I applied online and received an email asking me to book my slot for a group assessment. After doing that I had an email giving me a document which explained what I needed to do to prepare for the interview. I was asked to create a mood board of current trends and a 10 minute presentation to your "assessors" which would be followed by a 10 minute question and answer. The email said to report to the partners entrance reception. So I spent hours preparing this presentation, doing research and what not and put it all on my USB assuming there would be a screen I would be using to give this presentation to my assessors. So on the day of the interview I go through the partners entrance and there isn't a clear reception, the place I walked into there was a man sat in a corner tucked away who didnt even acknowledge me so I assumed I was in the wrong place until I realised there was nowhere else I could be going so I was told to just take a seat in a very dismissive manner. The group was taking through to this room where the process was explained, we would be having one to one interviews and then a group task. Fair. There was four assessors who were from various departments of the store which slightly surprised me since we had been asked to prepare a presentation and mood board etc which was visual merchandising specific but never mind. Since there was 4 assessors and 5 in my group one person had to wait until everyone had an individual interview as only one assessor was interviewing (the email suggested you would be interviewed by more than one). My one to one interview was with a lady from a different department, I explained I had my mood board and presentation on a USB and she looked confused so luckily I had taken my laptop just in case so I had to show her it on that. Fair enough it could have been a misunderstanding on my behalf but usually a presentation is digital. She asks to show me my mood board which I talk through and then I actually had to ask if I was showing her my presentation or if that was for later as it hadnt been mentioned so she was like ah yeh you can just show me it. So I'm going through this presentation which I had prepared believing it was for a couple of people at least as the email had clearly stated "assessors" and the woman interviewing doesn't seem particularly interested at all, at one point I literally thought why did I even bother making this?! Then the "10 minute question and answer" at the end consisted of her looking through a generic printed out list of questions and saying she was looking to see which ones were relevant to ask me so there was clearly no genuine interest. So after the individual interview theres a group task where you're put into small groups and we were given a work style scenario and had to come up with an action plan. This "scenario" was as if you would have been working alone but as a group you had to problem solve. This was simple enough and fair enough as long as you're extremely bossy and don't let anybody else speak or have an opinion. Two girls in my group were exactly like that and the assessors who were observing seemed to be loving them. Overall, I expected so much more professionalism from John Lewis, its recognised as being a good quality store etc yet that interview to me was a shambles. I spent hours considering and preparing the presentation they asked for and it was literally seen by one woman from a different department who didn't even seem to understand what I was talking about or seem particularly bothered if I actually showed her it or not.