Sainsburys / supermarket jobs' hours

mro

Sainsbury's / supermarket jobs:

Is it normal to be told at interview they expect you to work more hours than in job advertised & applied for ?


Went for interview for temporary part-time job for month over christmas, working Fri/Sat 2 nights a week.

Was told they expect people to work more hours and asked what other shifts I was prepared to do.


Is that normal in supermarkets these days ?

TELLIT01

It seems an odd way to recruit and conduct an interview. However, if you are hoping for longer term employment, showing a bit of flexibility over an extremely busy period could only help you. On the other hand refusing to consider additional hours will probably go down like a lead balloon.

BritishBibliophile

I worked for Waitrose back in 2008, applied for similar to you (Friday and Saturday, in my case it was 5 - 9 on the Friday evening and then 2 - 8 on the Saturday afternoon, and it was permanent rather than temp). Those were my "core" hours but I was told that overtime "would be available" and that they would really appreciate it if I could make sure I was able to do extra hours during the Christmas period.

Not sure what they would have done if I had refused to do overtime over Christmas but I needed the money and had plenty of time so I ended up virtually going full time in December and then did other random bits during the rest of the year depending on what was available.

If it's only a temporary job and you know you've got the time then just nod along and go with it, I suspect they didn't get as many applicants as they wanted and have found they'll still have a shortfall of staff over the festive season.

mro

I wasn't really prepared for the question.

He said they expected people to work more shifts over Christmas, then had his chart out ready to mark what extra days/shifts I could do !


Thinking about it now, I probably would do extra days/shifts, but hadn't thought of that, wasn't prepared, ready to say at interview.


The Fri/Sat nights in job ad were 10 hours overnight in big supermarket, he said not everyone wanted to do those, I said I would stick to those, but would consider other shifts, didn't say yes, but didn't say no.

The manager said yes he was fine with that, as basically doing 2 of the difficult weekend shifts, he seemed happy with that.

He told me as I left that I basically had job, but final decision was with HR department.

Probably explains why I didn't get job.

TELLIT01

I suppose what this really shows is that it's necessary to expect the unexpected at interview. Some years ago I was called in for a 3rd interview for a job and spent time with the person I would be replacing. They were in the job temporarily until a replacement could be found to let them get back to their normal work. I actually saw a work rota with my name on it.
After I'd been 'shown the ropes' I spent time with one of the senior managers when I was sent a real curve ball. The question basically was "What would you do if you had a person who was disruptive, wouldn't accept new working practices, but was a good friend of one of the directors?" This organisation use a lot of semi-retired professionals to assess people who had applied for a certain technical accreditation (I'm intentionally being careful with detail as I don't want to identify the organisation).
My response was along the lines that in such a situation I would need the help of people more senior than myself to ease the person out. Cut a long story short - I didn't get the job. I really didn't have any time to give deep thought to my answer and that cost!

Chunkyfathead

Hi

All Im gonna say is when you work for a supermarket if you can't work extra, you don't have to
I worked at a place where my shift was 6pm - 12am when I started I was very flexible and stayed over my time but I found that others on the shift seemed to changed there hrs with out issue, refuse to work extra when asked, always had some excuses....then the one occasion I asked to work earlier and leave earlier they refused so from then on I stuck to the contracted hrs religiously

1886

I left Sainsbury's last month for a new job. I had a 39 hr a week contract but alot of the p/t employees who did the picking etc for the on-line section did get asked maybe two/three times a week to stay longer and do extra hrs. It was their choice though

topaztiger1983

A bit of flexibility goes a long way, my friend

dawyldthing

I think most jobs ask for flexibility nowadays. I cant remember any I haven't asked if I can be flexible (it helps sometimes as sometimes if you do shifts and need a day off sometimes they help)