Here’s a story about my recent group interview at a retail store. If you’ve never done one and you want to know how group interviews proceed and other details that might help you land a role more readily, take a listen to my story.
I’ve been to two group interviews, both at Aldi, in the past 3 months. I want to tell you how this works, in case you’re new to the group interview game, or in case you feel misled about group interviews. Here’s the lowdown.
What are group interviews?
Group interviews are essentially a roundup of potential job candidates that companies run periodically. You might have also heard the term “job fair;” well, this is similar.
So what happens is, you start looking on sites like Indeed or Flex Jobs or LinkedIn for openings. You find one or more, posted by a large corporation in your area; let’s say it’s a grocery store, like what I shared in the video above.
You fill out the job application, which may involve signing up for a member login on the company’s website. You might be asked to supply information like your name, contact details, job history, strengths, skills and such. You’ll be asked to upload your resume.
You might need to also take a test, depending on what company it is, and what job you’re going for.
After you hit SUBMIT, you’ll receive an email thanking you for applying.
Getting selected for a group interview
If chosen, you’ll then receive another email over the course of the next few days, inviting you to attend the group interview. Make sure that you check yes or click the button or whatever, to be sure that your acceptance of their suggested date and time for the interview gets submitted.
(For my last one, I thought I had submitted and had the date/time listed on my calendar, but it didn’t take and I didn’t know. Luckily, the following day they prompted me with a reminder to schedule my interview. Which surprised me, but good thing they did that, huh? So after that I received a text confirmation, and all was good to go.)
The company website then began sending me reminders of the group interview appointment. As an old-school gal, to me this is craazy, that these companies are basically helicoptering you to make sure you show up on time. Granted, life is like this no matter what the appointment. I’ve got the dentist, orthodontist, and everybody else up in my shizz, asking me to type C for confirm, and it’s all rather noisy and chaotic.
I mean, remember the old days, when you made an appointment, wrote it down on the calendar, and then just showed up, without anybody reminding you about it?
Preparing for your group interview — sometimes even with help from the company!
So, as the date approaches, you’ll receive more messages. The company not only reminds you of the interview date and time; but in my particular case, Aldi supermarkets basically hands the candidates a cheat-sheet of helpful information.
Their career site contains info about the company and tips for saying all the right things during your interview. The goal was to help people make it past the first round of questions that would be delivered. Not bad, very useful for those who pay attention to details.
(I also want to interject here. Remember when there WAS no internet, and to find out about a company you had to visit the library and research them? For marketing peeps like me, was a big red book of advertising contacts, like a yellow pages for companies, that would update their contact list every few years.)
Your group interview: the big day arrives
Okay, so next comes the big day. Clean up and dress appropriately for whatever industry you’re looking to work for. In my case, the first time I did a group interview, I over-dressed. Everyone else showed up in the type of clothing they’d be wearing once hired; jeans and a plain shirt, closed-toe shoes. Some looked tidy and others looked less together.
So for the second interview I did (which I describe in the video), I made sure to “dress down” in comparison to what I wore for the prior interview.
What does a group interview entail?
Part 1: the Tour.
In my case, Aldi supermarkets gives a tour of the store and facility. The manager walks all of the candidates in a group around the premises, explaining what things are and what your job responsibilities will be.
I did another interview for a different retail store, which was much less detailed – we were not given a walk-about of this type. So it really depends on the company where you’re applying, and how they do things.
Part 2: One-on-one interview.
Part 2 of the group interview involved each of us being taken aside into a private area where we were interviewed one-on-one. For candidates, this seems reasonable; but for the hiring manager, in all honesty this seems rather exhausting.
Imagine having to keep your energy levels up not only to deliver a spoken presentation about the store or facility, but then you must sustain that energy while asking interview questions to a large group of individuals, one by one. And you must listen carefully to what each person says, and accurately assess them to determine if they’re a match for the job.
Group interview follow-up
After the group interview, you’re thanked for your time. The candidates disperse and go home. You then receive a text telling you to expect follow-up on whether you were chosen, over the course of a certain number of days. In my case, they told me I’d hear back in a week or two.
I heard back by the weekend, and did not get the job. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, as I am not a grocery store worker historically.
I want to interject here, lest you judge me, that a grocery store job is out of my realm of experience, since the bulk of what I do professionally has been work in creative advertising, and serve freelance clients.
