Feeling overwhelmed can’t pass a test to work in Tesco

[Shar2508]

Hi there I’m feeling very overwhelmed and deflated just now. I have not worked since 2018 when I gave up my well paid job in social work to be an unpaid carer for my father who had a thermal illness. My father passed away earlier this year so I have a mix of emotions just now. I feel I really can’t return to social work as couldn’t cope with the pressure so I thought about taking a part time job in Tesco or sainsbury. Easier said than done I failed the online test, I thought it was about customer care so I answered with this in mind but I failed, I can’t understand it. Yet I go into Tesco and I’m met sometimes with the most rude staff. So thinking it must not be about the customer service 🤦🏼‍♀️
im thinking wow I can’t even get a job for Tesco so that’s affected my self esteem massively, really need the money with costs rising. I have not claimed benefits or anything and have not had any money since 2018 but we are family of 4 living of my husbands wage and it’s not working anymore.
Has anyone else been in similar situation? Is Tesco really difficult to get into or am I just stupid 😢

This

The questions Tesco ask are not logical, nor customer service based. I walked into a job there years ago - before online applications, and was a successful employee for 17 years. Couldn’t pass the online entry though. My son, is a night manager, and again, wouldn’t be able to pass the online questionnaire. Personally, I’m starting to think it’s a lucky dip 🤷‍♀️ Having filled in the form numerous times with varying answers, when I was very bored 😂
On the bright side, you didn’t get accepted, and be grateful for it. They are now shocking to work for. The stress and pressure the staff are under is worth far more than the pittance they are paid.

Don't feel bad, they're a pile of crap if the CO OP one is anything to go by, my sensible, hard working DD couldn't get through their assessment despite being helped by an FE teacher and an IT manager it was absolutely pathetic.

One of the questions you had to agree/disagree with was 'I believe all people are fundamentally honest'

Then loads of stupid scenarios like, 'you are due to go a friend's party after work but your manager asks you to stay over, what should you do?'

It took absolutely ages to do too, unethical I thought for a so called ethical company, wasting loads of people's time.

A lot of online recruitment processes are weird. My son (21) had been doing applications for graduate schemes with banks, top 10 accountants, and insurance firms. One of the "tests" which was more of a game where there was an item circling the screen and you had to press a key to stop it exactly on a box. It was impossible, he couldn't do it however many times he tried, he didn't want to give up too early as he thought it may look bad if it showed he had no persistence on problem solving, but likewise, he didn't have time to keep trying, and finally gave up after around 30 minutes. He didn't progress on that first time he saw it. A few applications later, it appeared again on a different firm's application, so he tried again, and of course, couldn't do it, but this time, he gave up after around 10 attempts, which was maybe 5-10 minutes, and he got through to the next round. At the end of the day, the applicant has no idea what the "correct" response is, and I imagine different firms/agencies set different "correct" answers according to their needs and views. So for that game, one employer may "pass" it if someone tries for between 5-10 minutes, another may pass for 10-15 minutes etc - all down to how the test was set up. Same with answers such as whether to pass a specific problem to a manager or attempt to solve themselves - one employer may set it up to pass to manager, another employer may want the applicant to sort it themselves.

Another one my son struggled with at first were those multiple choice questions where you had to answer (a) strongly agree, (b) partially agree (c) neither agree nor disagree, (d) partially disagree or (e) strongly disagree. For his first few applications he went for b c or d thinking they'd want a "middle of the road" type of applicant, but he didn't get through that stage. So for the next few applications, he started putting in more a and e answers and got through to the next stage. So he can only assume they wanted people with "proper" opinions rather than applicants putting the "middle" options only because that's what they think the employer would want!

so you are answer by saying likely or unlikely so I said likely for 2 and 4 and unlikely for the other two questions.

My guess would be that they wouldn't want you to start cleaning when you had picking orders (customer/time-sensitive) to fulfil so they would probably be looking for you to flag this to a manager.

@Shar2508Hi OP, I am in a very similar situation now as I recently lost my job after 14 years (due to redundancies) and just failed my M&S test 😩 it has been so stressful and I feel like a failure 😞 I hope it all worked out for you in the end 🤞🏻

I worked for Co-op fortunately before such things as tests existed but we had a lady apply online and she failed the test so she came and spoke to the manager and he employed her. She failed because she answered as though she could solve whatever the issue was and the correct answer was to call for a manager. She turned out to be an excellent all round employee.
So please don't think it's you, it's not.