Uploaded my CV, then after a few days I was asked to complete an online assessment. Another few days passed and I was sent an email asking to come to an interview/group session/roleplay at the engagement centre the next day. I also received a call from someone to let me know about the email and to apologise for the short notice (made it sound like it was a one off). Online Assessment: Set you up with a mock Call centre system, with different systems, one for an insurance company, one for a travel company etc. Gave you a tour of the system and showed you how it worked and how you were expected to handle different types of queries. There were 3 scenarios where a fake customer would call you, you would answer the call and they would ask questions/make complaints and you were given 4 options to respond. Very easy and intuitive. On-site: The whole process took 3 hours and started with a tour of the building where you could ask questions about anything. Next was a ~30 minute 1:1 interview with 5 competency based questions and a few conversational questions (I was asked about the interests I had on my CV). After was a 1:1 role play scenario, where the interviewer would pretend to be a customer with an issue which you had to resolve. They didn't really care about what you did to resolve the issue, but more how you went about it i.e sincerely apologising, working out a compromise, sounding empathetic, using positive language etc. Finally there was a group exercise with ~10 candidates where you were given a scenario and you had to discuss how to go about dealing with it. You are assessed on team working and problem solving. Only gripe was there was a lot of time spent sitting around in a room with the other candidates doing nothing, but you were given the opportunity to get food, go to the toilet etc between each stage of the process.

I started off relatively happy with the Tesco recruitment process, but as the process went on, I became more and more unimpressed. I applied for the role online and within a few days had a call from the recruitment officer asking if I could do a telephone interview the following week. This was a general chat to outline the role in a bit more detail and to discuss my current role responsibilities. This went well and I was asked to attend a face to face interview the next week. I attended this interview which was a competency based interview with all the standard questions. I was told at the end of this interview that because the gentleman who was to be my manager was on leave, and not back until Monday of the next week (this was a Thursday), he would probably want to meet with me too, but that they would be in contact to arrange that. It was after this that things started to fall apart, having heard nothing for two weeks, I emailed the recruiter to discover he had left the business. I emailed his replacement and was phoned the next day, told "oh I was on leave and only got back on Monday" (my email was the Thursday and he called me on the Friday). He said 'we'd definitely like you to come in next week for another interview' and asked when I could make it. I said I would need a couple of days’ notice so that I could book leave and he suggested the following Thursday, which I agreed to and emailed him later that afternoon once I had confirmation of my annual leave booking. He said he would send me feedback from my prior interview and also details on the format of the upcoming interview - these were never received. On the Monday, the new recruiter emailed me to ask if i could come in the next day (bear in mind I had already told him I needed notice in order to book time off). I said that i would not be able to get leave at such short notice. It was agreed to stick with the Thursday interview date and I duly attended. I had to email the recruiter on the day of the interview to query the full name of the gentleman I was to be meeting (so that I knew who to ask for at reception as he had only told me his first name) and which building the interview was to take place in, the site is vast with multiple office buildings in the vicinity. This interview was basically a further, more in depth discussion of the role and me going through my current role again. I was advised at the end of the interview that he would let me know if I was successful in a couple of days. My main problem with the whole process was that upon checking on their recruitment site the next day, on my profile/account page, it was showing that my application was unsuccessful, yet I hadn't received a call or even an email to advise me of this. While I understand that I may not have been the right fit for the role, I do find it particularly unprofessional to find out I was unsuccessful in this manner - after 3 interviews, I feel they should have phoned me and provided feedback before updating the website. The first recruiter was really good but after he left the whole thing was not well managed and left a poor impression of the organisation. I still haven't been 'officially' told I didn't get the job (now over a week since the second interview), but at this point I am sick of having to continually chase for information that they should be providing to me as a matter of course.