Applied online.
Application was quick & painless, there's a simple timed competency questionnaire about customer service.
I received an email a couple of days later inviting me to a group interview for in about a week & a half's time. In this email it was detailed there would be an icebreaker activity whereby you had to bring in an item that you thought best described you.
On the day of the interview as I was the first to arrive I was asked to wait at the customer service desk until the other candidates arrived.
Once the 3 of us were together the Assistant Manager took us to the Training Room where they had set up 6 chairs in a semi-circle in front of a desk.
The Assistant Manager was then joined by the Store Manager as they welcomed us to the interview, they were incredibly friendly, welcoming & they explained what it's like to work at Matalan, company structure, services provided & that charity work is a big thing for the brand.
We then moved on into the icebreaker, where we had to take out the item we'd brought with us & say what it said about us - I took a history book, another candidate took a crystal, and another candidate had a Pudsey bear.
After this we were going to be split up for a group activity, whereby we were tasked with finding outfits for a 7 day trip away for Easter in a hot climate where the customer is mid 20s-30s, has £70 to spend & had to fit it all in carry-on. As there were only 3 of us, they split the me & the another male applicant into 1 group where we were paired with an experience shop floor worker to scout menswear, & the female applicant was on her own with another experienced shop floor worker to scout womenswear.
You only had about 10 minutes to complete the task & this was by far, personally, the worst part of the interview - I misunderstood it & was trying to keep to budget religiously, & me & my interviewing partner had very different ideas of what constituted as fashionable holiday wear. So we ended up with a basket of holiday gear worth exactly £70 & a bit of a mismatch of styles.
The ladies team blew over their budget considerably with a great choice of clothes, but it was not what they were looking for.
What they essentially want is for you to fulfil the £70 budget, but then manage to grab a few little extras that will drive up sales - things like a hat, sunglasses, maybe an extra pair of shoes. It’s so it turns the handful of items someone may have specifically wanted to purchase into what is known as a “basket” (so they’d need a basket for it all).
There was no winner declared or anything like that, the Assistant Manager just looked through our selection & asked about the budget and then explained about the basket scenario.
We then went back to the training room & were called in 1 by 1 for our 1 on 1 interviews.
The interview takes place with the Assistant Manager in the Management Office.
What follows is a very simple, straightforward interview, mainly questions about your availability, how you get to work, why you would like to work for Matalan, what you think constitutes good customer service (specifically asked what other brand can you think of that provides fantastic customer service) - as I had worked in retail extensively previously, we spoke about that, and I was asked where I see myself in 2 years.
The Assistant Manager explained a little more in depth about the role, how many hours were available, about overtime & asked me about pre-booked holidays.
Then I was asked if I had any questions.
Within 3 days I had been contacted by email saying I had got the job & that I was invited to an Induction Day in a week and a half’s time.
On the Induction Day there was 3 of us that arrived, waited at Customer Service as before, & were then taken into the Training Room by the Assistant Manager again. Apparently there was supposed to be 4 of us.
Then we were filling out all the paperwork regarding your details, a secondary check over your availability, then the rotas were gone through with you, & how/when the rota system is updated.
In fact, because one of the people did not turn up for the interview, her shifts were actually split up there & then & offered as overtime directly to us.
We then were told a bit more in depth about the company, about the values, were given Employee Handbooks & the materials regarding our training, which would be being completed in store over the next 13 weeks.
We then did some basic Health & Safety, Challenge 25, Data Protection Act & company policy regarding plastic bags & coat hangers training.
The induction finished with us watching a few quite lengthy Oscar-worthy Health & Safety Training videos.
The whole induction process took about 3 hours.
