The interview process was long in itself, I applied online in January, about two weeks later I got an email saying I had passed the initial stage and they wanted me to do a video interview; done that, didn't hear anything back until mid February when someone from the recruitment team emailed me saying they were pleased with my video interview and wanted to do a phone interview the following day, got the call about 3 PM the next day. It was rather easy and quite relaxed, got asked a bunch of questions as well as been explained the details of the job and by the end of the phone interview both myself and the recruiter agreed on proceeding to a face2face interview which was scheduled for the following week.
Unfortunately I got unwell and had to cancel, I let the recruiter know and explained the situation. 1-2 weeks later I saw the job was still up and I was feeling a lot better so I emailed the Recruiter saying that if they're still looking for someone and they're happy to give me another chance I would be pleased to go in for an interview; she called me and we discussed a bit, in the end she said she was more than happy to schedule me in, and so I got an interview for the following week.
On the day I turned up to the interview on time, it was scheduled for 9.30 AM, made myself known to the Assistant Store Manager as the Store Manager wasn't in; he asked me to take a seat and wait. I waited until 10 AM with no updated in the meantime, I got worried so I called the Recruiter to ask if I had done something wrong, she said the interview should have happened at 9.30 AM and that I had done nothing wrong - to keep waiting and she was gonna call me with an update.
Finally about 10.15 AM the Store Manager came and took me downstairs, didn't even apologize, she just said the interview was for 10 AM and she didn't know why I had been told 9.30 AM. Whatever. So I went downstairs with her and met some other kind of manager from a different store, I cannot remember her title, but I was to have my interview with both of them.
Done the sales pitch and the competency based questions which I thought went okay, then they sent me on the shop floor for about 30-40 mins, went back downstairs afterwards for the role play, nice and easy, they seemed really impressed with how I acted and reacted in the role play.
Finally, they asked if I had any goals for the future and I said I was hoping to get into the banking industry in the future because of all the progress and growing opportunities - that seemed to annoy them as they started telling me how the banking industry was dying because everything's happening online now, and asked why I would go for a job with them if that was my future plan. I thought it was so out of line of them to tell me that my future plans were sh*t and to basically tell me I was probably not right for the role simply because I said I have an actual future goal to get into an industry 5-10 years down the line.
Also, just after that, they started asking me why I hadn't worked since January, the interview happened in March, and whether I had another job lined up before leaving my last job; I replied no because I didn't, and then they were like 'Yeah but why leave then? How have you supported yourself since then? Who paid for your food and bills?'
So, sooooo out of line. I got so annoyed.
They literally showed little to no professionalism, no respect whatsoever for me, and half the interview was them asking questions that had absolutely no relevance to the job I was applying for. How I pay my bills and my personal life is none of their concern. Very disappointed with the f2f interview and the approach they took to it, which is a shame because the Recruiter was a very nice lady.
Overall, I probably wouldn't ever apply to a Vodafone job, at least not in the same store, because I am greatly disappointed with the Store Manager's ways.
