AIBU to find supermarket job interviews oddly demanding and irrelevant?

😂😂😂

Surprise - third nipple
Lotto win - have it removed

If you weren’t made to do all this there would be nothing for HR to do to fill their time and then horror of horrors they’d have to sack themselves. Remember you aren’t an employee but a colleague just like the CEO😂

What a disgusting comment why do you think you're better then others

Interviews for normal, usually MW jobs, (as opposed to high flying careers), didn’t used to be this complicated. There were no rigid tick box lists. I was offered a job in publishing once, even though I’d never worked in publishing, because we talked about our grandfathers. Another because we both did crafts. I know it’s because jobs are on the internet instead of your local paper so everyone sees it and applies. Younger ones probably take it in their stride but for older people it can seem so alien. I dread the tell me about a challenge you had, because I don’t really have one, i go in, do my job, leave, forget I have it by the time I’ve left the building, unless I make it up I suppose. Maybe they want to hear about my previous cancer or the fact my ex became an alcoholic. They were pretty challenging 🫤 Anyway, I’m glad I’ll never have to interview again.

Same! I always assumed they got the staff at my Asda by driving a van round the magistrates court and the mental hospital.
Who knew they are so carefully selected..

Aren't the questions to find out how you would answer rather than the answer itself ie can you understand the question.
I heard of one employer asking candidates to write a few sentences on their journey to their interview mainly to see if they could actually put a sentence together as completing a paper form was part of the job.

I'd be an anaconda. Be able to dislocate my jaw and eat a whole cake.

I’ll have to take it as a compliment they didn’t want me then 😂

Supermarkets mostly want people who will just do their jobs without any fuss or drama. If you’re too forward thinking or show too much intelligence they won’t be interested.

As a student I interviewed for Christmas jobs with M&S and John Lewis.

M&S was individual and kind of as you describe with the slightly irrelevant questions and then a role play where I had to upsell ready meals 😂. it was all very odd. At the end of the interview she told me I had the job and let me pick a set of hours.

John Lewis was a group task and it made sense of the M&S one. We were in 8s, I think? And only me and one other person were able to hold a conversation, make eye contact, smile, pretend like we cared about the tasks. I think the weird questions are to check you are capable of talking to customers somewhat eloquently? More of a soft skills assessment than really caring what your answers are?

This is what I don’t understand. I see people working in supermarkets who I can’t understand how they passed the interview when I didn’t. I can’t visualise them answering in a way that made the hiring manager say yes to them and no to me, especially as the branch I was temping at had no issues with my work. My only conclusion would be my age, I’d be 30 years or more older than most of them.

Could I ask who the charity provider is? I’m disabled, and job hunting is challenging as it’s difficult to find truly disability-friendly jobs/employers.

I think those questions are weird as hell, almost cult like. The irony is that most people I see working in supermarkets can barely even be bothered to grunt hello!

That’s what probation is for. Interviews don’t guarantee you’ll be a good fit, but work history might.

Agency don’t tend to interview because if your shit they just simply never get you back

when employing someone it can be a nightmare to get rid of so they are very cautious

I was once asked how my friends describe me. My answer: Well I am the best thing since sliced bread! (I did get the job)
I think these questions are designed to find out about your personality.

Another stupid one was: Tell me something we don't know about you - it was for a promotion und I have been working with these people for the last 4 years! In other words they did know everything I wanted to share in the workplace about me.

I thankfully will never have to interview again. I have a part time cleaning job I got through an agency, no interview just a quick casual phone chat. It’s the perfect job for me at my age, no commute, work alone, home by 10.00am. I’m staying till I fully retire. I still get admin jobs popping up on Indeed but can’t face the interviews.

I guess those questions show whether you can think on your feet and whether you're the type of person who'd be thrown off balance by unexpectedly being asked questions by customers or manage the random Smalltalk expected of supermarket cashiers. It's probably also meant to indicate whether you have the people skills to get on with colleagues.

Something other people would be surprised about is just looking for one of those random humourous curiosities which is overall positive - obviously not something that makes you look as though you might behave unpredictably. They just want something like having an unusually large number of siblings, speaking an unexpected second or third language - but to be honest even a parlour trick like being able to say goodbye in multiple languages, having once had an unusual summer job as a teenager, having studied something unusual, playing a musical instrument that people might not expect... It can even be that you had a Mohawk when you were 19 or something, it's just to show you can respond to an unexpected question and seem vaguely interesting.

Obviously this kind of interview doesn't actually work - I'm bizzarly good at this type of interview (in my job it's not unusual at the beginning or end of a longer interview about the professional elements of the job) but actually loathe Smalltalk. Plenty of others are terrible at being interviewed but actually enjoy real life Smalltalk.

It's not a very effective way to choose employees (skills tests are better) but it's easy to prepare stock answers once you know what might be asked, and interviews are cheaper to run than skills tests.

Supermarket shelf filling interviews are ridiculous. I went for one and was given that ‘star’ question, which I had no idea about. I didn’t get the job, despite already working at one of their branches as an agency worker for the last year. The star question was pointless when they could have just checked with my branch what kind of worker I was or asked direct questions about my work day. Instead he had a sheet of paper in front of him with a tick list of questions as if I’d gone for a management position. They’d have seen on my CV that I was already working for them. I worked for years in offices and couldn’t even get a supermarket job, demoralising.

This is crazy. I’ve never worked in a supermarket but did work in clothing stores, bars and Greggs when I was a student. Those interviews were basic as anything, it was difficult not to get the job in truth. I remember being asked what my favourite Greggs item was…

DH went for a ‘professional’ role once and was asked which football team he supported. He swears he didn’t get the role because he answered Leeds United!

the pot wash “ interview” sounds like they were just after regular free labour. Lots of places around here do that. I genuinely believe they have no intention of giving anyone a job: they want free labour!

when my daughter was doing her degree (commuting from home) she applied for a job at our local supermarket. The hours advertised were daytime hours. At the interview, along with stupid questions and tasks, they asked if she could work during the night as that was required. She said not. Unsurprisingly she didn’t get the stupid job. (she got a better one)