Co Op interview prep

Why would you like to become a Customer Team Member

I like Co op company would be great to work for; talk about how the position is a perfect fit for what you hope to accomplish, both short-term and long-term.

I like that you see different people every day and get

I like being kept busy in a work environment and I know that this will encourage this from me

I like being hands on and seeing the impact that I make as part of the role

Long term - I could see my8self

Building confidence in my communication and interpersonal skills

I believe this role will be a great opportunity to progress in my career, as I use my skills to help the company achieve success in [thing I am good at]."

Please tell me about yourself and what you’ve been doing for the past few years? Why would you like to work at the Coop?

Who am I? Hello, my name is Mariam. I’ve been working in customer service for just over 3 years. I really like customer facing roles, I think it’s because I’ve enjoyed roles in debating and MUN that are

Where I’ve been? I’ve worked as a telethon fundraiser, Oxfam and in a pharmacy, using my customer service skills to create a strong rapport with customers and be a friendly face to everyone that comes in

Why am I here? I really want to work in a supermarket, I like shopping. I’m really excited to bring my customer service skills that I’ve learned to this new company and develop and learn new skills in this environment.

Can you tell me about a situation where you had to build a relationship with someone else at work?

telethon role, buidling relationships with prospective donors, one donor was more than happy for a call back and ended up making a monthly donation

Can you tell me about a time when you had to stand up for your position (or that of a friend) in a difficult situation?

in MUN, we were debating something that my groupmate had made a resolution about in support of

one of the other student had made a speech and multiple queries, quite sharply and negatively against her document. they came at such a fast pace that she didn’t have time to properly process and answer the questions to the best of her ability.

So I made an opposing speech to theirs in favour of her document highlighting the positives and combatting the negatives. For example, they had made comments on the timeline of the procedures being too vague, so I combatted with being strict being unfair for all countries.

Can you tell me about a time when you had to communicate important information to other people / to colleagues at work?

At Oxfam, man was trying to shoplift, had to ask colleague to come over to ‘help’ with the till and make way over to other till to press button to alert senior colleagues downstairs, something that we had been trained to always alert a senior colleague.

Can you tell me about a time at work, or elsewhere, where you’ve involved others to discuss a challenge or an issue?

Created a mentorship programme with other student societies after noticing antisocial behaviour in the younger students at school

Can you tell me about a time when you have taken ownership of a task/activity/project and made it a success?

Whilst studying at boarding school, our boarding house was practicing for the school singing competition, where every house participates and the practices are usually led by the oldest students in the house, which was my age group at this time. Alongside the rest of my year group, we had to lead these house singing practices by working together as a team. At this time, we had reached the part of the school term where everyone was quite tired and ready to go home. I realised that a lot of our housemates were no longer motivated to practice in order for us to perform as best as we could, which meant longer practices and constraints on academic commitments. I communicated to my fellow leaders in my year and split us up into pairs that led each third of the house. Before the next practice, I had spoken to the rest of my year to provide sweets as incentives for good participation, which I knew would be a well appreciated reward after having taken the initiative to speak to some of our younger housemates for feedback on how we could improve our practices. By clearly instructing the rest of our house and encouraging them in singing by providing routine rest breaks and the sweets, we were able to achieve a high level of performance for the competition and received 2nd place. I gained confidence in my listening and interpersonal skills to encourage my younger house members to enjoy the singing practices to lead the rest of the house.