I was invited to a group assessment at the Hermiston Gait B&Q near Edinburgh, which I attended for nearly two hours with eight other applicants. There were three managers but no HR people there. The assessment consisted of group activities and the managers took photocopies of our passports and asked us some simple questions like availability and preferred working hours. Overall, the assessment was very simple and quite enjoyable. However, the overall process of being interviewed and applying for jobs at B&Q is a disaster. During the assessment the managers kept telling us how the company was going through redundancies and that one of the managers was leaving which is very uninspiring for new candidates and showed us that jobs are always in jeopardy in this company. Two weeks after the assessment I discovered that none of the managers had recorded that I had attended the assessment and so I had not been considered for any jobs, but they said I could keep applying which I did although I was now aware of incompetence on their part. And very recently I received an invitation to another assessment for a job I applied for, but I could not attend it, so I replied to HR asking for another date and they said, oh, I had not made it through the first round! I asked if that was the case then why had I received an invitation to an assessment and HR replied saying that it was a mistake. Needless to say I am angry with B&Q and the fact that they keep making mistakes and wasting my time. Thus I have told them I no longer wish to work for them and they must delete all of my personal information associated with job applications.

There was myself and two other people in the interview. We initially had to go onto the shop floor and ask customer’s if they wanted help etc. After that, we had to pick an item from the shop and sell it to the interviewer as if they were a customer asking for advice.