I was told the first part would be a selling exercise where you were given one sheet detailing the food product you were trying to sell to the 'customer' (interviewee) and another sheet with additional information and then there would be a series of interview questions to follow. However, I was supposed to be effectively presenting to a group of other interviewees while being assessed but I was the only one at the interview slot so I just presented to one of the M&S workers while the manager assessed. The item I was given was the wood fired margarita pizza and the first sheet of paper gave a small description of it and other info such as its salt/carb content (which I thought wasn't relevant to upselling the product). The other sheet detailed sparks offers, info such as buy a side salad for an extra £1 or add extra mozzerella and I mentioned everything relevant to the product - there was some useless info - they were clearly trying to see what you would pick out as relevant to selling the food product to the customer. I was given just under 10 mins to read through the info and take notes (do take notes because they take this sheet with them when marking). To me it was less of a role play exercise and more like a small presentation (I spent about 1-2 mins presenting) because the person playing the customer basically didn't talk back or ask any questions. They were very friendly and the manager assessing wasn't staring at me while I was presenting which took the pressure off a bit but remember to keep smiling anyway. Once they came back in the room they asked me how I thought that went and what could have gone better and were very understanding that this wasn't a very natural thing to do (speaking to customers in real life is a lot easier). The manager asked me a few standard interview questions for a retail job such as "why M&S", "what do you expect from M&S customer service", "name a time you worked well as a team", also one which stumped me a bit - "what could be better about M&S customer service" so you were to basically criticise them but they said this was kind of a trick question - I answered that it was good from my experience so don't have any criticisms. They then asked the standard availability questions etc (irrelevant to passing the interview) and then left the room to assess both aspects of the assessment. Once she came back in, she told me I had passed both part of the assessment (role play and interview) and offered me the job on the spot.

After reading a few reviews I was worried about getting role play for my assessment/interview however I only got an interview and asked a few questions about myself and experience in a food environment. The manager was really nice and friendly to talk to especially making me feel at ease about my learning difficulty.