AIBU to find supermarket job interviews oddly demanding and irrelevant?

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I am a so called professional who has just had enough of one restructuring after another. I have handed my notice in.

I want a part-time job in a supermarket not as a manger but as a shop floor/warehouse worker.

Last month I had to do a psychometric test I kid you not, and was emailed to say I was through to the interview stage and I had to book an interview. All of the interview slots however had been taken in spite of the email only having been sent fifteen minutes before!

Having complained I was offered an interview but for a store a little further than I wanted.

There were three of us, we were given a little tour, then a group exercise, a small Functional skills test, then individual interview.

The questions:
Hobbies etc
One thing others would be surprised about me.
What would I do if I won the lottery.

Seriously, what bearing would these answers have on how I could do this job?

What would you say to the question about something someone would be surprised by me. I had absolutely no idea.

What answers would you have given?

What are they looking for? What answers do they want?

12 years ago I worked at sainsburys and during the group interview (there was 5 of us) someone got up and moved the clock 2 hours forward so they told us to leave early.

We all got the job though, so idk what happened there

It’s ridiculous isn’t it? Honestly, years ago you could pop into a supermarket or shop, ask for a job application form and possibly be called in for a quick interview. That was it.

These hoops and stages you need just to be a supermarket worker for instance, is totally unnecessary. It also puts people off applying, particularly people who may be anxious or feel nervous.

Sadly these jobs are quite hard to get nowadays, fairly easy about 20 years ago though.

It's awful. As a student, I just filled in a very short form, and got a job, starting pretty much the next day. Yet now, people have to spend literally hours, longer than I spent on applications for proessional jobs and promotions-and then they sometimes don't even have a job available (yes, I have had people I know tell me this has happened, and shown me some of the long quizzes they had to do, and imagine how frustrating this is for people applying for a first job).
And all the bits about "what would you do in X situation"-I know from working in a supermarket, and from friends/family who still do, that you simply get told procedures by managers.

Exactly this the questions are irrelevant their judging how you handle them

Just to be a supermarket worker its really not as easy as people think especially now that you're constantly doing the job of 3 people and customers have got more demanding

But you’ve put a threshold of a degree on your recruitment so you’ve filtered out a load of people. Supermarkets don’t do that, nor should they have a requirement for experience as they’re a perfect entry level job - so how do you pick the one candidate from the 1,000+ CVs with absolutely no filtering criteria. I’m not sure there’s really another way.

Same on the questions, if I want to give someone their first chance at a job I don’t want to know about a time they did a managerial role, or about a time they worked on the tills. I want to know they can hold a conversation like a human and build rapport quickly. Those questions do test that.

Even “oh dear, I don’t have many hobbies - I feel really boring now. I do yoga twice a week if that counts, I’m up to date on coronation street and I taxi the kids around almost full time so I suppose they are my hobbies” would be a passing answer in my book.

Then you are unsuitable for the job.
I’ve worked as a section manager for several supermarkets and I don’t think many of my ‘professional’ friends would last 5 minutes. It’s not rocket science but it is fast paced, long hours and hard work. Staff need to be physically able, thorough, quick thinking and adaptable.
Staff also need to be thick skinned and confident enough to deal the rude customers who consider staff beneath them.

My son when he was 16 spent many hours completing a psychometric test and various online forms for a Saturday job at B&Q. The response was negative immediately he'd completed it.

Another son attended for an interview with Waitrose stacking shelves in the evening. He was one of around 8 candidates shown around the store and back office areas. He never heard back from them.

I went for an interview when I was asked who my favourite superhero was and why.

😂😂😂😂😂

Can someone answer this question ?
Why do some interviewers ask the question about which celebrities ( living or dead ) who you would invite to dinner

In 1995 I was asked to design a cereal packet as part of a group at an ASDA interview.

I did not get the job as ‘I wasn’t a team player during the exercise’. It was a solo task and not many people said a word while we sat there.

I am very aware of the new modern job interview trick of asking you to compete a piece of work and steal your ideas. Then ghost you.

It’s how you justify your picks, not who you choose.

Unless you pick a table of mass murderers.

The job has changed hugely in the last 20 years & especially in the last 5. Alot of the 'easy' tasks - filling shelves , ticketing, checkouts , cash office , picking have become so much more streamlined meaning you need much fewer hours (and therefore staff) to complete them.

You don't have as many managers & supervisors. Alot of supermarkets have got rid of the supervisor, team leader, floor manager type roles. Someone on the basic rate pay (just above minimum wage/living wage) could be the 'duty' in charge of the whole shop. Those are the roles a full time member of staff would need to do.

There are still some basic roles with less responsibilities but those will be very part time. Students etc doing a Saturday & an evening or 4 hour shifts etc

😂😂😂

I was a nurse for 25 years and wanted to work in Sainsburys part time to fund my university degree to become a podiatrist. I knew the whole store layout and the whereabouts of all their stuff and what it all was.
I was rejected out of hand. No explanation. Spoke to me like I was shit. I had all of the skills they needed ?????

I would genuinely pick a table full of mass murderers.

Just a guess but maybe it was they saw you only wanting to do the job as a stop gap. That does put employers off.

It’s fucking nuts. I miss the 90s. I once went for a job as a seasonal elf in a shopping centre. The interview involved me going into a changing room and trying on the costume. It fit!
I had the job.

It’s ridiculous, I’ve heard of this happening all over for minimum wage jobs. I’d just make something up for the answers, best way to get ideas is put this question into ChatGPT

I think they are trying to work out if your hobbies would interfere with shifts.

I get that there’s less staff in supermarkets than there was 20 years, even 10 years ago. Lots more self service check outs, meaning no need for as many cashiers in tile.

This means they employ less staff, obviously cheaper costs.And I also know that in the big supermarkets for instance, people are given a specific area to work in and there’s targets, with hard manual labour. DW works for a large supermarket, there’s less staff now than there was a decade ago. DW comes home knackered every day. She does the job of two or three people.

It doesnt surprise me one bit

Interviews are terrible and the people running them are even terribler!!!

Funny how that isnt exactly replicated on the shop floor isnt it....

In about 1999 I popped into all the local stores and filled out papers application forms. B&Q, Halfords and Iceland. This was a Saturday job, in my last year of school.

I was offered interviews at all three and got a job offers for two of them.

Jobs were much easier to get then, there was none of this ‘recruitment stages ‘ or psychometric testing nonsense

The interviewers are bored. Help them make their 1 hour of high stimulus interview activity more exciting I suppose 🤮