Assessment centre at Dixons Carphone

My second assessment centre took place in London on 11th May in Holiday Inn West hotel. It was a warm sunny day and after a good night’s sleep in a nearby hostel, I felt ready for roughly 5 hours of interviews, discussions and assessments. I was confident that I will be able to give my best and therefore, show how good of a worker I can be. I came half an hour early and was welcomed into one of the assessment rooms. After a few minutes, I was joined by five other candidates and we were given the time to introduce ourselves and prepare for the start of the assessment. The assessment consisted of an interview, a couple of role plays, a group discussion, a presentation and a short one-on-one brief at the end. The total time dedicated for the assessments was 5 hours and we started at 8:30 AM. In this post, I will describe the graduate scheme and share what made me apply for it. Likewise, I will reflect on each part of the assessment and discuss my thoughts about them.

I always wanted to get involved with companies' business as much as possible, thus a rotational graduate scheme seemed like a great opportunity. But firstly, instead of using my own words, I’ll let you read what Dixons Carphone had to say about their General Management graduate scheme:

‘’ Based at our London head office you’ll experience four rotations, each lasting six months. As a graduate, you can rotate across any area of our business to experience high-value projects and real jobs. For example, a rotation in Marketing may involve brand development or campaign work for one of our many incredible brands. Or, you could even find yourself in our Space, Design and Formats function – the team that’s responsible for how our stores are designed and laid out. You might even work within our Commercial team looking after one of our product categories, or in Central Operations switching between head office and our retail stores.

So, whether you’re involved in driving commercial results, developing our internal culture or planning projects, you’ll get a mix of experience through every rotation. As a result, you’ll gain a unique understanding of our business – helping you to make the best career decisions as you progress into a specialist or leader.''

Just by reading that I was already interested but it wasn’t until I saw one of the posts from previous recruits that I decided to apply. Cheers James for making it so detailed while also easy to understand (see the POST).

After being introduced to the company through a short presentation, each one of us went to our dedicated rooms where the interviews were held. We were required to read a few job scenarios and solve a short questionnaire. I found this exercise to be fairly straightforward and I could easily relate to it. After answering the questions provided, I was joined by one of the assessors. He asked me to explain the reasoning behind my answers which was followed by a few questions about my previous work. The interview lasted about 45 minutes and I felt like it went well. I was able to explain each of my answers fully as well as respond to the follow-up questions. Some of the examples I used were connected to my studies while the rest of them was based on my work life.

Furthermore, the next part of the process was to engage in a role play. After the short break, we were given some time to prepare for the role plays. As before, we were all sent to separate rooms and were required to prepare for the first role play in 10 minutes. Each role play was supposed to last for 7 minutes and the candidates were required to lead the conversation as well as end it after reaching the wanted conclusion. On this occasion, I was joined by a different assessor and the role play could begin. My thoughts after this exercise were positive. It seemed to me that the assessor saw that I followed a predetermined plan from the start and that my reasoning appealed to him. We were able to agree in both scenarios on the steps that should be taken which ensured that the partner (the assessor) and the company were happy as well as the right answer to the role play question was given. The first role play dealt with the positioning of a certain product in the store and the aim was to make the partner and the company happy. On the other hand, the second role play question instructed me to find a temporary solution and highlight the problem of the missing data.

Moreover, the next step of the process was a group discussion. Every candidate was given a short brief of the problem and was required to study it and, thereafter, offer an idea on how to bring younger consumers to the store rather than interact with them solely online. The group collaborated well and we were able to come up with 3 different ideas in the time specified. The first idea involved a new reward scheme, the second idea was a tailored kiosk and for the last idea, we decided to create a children’s play area as some new information was presented during the discussion. Overall, I felt like the group discussion was the weakest part of my assessment. There were too many ifs for my liking and the vagueness as well as the lack of data slightly prevented me from creating the perfect idea I was looking for. But, after a short discussion and creative inputs from each one of us, we were able to solve the task. In my opinion, I would have performed better in this exercise if I had some experience in the retail world. However, that wasn’t the case which is also one of the reasons why I applied for this graduate scheme. Upon finishing, we were given some time to prepare our individual presentations on one of the ideas. Once again, I had 20 minutes to prepare the presentation before being joined by one of the assessors. I used a flip chart to create the presentation which was a perfect reference point for my 10-minute presentation. In my opinion, both the presentation and the discussion thereafter went great. I was quite clear about what I wanted to say and my ideas were welcomed with approval. The short discussion that followed was also enjoyable and allowed me to use some of the skills and knowledge I have gained through my university studies.

And that was it! After these main exercises, 20 minutes were allocated for the follow-up interview. I was able to answer some further questions about myself as well as reflect on the assessment and what I have learned from it. Likewise, I got to ask a few questions about the company and was really glad to see that the assessor was really up for a fruitful discussion. I gained so much just from those last 10 minutes. After the interview, we all joined once again and were taken over by last year’s graduate employees who took us on an office tour. The office is really modern and has a lot of open space work area. Likewise, hundreds and hundreds of people could be seen working on different parts of the business. Overall, I enjoyed the assessment and if it wasn’t for my bus being very late and a few accidents on the highway, I wouldn’t have to stress about my flight. I won’t say goodbye to London as I expect to be back soon....very soon (in September to be precise).

PS: I haven’t disclosed any names as I did not ask for their permission.

#assessmentcentre #dixonscarphone #interview