I applied online and received confirmation that I made the initial sift two weeks later and thus was invited to the first interview which was a group interview. This interview started off with a short presentation by the recruiters on the company, the role for which we were being considered and an personal introduction by each of them which included their journey to being where they are today. Surely enough, the recruiters also wanted to know a bit about us and so we were asked to do the same; brief introduction of yourself. We were then further split into two groups and required to work together to complete a group task. Group Task presented us with a realistic scenario, basically about a dirty store, that was performing badly, had unmotivated staff, decrease in footfall, profits... In our groups, we were asked to discuss the main problems, come up with solutions and prepare a presentation which would be later demonstrated to the rest of the wider group and recruiters on the problems and potential solutions. The second group had the same scenario and carried out the same task. Then it came to the end where there were Q&As. We were told that we'd be contacted within a week to know if we made it through to the next stage. Two days later, I received an email congratulating me on my success. Interview two was a personal interview with an area manager and a store manager. It was quite relaxed but still fairly formal in terms of content and competency as expected. The majority of the questions were came under the categories of behavioural or competency, however, there were a few opinion based questions (subjectively respond and analyse a certain scenario or yourself even) and experience based questions (which asked you about a situation and required you to evaluate what you learnt, or highlight features of your background...). Overall, I felt I did very well. I knew the company inside out, including their parent company, I have been shopping at their stores for many years now and know their products and what their forte is, I knew all about their culture and CSR, and I even realised and demonstrated that I knew more than my recruiters about the company on a global scale. I think the interview was going so well that they were finding it hard to intimidate me or find a difficult question for me and then the Japanese guy tried to put on a serious face asking a more difficult question, still one which I felt I answered well because he seemed impressed with the gesture he made; kind of smiled shaking his head. At the end, I was told I'd hear back from them within 5 days and at that point I think I made my first mistake. I told them that I would be away during x time which perhaps included the times for the next round interviews. The manager who escorted me out slipped (I think) and said for the next round we'll have to try to get you seen sooner by the senior manager if possible. My second mistake was sending a thank you note which reminded them of the dates. I know many people in top firms and they told me never put up any barriers which I did. That said, I was not selected for the second to last interview. I believe it was down to my availability, but who knows, I may be wrong. Asked for feedback, none was provided. Really felt gutted because they did not offer me the opportunity to improve myself based on the experience.