What We Look For And The Application Process

On the John Lewis Retail Management Scheme you can expect to be managing your own £multi-million department within 12 to 18 months, progressing into senior store management within a few years.

That’s why we look for graduates with a hunger for success, good commercial awareness, and a passion for people and the Partnership. Strong leadership potential is vital as is your ability to work in, and deliver results through, a team. You’ll be someone who genuinely cares about the well-being of your Partners.

You'll need strong academic qualifications including a minimum 2:2 degree in any discipline, plus a genuine affinity with the principles of the Partnership. We are a unique business that you may wish to visit www.johnlewisPartnership.co.uk for more information on.

Things to bear in mind

One of the minimum criteria to apply to our retail scheme, is that you agree to be located anywhere throughout the UK for at least the first 18 months. A location clause is written into the graduate contract of employment, so it is important that any applicant who desires a place on our scheme realises what this will mean for them
Retail is not a nine to five, Monday to Friday job. It involves some late nights and some weekends, with a great deal of time spent interacting with customers and your team
We are looking for the managers of our future, so want to see people who love working in a branch and realise that this is not a desk-based job. If you wish to work in one location only or at Head Office, you should look at the other schemes we offer
The salary for the scheme is £25,000, and you will receive benefits such as The Partnership annual bonus (which is a proportion of your salary; in 2011 this equated to over nine weeks additional pay), non-contributory pension scheme, a discount card, ticket subsidies and many more.

Application Criteria

The minimum criteria is as follows:

gained a degree equivalent to a BA, BSc or higher at a 2:2 or above by September 2012 which can be in any subject
GCSE Maths and English grade C or above or equivalent
are prepared to work anywhere in the UK
are prepared to work some weekends and late nights on a regular basis

We are sorry, if you do not meet the above minimum criteria, we will not be able to consider your application.

The Application process

There are four stages of our application process and you are required to pass each stage before being invited to the next. For all stages there are strict timelines on completion. See the invite email/s for details.

The first two stages are an online 'cultural fit' questionnaire and a situational judgement test. This takes about 10 minutes to complete and the situational judgement test takes about 30 minutes to complete. Both tests are part of the initial application form itself so we recommend that you find a quiet place where you can concentrate in order to complete your application.

At the third stage you are required to answer some questions. Once you have submitted them, your answers are then marked and, if you reach or exceed the pass mark, you will be invited to a two stage assessment centre.

The assessment centres are the final part of the recruitment process. The assessment centres are in two stages - a group exercise day is the first stage with top scorers invited to come back to a second stage of individual scheme specific exercises. These will be held at the end of January, in February or early March 2012. If you reach this stage, more information will be sent to you on what to expect.

If you are successful at the assessment centre, you will be offered a place on the scheme.

We are always looking at our recruitment process and the Graduate Recruitment Manager may choose at anytime to review the recruitment process.

Hints and Tips

The first tests are automatically marked; the third stage questions however are read and marked by us. Therefore, if you get to this stage, we would recommend that you consider the questions carefully and really think about your answers, using the best examples to highlight your points. Every applicant who applies to us has experienced University, so applicants might want to think about finding examples outside their University or academic experience if possible to highlight the points they wish to make in their answers
Check your application form for spelling and grammar mistakes. We deduct points from applications that are not well presented
Compile all your basic details, qualifications and work experience on a Word document ready. Not only can you then copy and paste your details over to the application form, making the initial application process quicker, this will also be useful for any other schemes you choose to apply for
We will always make reasonable adjustments for disabled candidates. So please let us know if you require extra support at any stage of the process.