lots of opportunities for overtime around December! I don't know what dept im workin in atm but tbh I don't really mind :smile:

This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my HTC Desire S

Reply 323

boivybez

Original post by n_123

This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my HTC Desire S

lool that's soo cool i guess we will be seeing eachother im wondering if we went to the same interview because mine was 16/08/12 but tell me when you find out yeah :biggrin:

Reply 324

RaHiNa

Original post by lucciexo

Thankyou

What did your assessment entail?

It's what the person above said, you're with a group at first and then about a 10-15m interview after. In the group assessment we had to make words up for the word CUSTOMER FOCUS so S could be for smile and C could be for concentrate etc. And then we had to walk around the shop floor and spot bad and good things. and at the beginning we got asked to think of 5 words to describe ourselves.

Reply 325

lucciexo

Original post by RaHiNa

Ah that doesn't sound too bad tbh! I just hope I don't have to sell something :frown:

What did you say about the store when you spotted good and bad things? Thankyou for your help!! x

Reply 326

RaHiNa

Original post by lucciexo

Ah that doesn't sound too bad tbh! I just hope I don't have to sell something :frown:

What did you say about the store when you spotted good and bad things? Thankyou for your help!! x

I don't think you will have to sell anything, because that's how they used to do it before. And you talk about good and bad things you see in the store so for example my group saw empty tills which would be bad and we also saw good customer service being given. good luck :smile:

Reply 327

K FIZZLE

Has anyone got an interview without any previous experience?

Reply 328

RaHiNa

Original post by K FIZZLE

Has anyone got an interview without any previous experience?

Yep, i only had school work experience which lasted for around 2 weeks.

Reply 329

Shockolate

Original post by lucciexo

Ah that doesn't sound too bad tbh! I just hope I don't have to sell something :frown:

What did you say about the store when you spotted good and bad things? Thankyou for your help!! x

I had an assessment there a few weeks a go and we were given the selling task. When I worked there last year as a Christmas temp though we didn't have the selling task in the assessment, maybe as they are looking to take a lot of people on during Christmas they don't need to assess people as thoroughly to make a decision.
The selling task was really fun though so if you get it don't worry, just talk about the features of the item and how it benefits the customer/will make their life better, how/where they could use it, if it's a versatile item and can be matched with different things say so (ie 'it can be dressed up with so and so for a night out, or dressed down in the day time with blah blah), relate to the customer, say your friend has it and always gets compliments on it, say it would make a great gift for mother/girlfriend/brother/father etc, say it's good value and quality (if it's a product by a Designer at Debenhams say how you're getting designer style for a high street price).
We never did the good/bad things about the store at our assessment.

Reply 330

meakins8

Please reply,

I have my group interview on thursday and in my cv and application I made up some previous work experience such as working at mcdonalds, as I hardly have and desperately need a job :frown:

So what I'm asking is will they check up on this or if so would it be much later even when I am working with them hypothetically? I told the woman on the phone interview a few tasks I had to do at Mcdonalds, shall I carry on telling fibs at the group interview??

Reply 331

Shockolate

Original post by meakins8

They do check up on it - well, when you are sent your contract you are sent an information pack to fill in and send back to HR, in which you have to write your references - they either ask for 2 or 3, I can't remember. And presumably if you've said you worked at mcdonalds, they'll expect it as a reference. And it does say something along the lines of your employment being subject to you providing suitable references. They'll let you start working before they've received this information from you, but if you don't provide references or they find out you have been lying they can dismiss you for this. When I worked there I know they checked at least one of my references because my referee told me so. So, if you can provide enough other references then you might be okay but if you say you've been employed but don't provide the contact details of an employer it might look suspicious.

When the store is making their decisions, as well as how you've done in the interview, they'll have access to your application form and your responses to the phone interview, so the interviewers may find it strange if you don't mention any of your experience at the interview. Also if you have a one to one interview they ask you questions such as examples of you delivering customer service, working in a stressful environment, taking responsibilty at work etc so you'll have to think up some examples for those.

So, if you come clean at the interview you won't get the job as you've been dishonest, if you lie and they find out later they can use it as grounds for dismissal, if you can somehow skirt around it and use examples of real experience you have and can provide references for these, you might be okay.

Reply 332

RaHiNa

Original post by meakins8

If you get the job they'll take your references but i think you have to have been employed for 2 years or something, so you could just say you did work experience there which lasted like a week? or you could say you worked there but only for a short while so there's no need to provide a reference since they want references of people who've employed you for atleast 2 years.

Reply 333

meakins8

ok thanks for replying, I think I'm going to carry on with the fib that I worked at Mcdonalds, but if I hypothetically get the job, does the reference have to be from the most recent employer because on the application form I said a couple of years ago I worked for a gardening company and I can actually get a reference for this, as well as some referees at uni as I write for the student newspaper etc..??

Reply 334

RaHiNa

Original post by meakins8

Yes they tell you to order the references by most recent. and you can give an academic reference and then a personal one (a teacher or something) and then the gardening one i guess. I think you'll be fine, but just don't bring up McD so much.

Reply 335

lucciexo

So I had my group assessment and I DID have the selling task :frown:

I had to sell a vodka gift set which I found quite funny as I was probably the youngest person there at 17! Anyway the group assessment went okay I think, then it got to the 1 on 1 and it just went down hill from there :frown:

He said he'd let me know in 7-10 days but I've got no hope! He said about 10 people get took on for each department so hopefully that will go in my favour.

Reply 336

rurounikenji

Hi guys,

I applied for the stockroom assistant position and was offered a telephone interview for Thursday. However, i just read the job description properly now lol and it mentioned that it requires you to start from September to December. As the job title said Xmas staff, i assumed the role would start in December. I go to a uni outside london and i live on campus and was hoping to come back to London during the xmas holidays and take this position. Anyways, i was just wondering if anyone knows if i can manage to let me change my start date to December so i could do it as a Xmas job?

Thanks

Reply 337

rurounikenji