First Assessment Centre in the UK
I received an invitation from Harrods to attend an Assessment Centre of theirs today. It was scheduled to start at 5:30pm, so I decided to go there earlier just in case Murphy wanted to screw around with me. I took 10 million years to get ready because I was not used to putting on make up, doing my hair, wearing stockings and donning on a suit, but I managed to get out of the house at 3pm. Murphy was nice to me today, so I didn't miss any buses or anything, but I swear people were staring at me in the tube. I'm sure they were all thinking: what's this girl doing in a suit at this time of day? I tried avoiding eye contact during the entire journey to Harrods but it just seemed to take longer than usual to arrive at my destination.
When I finally reached Harrods, I wandered around the department store in awe of the magnificence of the building and all of its extravagant products. Since I was early, I visited the Laduree shop and took in all the loveliness of the macarons. But then I realised that I had no idea where the interview was being held, so I went around asking. The staff were so helpful, I did not expect any less from them but it was a pleasant feeling to know that if necessary, there are people who are willing to help. They gave me precise directions to the staff entrance and bid me good luck. I journeyed on with a smile on my face. It was a separate building from the department store but was easy enough to locate. After I got past security, I proceeded to the atrium to wait for my turn.
Turns out that I was not the only one who was early, there were several others already waiting there, flipping through their "speech". I had not prepared a script myself and was really nervous. So I grabbed a chair and started a conversation with them. Turns out that the blue-eyed Russian girl had been interviewed by Harrods before and there were other China chinese girls going for the same position. Oh my god, competition! I thought. But was quickly distracted by this charming british guy. He was really friendly and we talked about everything there was to talk about. One thing I found really cute about him was that, he hated his own accent! That cracked me up. He was like: How I wish I had an American accent! And he proceeded to tell me how he loved Florida and would give anything to work there. Needless to say, time flew by after that and it was time for the assessment.
This girl led us into a meeting room and went through her powerpoint slides. We were then required to give an introduction of ourselves and why we want to work with Harrods. As usual, I sped through the entire thing due to stage fright and got off the stage as fast as I could. Glad that it was over, we were then put into groups of four to come up with four points that make excellent customer service and to present them to the assessors after 10 minutes. We did not know if all of us had to present or just one, but the Russian girl said she would do it, and that was that. Then, when we found out that all of us had to present, she sniggered! Wow, that was my first time being sabotaged by anyone. Oh well, so I decided to just wing it. Somehow the assessors seemed quite pleased with the bullshit I made up as I went along and that was the end of the assessment! Or so we thought. Turns out that those were only stages 1 and 2! We were told that they would get back to us in 5 working days on whether or not we got through, and that there were 3 more interviews to come. Damn! And I thought it was over and done with! I cannot believe that there are so many stages to go through even for some temporary job! Gah. I guess I could treat this as a practice for the upcoming (hopefully) interviews for engineering positions.
Oh by the way if you were wondering why the hell did I apply for Harrods, it was because they were the only ones who replied positively towards my applications. The rest just rejected me like I'm some trash. =(
When I finally reached Harrods, I wandered around the department store in awe of the magnificence of the building and all of its extravagant products. Since I was early, I visited the Laduree shop and took in all the loveliness of the macarons. But then I realised that I had no idea where the interview was being held, so I went around asking. The staff were so helpful, I did not expect any less from them but it was a pleasant feeling to know that if necessary, there are people who are willing to help. They gave me precise directions to the staff entrance and bid me good luck. I journeyed on with a smile on my face. It was a separate building from the department store but was easy enough to locate. After I got past security, I proceeded to the atrium to wait for my turn.
Turns out that I was not the only one who was early, there were several others already waiting there, flipping through their "speech". I had not prepared a script myself and was really nervous. So I grabbed a chair and started a conversation with them. Turns out that the blue-eyed Russian girl had been interviewed by Harrods before and there were other China chinese girls going for the same position. Oh my god, competition! I thought. But was quickly distracted by this charming british guy. He was really friendly and we talked about everything there was to talk about. One thing I found really cute about him was that, he hated his own accent! That cracked me up. He was like: How I wish I had an American accent! And he proceeded to tell me how he loved Florida and would give anything to work there. Needless to say, time flew by after that and it was time for the assessment.
This girl led us into a meeting room and went through her powerpoint slides. We were then required to give an introduction of ourselves and why we want to work with Harrods. As usual, I sped through the entire thing due to stage fright and got off the stage as fast as I could. Glad that it was over, we were then put into groups of four to come up with four points that make excellent customer service and to present them to the assessors after 10 minutes. We did not know if all of us had to present or just one, but the Russian girl said she would do it, and that was that. Then, when we found out that all of us had to present, she sniggered! Wow, that was my first time being sabotaged by anyone. Oh well, so I decided to just wing it. Somehow the assessors seemed quite pleased with the bullshit I made up as I went along and that was the end of the assessment! Or so we thought. Turns out that those were only stages 1 and 2! We were told that they would get back to us in 5 working days on whether or not we got through, and that there were 3 more interviews to come. Damn! And I thought it was over and done with! I cannot believe that there are so many stages to go through even for some temporary job! Gah. I guess I could treat this as a practice for the upcoming (hopefully) interviews for engineering positions.
Oh by the way if you were wondering why the hell did I apply for Harrods, it was because they were the only ones who replied positively towards my applications. The rest just rejected me like I'm some trash. =(