Carphone Warehouse - Assessment Day

alexdrans

Hello.

First of, it's my first post here, and hopefully not my last I didn't just register to ask a question and extract as much information from people here as possible I'm also interested in contributing.

I applied for a job at Carphone Warehouse after talking with the head of recruitment for the city the store is based in. I handed in my CV, and around 10 days later I received a phone call inviting me to an assessment.

Has anyone had any experience with a Carphone Warehouse assessment, or an assessment with a company similar to CPW? I'm not quite sure what to expect as I'm only 17 and I've only ever had interviews with Pizza Hut (unsuccessful) and Primark (successful). I expect an assessment day to be a whole lot different than an interview.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

sickofusernames

I had an assessment day with Map Group for a Virgin job, it's just american B.S to be honest these assessment days, ways of finding out about you.

You get all the talk about the company then we had a beach ball we had to throw around to each other, whoever picked it up had to talk about their current position in life etc.

Then I had to partner up with another guy, sitting back to back and had to explain a picture to him without the key words, and he had to draw the picture I tried to get across - I did pretty good on that one.

After a short break we all came together as a group (about 8 of us) to design something to stop an egg from breaking from a height of about 3 metres using various items. To be fair, the group was too big and maybe should have been 4 in each group to get the task done - too many overpowering people in one group.

To finish off I had a short 7 or 8 question interview with two of the Virgin staff which I couldn't honestly answer two of them.

I wouldn't want to go on another one in a hurry, I only want a job and not an audition, it's all a bit Playschool'ish really and felt like we were being patronised, good luck on yours.

daniel.thomas4

well i have worked for phones4u and o2. so I can tell you a fair bit about it. Now with the greatest of respect to sickofusernames dont let what he has posted put you off.
yes its not a audition. but you need to be able to interact with the public and if you cant do that in a room full of staff how can you do it with a joe soap.


its normaly a whole day based event in which you will be asked to get involved in tasks that show how you present your self.... To you it may look like they have 5 people writting down junk on flip chart paper. what they are looking for is who gets involved, and who stands and says sod all (dont be that guy)

now the ice break (you will have one) is the most important part of the day.... you need to make sure you stand out !!! so start thinking now. Who ever is doing the assesment is watching and if you make your self stand out here your in pole position for the job.

now they may ask you to come up to the front and sell a pen(or something like that)....its normal..... you will have to do this in front of the group. ask loads of open questions when selling this pen.
open question involve. what/how/when
in short make sure what ever you ask CAN NOT end in a yes or No

example: How many time a day would you say you use a pen.

you will at the end of the day have a 1 2 1 where they will ask you interview type questions...... do your home work on the carphone. find out what makes them stand out against others. hint: best free gifts, number of stores, and best buy ;-)

hope that helps

ps if they ask who in the room will be top sales person the answer is you !

singingpotato1979

alexdrans wrote: »

Hello.

First of, it's my first post here, and hopefully not my last I didn't just register to ask a question and extract as much information from people here as possible I'm also interested in contributing.

I applied for a job at Carphone Warehouse after talking with the head of recruitment for the city the store is based in. I handed in my CV, and around 10 days later I received a phone call inviting me to an assessment.

Has anyone had any experience with a Carphone Warehouse assessment, or an assessment with a company similar to CPW? I'm not quite sure what to expect as I'm only 17 and I've only ever had interviews with Pizza Hut (unsuccessful) and Primark (successful). I expect an assessment day to be a whole lot different than an interview.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I had a successful assessment day with Carphone Warehouse back in Nov 2007. It was for Customer support so I'd imagine there might be a few little differences but knowing CPW, I'd imagine that they haven't changed the process too much.

They do a presentation telling you a bit about CPW, go around the group and ask a bit about everyone. Try and have an interesting fact about yourself up your sleeve for this.

Then they do a group activity (with a number of CPW managers in to watch) first of all - If memory serves ours was deciding the order of importance for various selling points of a TV. Basically you just need to make yourself heard, don't take over, but don't be a wallflower either. If you can try and be the person who summarises at the end - go round the group and ask if anyone has anything else to add - then that looks good too.

Then they gave us all some details about a holiday in preparation for a roleplay phone call with one of the managers. They give you plenty of time to prepare and all the details including how much you can give the complaining customer. Make sure you pay attention to those parts and don't give too much straight away. Figure out a good deal and if they push you in the roleplay, say that you've spoken to your manager and on this occasion you'll be willing to offer... (slightly more) - In my role play I was sat back to back with one manager with another manager watching and taking notes. If you're doing this for store they might do this face to face?

They then give you a bit of a break while the managers have a chat - they then take you all in a room and take you out one at a time to let you know if you've made it to interview stage or not. It's all very X-Factor and nerve-racking! If you're left till the end then you're probably in luck. At my assessment day they took everyone out of the room except me and one other guy and they told us together that we'd passed the morning assessment.

Interview is pretty much of a muchness, you go in with one of the Managers and they ask you a lot of scenario questions. "Think of a time when you've given great customer service", "Think of a time when you've had to resolve a complaint" and the double edged sword "Tell me about a time when you've broken the rules in order to give customer service"

Just try and relax and be confident but not too bolshy and you'll do fine. Good luck!

singingpotato1979

Oh and they didn't tell me there that I had got the job, I got a phone call a few hours later.

paulwf

I think this blog is more aimed at their call centre based staff but worth a read:

http://carphoneworker.wordpress.com/

AFAIK mobile phone sales are VERY commission led with the money to be made from encouraging lengthy contracts with lots of ad ons (they won't make much from a £10 PAYG phone). There are a lot of complaints about underhand sales tactics bordering on fraud when it comes to adding stuff on to contracts. I won't go into a phone shop now because of the way they pounce on you.

I mention this not to put you off the job or stir up controversy but rather so you can have a think about the qualities you will require to get the job. For example if it was a group interview for an office team you may want staff that aren't too brash and will take their time. However for phone sales I would imagine they would want people that are extremely confident, decisive and ready to sell sell sell to anyone and everyone. You've got to go against any moneysaving instincts and be perfectly happy selling top end phones to grannies and kids when you know they won't use them.

alexdrans

paulwf wrote: »

I think this blog is more aimed at their call centre based staff but worth a read:

URL REMOVED - NEW USER

AFAIK mobile phone sales are VERY commission led with the money to be made from encouraging lengthy contracts with lots of ad ons (they won't make much from a £10 PAYG phone). There are a lot of complaints about underhand sales tactics bordering on fraud when it comes to adding stuff on to contracts. I won't go into a phone shop now because of the way they pounce on you.

I mention this not to put you off the job or stir up controversy but rather so you can have a think about the qualities you will require to get the job. For example if it was a group interview for an office team you may want staff that aren't too brash and will take their time. However for phone sales I would imagine they would want people that are extremely confident, decisive and ready to sell sell sell to anyone and everyone. You've got to go against any moneysaving instincts and be perfectly happy selling top end phones to grannies and kids when you know they won't use them.

Carphone Warehouse don't offer commission any more. They bumped up the basic salary and you get bonuses based on targets met by the store. If an employee received a customer service feedback score of over 85%, their bonus is doubled, if it's less than 45%, their bonus is halved. Employees are more focussed on customer service than they are on sales now. This was changed in 2007 fyi.

I got the job too I'll go for my 2 day training soon! I got a call just a couple of hours after I left my interview, which consisted of a role play situation (I won't reveal the details) and a formal interview.

:T:T:T:T:T