Ok guys, so alittle disappointed after my rejection email from john lewis.
First of, the interview. walked into a room with 30 other people, split across tables, there are 6 assessors from all walks of management staring at everyone and writing notes as soon as they walk in.
One assesor was assigned to each table of five candidates. The first task was to talk a little about yourselves. Noone wanted to go first, so I volunteered with basics such as age, studies, hobbies etc. And as always, those that go after can listen and refine their talk.
Next task (which was shockingly bad). new assessor, this time a headmaster type, lady with glasses on the tip of nose, snooty looking. This task was to design a poster to advertise their new department. The information on the sheet was so limited and the task was so generic that it made no sence. Were we to stick to the brief or use subjective analysis and make something up? the information given was to advertise their new beauty and gift department, which has no completion date in the local newspaper.
What is the point of advertising a development that has not been completed and has no due date. It is not a product that can build hype, it is a developmemt, makes no sense. What is this? is it meant to determine team work? objective resoning? creativity? marketing skills? company awareness? I am fairly certain it is team assessment (determine people that can work in teams), so why does it stiffle all creativity by being such a rational and non specific task that does not make sense? My group was stumped, conversation was sporadic, ideas lacking, Assessor staring. Someone in the group suggested "coming soon..". So we went with this. Noone wanted to do the poster design. My handwriting and spelling are shocking but since noone wanted to do, I again took initiative and decided to do all the actual lettering. I came up with the idea of a christmas theme, another lady on my team came up with the idea of drawing a smiling john lewis worker on the poster. The rest of the team, including me thought this was a bad idea. My mental resoning was due to the fact that a smiling worker signifies an ideal, upper class, cheesy and crude way of advertising. My verbal resoning (that I actually said to the team) was that it would be difficult draw and suggested that she could draw it if she wanted (so as to not look authoritative). Poster finished, time to present, who to?....the staring assessor at the table who has already seen everything. I kept my mouth shut during the presentation as I was still trying to figure out the purpose. Why present to the same person that has just seen and sat through every aspect the presentation, no one else. It is repeating yourself. I said nothing. At the end of the "presentation", the assessor said that the lady should have pushed through with her idea and gone with the smiling worker.... I still think its poor idea. Their usual adverts are qirky not cheesy archaic smiling workers that undermind their companies image.
Next task, different assessor a nicer chap. Had to sell a product. I got given a chocolate bar.... again my analysing mind went haywire. Why would you pressure sell a chocolate? why would you try and pressure sell at all? after all john lewis prides itself on customer service, offer guidance, offer information but a selling task? seems contradictory and the whole task again did not make sense, we just sat through a presentation regarding how great john lewis is and how great the customer service is and now a selling task...
Final task was a one on one interview,first in, went ok, she asked me the exact same questions as were on the applications etc. She said my customer service example was good but this was the norm in john lewis (so as to undermine the company I work for and brag). I try to keep my answers short and not look too cocky). She asked the obvious (why work here etc), I answered the obvious.
I get a rejection email the day after for a job I didnt apply for and another 30 mins later apologising for the confusion and it said (exact qoute) "Apologies for the admin error regretting you for a position in catering. You have been regretted for a xmas temp selling position in various departments" those are the exact words. Doesnt make sence, just like their recruitment process.
Another piece of annoyance was the fact that during chosing the intrview date, I could have chose the week after. So effectively they still have more people to interview and therefore have more vacancies despite rejecting people already before even seeing the entire batch of interviewees. Unless they are time travellers, they have no idea that the next batch of candidates will be any better than those that have been rejected.
I know that I am incredibly good and analysing situations (its what I study and enjoy) and this gives me good people skills as I adapt to these situations. I therefore thought that I would be perfect for a role in one of uks best customer orientated companies. But this has left me confused as I just dont understand how they achieve it with such a recruitment process.