Help with interview

[lovesunshine247]

I have been a SAHM for a long time and want to go back to work.

I am not confident at all and the isolation during COVID didn't help me.

I am hoping to work in an office environment in the future, but for now I have applied for anything near me to help him get me back into work again.

I have applied for an 'online assistant' job at Sainsburys and have been invited for an interview. Although I am happy about this, I am panicking as I don't know what to expect and don't know how to prepare for it.

Does anyone have any ideas or advice please?

covid isolation has been over for a year so assuming you’ve been out the house you’d have had to speak with people
dont use lack of confidence as any answer to any question you are asked
Prior to being a SAHM did you work? Utilise your skills put whatever you did work wise into how you can do this job your going for.

how would you deal with customer queries when your working towards deadline for another customer - that type of thing

Thanks for replying.

I'm certainly not making covid an excuse for lack of confidence. I'm just saying on here that it seemed harder for me once it was over to start socialising again.

I did work before I became a SAHM, but it wasn't customer facing. It was office based and most of my dealings were with other internal departments.

Working in a supermarket would be different to work I have already done.

You must have transferable skills
Time keeping, decision making, working to tight deadlines

It's GREAT that you have an interview, well done!

I was a SAHM for ages so I know what you mean about confidence in the workplace. Maybe treat this interview as practice and if you get it great but if you don't it's really useful interview experience.

Is it an in person interview or online? Have a Google around for Sainsbury's interview format because I'm willing to bet it is a standard format and that could help you know what to expect.

Thank you for your words of advice.

It's a face to face interview, so I'm not even sure about what to wear. I will visit the store before the interview so I know about the layout etc.

I will have a good think back to skills I used in my previous work place to see if I can use them as examples as my first thought was, I have forgotten everything, but I know that can't be true and it's just nerves talking.

I will check online for interview formats too.

If anyone can help with a question about 'why do you want to work for this company?' I don't know what to say.

I find it hard to think on the spot.

I was so much more confident when I was younger. I am completely different now and I'm so annoyed with myself that I feel this way!

@lovesunshine247

Well done for securing the interview.

Have a good read of the company website and all the profiles in the career section and see
if there is anything you can relate to re why do you want to work here.

look for any recent press articles on the company

look up the STAR formula for answering competency based questions

best of luck. Sorry am typing in a rush.

@lovesunshine247 well done for getting to the interview stage. I don’t think anyone has been untouched by the pandemic and am sure your interviewers have also had hard times. We are all human. I have been through several interviews in recent times and think my advice would be to prepare, look your best and remind yourself the world will still spin if it doesn’t go your way. A friend advised me for my last one to blare a feel good song in the car on my way to the interview and sing my head off and remember how amazing I am. It definitely gave me a boost and I got the job - I had also prepared well around the competencies. I’d try to think about how you would deal with awkward customers and how you might answer around that. Be yourself and ask on here again if you have any other questions - use the resources here!

Well done on getting an interview! Some thoughts from me:

• is there a person specification? If so, try and come up with examples of things you've done in the past to illustrate the essential and desirable qualities in the person spec

• you could also have a think more generally about what good customer service is in case they ask you something like that

• you say you only dealt with internal depts before - this could still be an example of providing good customer service, eg if you had to respond to requests from other staff.

• why do you want to work there? See if you can find some examples of things sainsburys has done, eg good things in the community. You could say something like I'm keen to return to the workplace and really impressed by what Sainsbury's has done in my local community by helping xxx etc.

• i would so prepare an answer to a question along the lines of "why are you the best person for the job?" Think of 3 things.

• as others have said, treat it as practice. If you don't get the job, use the questions they ask you as a way of thinking about what you've done in the past, how you might have answered them differently etc

Good luck!

Congratulations!

The online assistants are the folks who grab the online orders for customers if I'm not mistaken? In which case you want to focus on your attention to detail, ability to work well to a deadline, good at using your own initiative (for instance if they don't stock an item, you'll have to choose an appropriate replacement!)

As for why you want to work for the company - keep it simple. Don't over bloviate because we can always tell when someone has just memorised some crap from the corporate website. Just be enthusiastic about shopping there and wanting to be a part of the team.

Lots of places do what's called a STAR style interview these days, which is looking for examples of behaviours - so for instance "tell us about a time you provided excellent customer service" - open ended questions to encourage you to talk about actual experience. It's good practice to have a few solid scenarios in mind that you can refer to for these questions - and adapt to match the question as necessary!

Thank you for everyone who has taken time to reply and give me some much needed words of encouragement.

Yes, online assistant is getting the online orders together, so it's not an over challenging role, but it's something that will help me back into a work environment and I would like to do my best in the interview and hopefully get the job!