Telephone interview with GSM and RM, followed by a 2 hour face to face that consisted of a coaching task and competency based questions.
The process started out okay, the telephone interview was simple enough and the face to face was then arranged in the Cardiff branch following this.
The face to face interview was pretty standard, no issues and it's what you'd typically expect for an AM position. The staff were nice enough in person too.
This is where the positives end however.
Upon visiting the venue I was told we'd adhere to social distancing due to COVID, which we certainly did not. There were greetings and even hands extended to be shaken upon arrival, despite the government guidance.
The rest of the issues then came following the interview. I went 2 weeks with no contact from either the recruitment team or the retail team that interviewed me to convey an outcome.
It wasn't until a colleague of mine sent me a link to a vacancy at Metro Bank that had just gone live 2 days prior, for the very same position I had interviewed for.
I then emailed the interviewing managers to thank them for their time, and politely ask for an outcome. I received no response from them, but did then get a call off the recruiter who set the interview up many weeks prior to offer some feedback.
They then advised they'd decided to go with another candidate, which is fine, that's all I needed to know to put it to rest, however the vacancy had been reposted, the hiring manager had posted it on Linkedin the same day asking for applications, and in fact one of my other colleagues who I worked closely with, and possessed exactly the same experience from our current roles as General Managers had been contacted a day earlier and invited to an interview for the same role at the same branch.
When challenged on this, the recruiter simply stated "it must have been a mistake" and that they would contact the store manager to confirm, since they had definitely offered the position to someone already.
Clearly there's a significant breakdown in communication across the board, for them to interview, go radio silent, continue to interview and repost the vacancy online before even offering verdicts to the previous applicants.
Furthermore, when I asked for a copy of the feedback in writing for future reference, it took another 2 weeks to receive it via email, and the feedback was completely different to what I was told over the phone. By all accounts, if the emailed feedback had been accurate, I would've had the job.
All in all the process was messy, there was a complete lack of structure and communication between the parties involved, and frankly the way it was handled after I prompted a response highlights how unfocussed this business is, for there to be zero accountability for such a botched recruitment process.
Bare in mind, I was a General Manager willing to step down a level to join their business based on their reputation as a trend setter. After this experience, I can confidently say that they are not that.