If you, like me, are interviewing for jobs that aren’t a real match for your skills due to necessity, like I am, try to play up your strengths as appropriate. They asked me if I had ever worked in a retail environment. I had to go back in time and speak about stocking Friendly’s restaurants at opening, which I did at age 16 and I’m now in my early 50s. But it counts, so bring up something relevant like that, if you can.
How to handle rejection if you’re not selected
The thing that I will say is strange about how corporations do interviews now, is this. When you get your rejection letter, it doesn’t say “Best of luck in your career search” in that dismissive sort of way that would tell you without saying it, that they don’t want you to apply again in the future.
Instead, they word the letter so that it seems like they actually WANT you to apply again next time something comes up that looks like a match.
Their closing remark is something like “We encourage you to continue checking our career website for job opportunities” (or something like this).
“Do it again” – applying down the road after rejection
So, it’s confusing. But you shouldn’t get upset about not being chosen, and you shouldn’t lose heart or take it personally. This just happens to be how things go with hiring companies these days. But I will say that from the research and prep work to the pre-interview psych-up, to the little things you must remember, the entire process kinda sucks the life out of you.
The internet mommies have a term for this. It’s called “the mental load.” Being rounded up, asked to prove your worth, rejected and then told to try again next time, and then doing that, is exhausting. It makes me want to kiss corporate America goodbye forever.
I’ve worked for a fortune 500 company before. Corporate doesn’t exactly have your best interests in mind. But if you’re lucky, like I was, you can get in with a really wonderful group of coworkers, which makes it bearable.
“Just let me go already”
I honestly wonder if there is an alternate wording of the rejection letter that would say something like “Thank you for your application; unfortunately, we have decided to go with another candidate. We wish you the best of luck in your career search” – which would feel more like closure.
If companies do NOT send a letter like this, they should. It would help them close out applications that really don’t meet their expectations at all; for example, if an application seems sketchy, really has no valid experience; gave a bad impression, or whatever.
Try, try again
Anyway, let’s say you’re reading this after just having received the rejection letter at a company where you applied for a job. You’re probably wondering if you should bother applying again down the road.
I did, and my application was accepted; so, I have applied for jobs at the same company twice, even after being told I was not selected.
I spoke with some other candidates while standing in line waiting to be called; they, too, had applied multiple times and weren’t picked for the role. So I guess you either do what the letter says, and keep trying… or, you maybe take yourself in a different career direction.
Group interviews seem exhausting for the hiring manager
I want to say here that something is amiss with this system. First, as I mentioned, the process seems EXHAUSTING for the person doing the interviewing. Second: it seems to make more sense if the company held the resumes of the candidates and gave them a call when a role opened up that seemed to match this person.
BUT… Aldi supermarkets can’t accomodate that, because they don’t use phones. There is no direct line of communication set up from the hiring manager (the SM) and the candidates. He or she can’t even email you back, I don’t think. Everything is done remotely through their email and text system.
That feels kind of lonely as a whole. Everyone is kind of stuck in their own head space. No free-flowing communication.
Instead, they post jobs on their career site almost continually, with very similar titles for jobs that sound like the responsibilities overlap. You have to stay on your game and really persist, if you want to work there.
The good news about that, though, is… you can reinvent yourself via your resume if you like! I scrapped my first resume, which was targed toward copywriting and marketing jobs. I ended up adding a version of my resume that emphasized customer service, because I figured that’s what they wanted.
What their rejection letter should say is that “we will keep your name on file should another opportunity arise that matches your skills.” Then, instead of the candidate having to go fishing for another opportunity, the hiring manager can flip through their file of resumes, and decide to call a candidate on their list who fit the need.
(Yeah, I’m an over-thinker. Can you tell?? :D)
Hypothesizing rationally about why you didn’t get the job
Really try to think from the eyes of the company leaders, and not your ego, in this case.
For me, I brought up experience in food service that I had gained during my early working years; but I am now middle-aged. So it would be hard for the company to say, “Okay, we’ll hire her just because she seems smart and willing,” especially when, in a group of candidates like this, there is more likely to be at least a few other people who are a closer match, experience-wise.
Submit your comments about group interviews
Have you done group interviews? Did you get the job? If you did not get the job, did you apply multiple times?
What do you think about all this? Do you feel it’s an efficient system? Do you feel like you were pitted against other applicants in a cutthrough hiring scenario? Or did it not phase you?
Email hello@dinaslist.com to express your thoughts about how group interviews are run these days. You might even be selected to appear in an article on this blog! If you do, I’ll brand you and share your URL. I’m cool like that.
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