Anyone recently been to a Marks&Spencers interview?

PocoLocoCoco

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sammiboo

i cant advise you about the interview but i know someone who worked for M&S and they were putting people on rolling contracts. this is so they didnt have to pay sick pay etc and they had more control when sacking staff. they could just not renew their contract if they didnt want to employ them anymore. just something to keep in mind

paulwf

I had an interview last December and it was role play. My branch hasn't interviewed anyone after that so can't comment on latest procedures.

Re: temp contracts. At the branch I am at these were only used for Christmas staff as it made sense, then they were offered permanent contracts. Temp contracts were only continued if staff needed more hours than could be guaranteed by a permanent contract or the branch wanted to retain good staff but weren't allowed to allocate more permanent contracts at that time.

There is also a situation at the moment with the food to go stores closing (that they announced ages ago) that those being made redundant have to be offered any permanent contracts going elsewhere first. Once that gets sorted more of the people on temp contracts can be made permanent.

In theory having a temp contract only is a risk. But in practice they are being used to give as many staff as possible what they require...it could work both ways and I have only seen them used to the benefit of the staff and not to their detriment. Don't worry about it, there's loads of staff benefits and if you get your "foot in the door" more hours are likely to come especially with Christmas just around the corner as far as retailers are concerned.

crockpot

I had an interview about 2 months ago and it was role play with cards.

I was told at interview that I had passed but then got a letter to say they had but me on a waiting list! If a job comes up in the next 6 months its mine.

Think it was because I was going on holiday a week after new store opened!

Any idea when they start to recruit xmas staff?

paulwf

crockpot wrote: »

Any idea when they start to recruit xmas staff?

Last year new xmas staff joined from October onwards, and when I joined in December my interview was in September so there might be a couple of months between interview and starting.

My advice is to check the recruitment site daily, I literally checked every day and when one appeared applied that morning and had an interview and job offer the next morning, they don't hang around!

BTW I don't think there will be much going this year, since last Christmas the branch I am at have had a complete recruitment freeze and that includes taking back the students that normally temp at Easter and during the summer, I can't see them taking on many at Christmas especially with none of the permanent staff leaving and all wanting extra hours.

PocoLocoCoco

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