Graduates
Apart from an interest in retail, Tesco are looking for the following key competencies in graduates: people/communication, leadership and analytical skills. You must also have a minimum of a 2.1 deree (any discipline) and 3 A Levels (excluding General Studies and A/S Levels) grade C or above (240 UCAS points), for most graduate roles.
Graduate Benefits
Benefits for people on the Tesco graduate scheme include:- 20 days paid holiday a year (with the potential to increase to 30)
- Staff Privilege Card (10% off any store purchase over £1)
- Discounts on Tesco Finance products (e.g. home insurance, life insurance, car insurance)
- Pension (contributory pension scheme for all employees, from your first working day)
- Life Assurance
- Shares in Success (shares given to all long-standing employees)
- Save As You Earn (share option scheme)
Graduate Programmes
All Tesco graduate programmes start in September, apart from Pharmacy which starts in August. In total there are 17 different programmes available for graduates, such as Store (shop floor/management), Office (e.g. Finance, IT, Law), Distribution (e.g logistics, merchandising and Pharmacy. Graduates are not supposed to apply to more than one scheme a year.
Mobility
All graduate employees need to be mobile during their graduate scheme. You need to be willing to relocate if required, although this is less important for graduates on the Store based scheme and Office scheme. All Tesco office placements are based in the firm's head offices in Hertfordshire. These will be in either Cheshunt or Welwyn Garden City.
Work Permits
Tesco can only accept applications from graduates who are already legally entitled to work in the UK. If you are invited to an assessment centre, you will need to supply your UK or European Economic Area passport, or similar supporting documents.
Training
The Store graduate programme starts with a two-day induction. During this time you will meet with all the other stores graduates so you can start to build up a network of contacts. We invite recent graduates and store managers who were previously on the programme, and operational directors to share their valuable knowledge and experience with you on how to progress within Stores. You will learn about the content of the programme and will have the opportunity to have any questions or queries answered before starting your programme in stores.
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Their selection process is soooo long and plus they took ages to get back to you at every stage, which is just torture. Tesco’s were a proper pain in the ass.
First sent cv, then application form with competency questions, then a work sample day way up north, even though I live in London.
Then face to face interview. Then you have to prepare a presentation and a 1000 word report by visiting a local store. And finally a half day assessment centre.
The assessment centre was the weirdest; you had assessors with extreme styles.
You had different tasks lasting around 30mins each and a different assessor for each one.
One challenged everything you said, so even though you would give an answer as to how you would deal a particular situation, she would challenge you on it and then you try to reword or try to give a more enhanced answer, she would challenge that and keep on challenging everything you said for half an hour, it’s like talking to a brick wall.
Another would be extremely positive with everything you said to the point where you feel like he’s taking the piss out of you and you don’t know quiet how to take it. So overly positive and nice.
Another one would ignore you, look outside the window, roll his eyes, purposely trying to not make any eye contact and be totally disinterested. I tried different approaches, raised my voice slightly; I even said something slightly daring, but nothing doing.
The last task was where all the candidates sat around a table together and had to come to a unanimous decision on various scenarios. First thing which we should have done and was told afterwards, was to appoint someone to keep an eye on the time, as we had limited time for the task. Anyway nobody thought of that and everybody just gave their opinions, had a show of hands and went with the majority. Some people talked less than others, whilst one person in particular took the lead.
So after all this, I didn’t get the job. I thought fair enough, I had tough competition with people having up to 7 years retail experience, some with masters degree and so fourth, i so I thought at least I could get some useful feedback as to where I failed to improve upon.
You know what they sent me, three ambiguous lines, I quote:
“needs to work on identifying and removing obstacles in order to progress”
I think I know that, the whole point of feedback is for you to actually tell me what you saw the obstacles being which I need to remove. Another one of the candidates, who failed, who couldn’t be more different from me, in fact he came from Ireland just for the assessment and had a totally different personality, was given the exact same feedback.
What really makes me angry, is not that I didn’t get the job, but with all the time I spent, why couldn’t they at least give me some honest feedback which I could actually use and so get something out of the experience.
Anyway onwards and upwards.
I know I kind of went on one, but I hope I’ve been of some help and wish everyone the best in their search for that special job.