The first few stages were a series of online verbal reasoning and numeracy tests. It wasn't long until I received an email confirming I'd passed. At this point they requested an upload of my CV. After uploading my CV I believe I may have waited around 2weeks for a response which informed me I'd been successful in making it to the phone interview stage, which was scheduled for around a week later. The phone interview lasted for 30mins with questions like: "what do you do in your free time?", "what does credibility mean to you", "have you ever had to work with difficult people?", and "provide an example of when you managed others". The questions can be left open to interpretation. After the phone interview I was informed around two weeks later that I had been "short-listed" for the next stage. It was around another 2weeks later before they confirmed to me that I'd made it to the next stage. As per Lidl's online interview progress tracker the "next stage" also appeared to be the final stage. This turned-out not to be the case. It was a "group interview" day. We believe around 120 candidate in total must've made it through to this stage. We received a 20min presentation about Lidl and what our programme would involve and then were seated and called into rooms on an individual basis for "speed interviews" which lasted around 15min a person. During these speed interviews they briefly asked questions on your CV, like your work experience, or why Lidl? They also asked about a time I experienced conflict in a group and how I resolved it. Overall this process was quite refreshing and everyone seemed to come out from their speed interviews feeling it went well... which was worrying as it made it difficult to differentiate between the "good" candidates and the "bad". After the speed interviews we were moved onto the group exercises. The groups consisted of 4 people, each being assessed by 2 interviewers. One exercise focused on a customer's bad experience in-store. The group was given a letter which the customer had written to the store expressing her bad experience, and the group were asked to, within 10mins, describe what actions they would take to resolve the situation. There was no right or wrong answer; it was just an exercise to encourage group to work, and voicing opinions without shouting over one-another. The other exercise involved looking at some metrics such as sales, profit and customer rating for 5 different stores. We then had to rate the stores from best to worst overall. It was rather difficult as there was no clear winning or losing store, e.g. one store may have been awarded a great customer rating, but profit was down, whereas another store may have had excellent profit, but the manager's capability was low. Again, there was no clear winning or losing store, but it was important that the group discussed why they were ranking the stores in the order they were, within 10mins. It was tougher than the other group interview, but didn't go too bad. Around a week later I was informed I'd made it through to the final round. Around 2weeks after the speed/group interviews I attended the final interview. This was a 45min interview. We had been asked beforehand to prepare a presentation based on the customer experience at Lidl. This presentation was to be delivered without the use of a computer, within 5 minutes. It was based around a SWOT analysis - from and customer perspective. Personally I prepared a PowerPoint presentation which I printed and handed to the two assessors interviewing me. Within this presentation were a few photographs I'd taken from my local Lidl stores, along with my thoughts. I also memorised a script, and presented my presentation standing, without the use of any aids – however I refered to the printed presentation from time to time to encourage the interviewers to look at what I'd prepared. After my 5mins were up they asked around 10mins worth of questions based on the presentation and my customer experience. This was relatively pain free, with both examiners/interviewers being pretty encouraging throughout. Finally, for the last half-hour of the interview the interviewers asked me more questions. Again they asked some questions based on my CV, and others such as: "why Lidl?", "can you tell us how you would reach a target, for example increased sales", "give us an example of when you supported someone/others", and "what makes this role right for you?" You'll also have the opportunity at the end to ask some questions of your own - use this opportunity! I found that my questions generated quite a bit of talk, and managed to generate a few laughs which lightened the mood. I left feeling that it went as good as it could have. Other candidates again expressed similar views. It seemed like in total, around half the candidates from the previous stage made it through to this final stage (around 60). A week later I heard word from Lidl that I had been successful.

I applied for the role and I was immediately sent online application questions which included situational and personality questions. After three/four weeks I was invited to a telephone interview, I was told before the interview that the questions would be based on why I want to work at Lidl, why I want to work in retail management and my passions. I was told a week later that I wouldn't be progressing through the programme and when I requested feedback I was told this was because I didn't have enough professional leadership experience. I was annoyed at the interviewer for failing to ask me for further leadership examples which I could have easily given them. I personally believe the interviewer I had did not fully understand the difference between leadership and management.