Many job candidates have been thrown by the nerves when an employer asks a question that they didn’t expect.
The John Lewis Partnership has taken steps to ensure that it does not miss out on any excellent employees because they are unable to perform well in formal interviews.
Instead of bombarding candidates with “gotcha” type questions, the company has decided to post online all possible questions. The bosses hope that candidates can prepare their answers in advance.
This will help the partnership, which operates John Lewis department store and Waitrose supermarkets, to better assess the suitability of the candidate.
Lorna Bullt, talent acquisition director at JLP said: “Anyone who’s ever recruited knows that sometimes candidates are capable of performing at a high level in a particular role, but they don’t give their best performance during an interview.” It made us wonder why we couldn’t change the assessment process. We decided to publish our questions.
John Lewis’s decision comes at a moment when most companies are struggling with filling gaps in their workforce. The Office for National Statistics reports that close to one million jobs remain vacant.
The partnership says that the interview process is “no less rigorous than before”. Candidates who memorized answers from chatGPT should be eliminated by detailed follow-up questions.
Bullett’s team wants to make the interview process more comfortable, especially for those who lack confidence. Bullett explained that “interviews can be intimidating, and nerves are a major factor for many people — especially those who have neurodiverse personalities.”
We want to hire the best people from different backgrounds, with the most talent. It is a good business decision to help candidates demonstrate their abilities so we can get the best fit for the position.
Recruiters say that more companies are changing their interview process to offer them a wider range of options in a highly competitive job market.
John Lewis has created a website for prospective employees, or partners as they call them. They can learn about “partnership values”, how to prepare, and a list with questions.
Some of these questions include: “How do you deal with a customer who is unhappy and wants to resolve their issue quickly but you’re very busy?”
They have also published the questions that could be asked to potential directors. The questions include: “When were you faced with a scenario that challenged your authenticity, and made you question how transparent and open you should be?”
James O’Dowd is the founder and managing director of Patrick Morgan. He said that the agency wanted to make the process more transparent and less intimidating. It takes away some of the formality that can be off-putting to some people.