I applied on Asda's website and was invited to Asda Life Assessment Centre. A very long and draining interview, would not recommend. The whole event was very unorganised. They vaguely said to enter through 'the staff door', which turns out to be a door on the side of the building and not anywhere inside (after I spent about 10 mins inside looking for). The staff door itself was locked and no one would answer when I rang the bell. I had to wait until an actual employee was going into work so that they could open the door for me. It was a good thing I came early, otherwise I would have been very late. But it turns out being late wouldn't have even mattered. Because when I was told to wait upstairs in the staff canteen, the interviewers ended up being HALF AN HOUR late. So it was just me and the others who were there for the group interview waiting awkwardly there, with the current staff on their lunch break casting us curious looks every so often. But that wasn’t even the main problem. The problem was that I knew I wouldn’t even get the job before the interview started. Why? Because everyone else there was black. All of the staff I had seen so far were black – only me and another candidate were the only white people there. But I decided to give it my best anyway – at least I would get some interview practice, if anything. The interviewers finally arrived and brought us down to a room so we could all introduce ourselves, being asked about things such as our favourite meals. They photocopied all our documents and ID, even though some of us might not even get the job. We were given a tour and then brought out onto the shop floor. We were asked to find things we liked, disliked and what could be changed about the shop. Then we were asked to go find a random customer and ask them for feedback about the shop. Some of the candidates didn’t come back until about 10 mins after the deadline, so we had to just linger around for ages. Then we had to stack shelves for ages (to the point we were basically working for free), whilst a ‘covert’ staff member came up to us individually and asked where a particular product was. Then at last, we were finally given one-to-one interviews. There was a big group of us and each interview lasted about 30 mins, so waiting took forever. The interviewers were friendly and asked typical questions like ‘Why Asda?’, ‘Do you have any other commitments and responsibilities?’, etc. They also explained how it doesn’t take long to climb the ranks. Less than a week later I got an email saying I didn’t get the job. I had been told at the interview that I could ring up for feedback if I didn’t get the job. So I called and of course, everything was disorganised as usual. Everyone kept redirecting me everywhere and no one had apparently heard of the interviewers’ names. I tried again a few days later and it was the same nonsense. The email I received was a donotreply address too, so in the end, I just had to give up looking for feedback. So were they purposely avoiding me? Probably. Can’t exactly give feedback saying ‘We don’t hire white people’. Of course, they may have had other reasons for not hiring me, but the whole thing’s very suspicious…

The first interview had us show up and present a government verified ID and our national insurance numbers. Both had to be verified and in date. Those who didn't have it in paper form had to leave! Bring your papers! Then there was us in the "Asda magic" interview where we wrote a few things about our selves and someone next to us had to read it and introduce us. After that, we "sold" an Asda own brand item to someone. It took about twenty minutes as we had a small group. Then we filled in our time available on a sheet and went home. A few days later I got word to come back for a 1-1 interview. Here I was asked more formal questions.