Don't get to excited, as this article is not about Steve Jobs visiting the UK's Apple Retail Store, but instead about my failed attempt to get a job with the UK's Apple Retail Stores. When I say failed attempt, it was not a complete failure, as I did make it through the initial stages, but I wanted to write about the whole experience.

The whole process began back in November 2007, when I applied on-line for a position within one of Apple's UK retail stores, and then in early December 2007 I received my invite to the stores recruitment seminar, which was due to take place in early January 2008. Like anyone who has a passion for Apple and its products this invite left me grinning from ear to ear, and very excited about what 2008 might bring me.

January arrived, and off I trekked to the Apple Store for the seminar. Upon arrival I was greeted by a very friendly member of the existing retail team, who invited me in to the closed store (this seminar was held out of hours). There were already quite a few people waiting in-trepidation of the pending evenings events, and over the next few minutes the numbers swelled. Everyone stood around waiting, with some people mingling and talking with each other, and eventually when everyone had arrived one of the team leaders introduced himself and announced the evenings proceedings. We all filled in name tags, stored our stuff and headed upstairs to begin the 1st stage of the interview process. As we all reached the top of the stairs we were all greeted by the now standard Apple greeting of jeers and claps from all the existing Apple Retail staff. At first I found this very strange, but it put a smile on everyones face, and put most of us at ease. Once upstairs we all gathered around an iMac where the store manager and his team leaders introduced themselves. Next it was the time for each of us to introduce ourselves, and tell everyone something about ourselves and why we wanted to work for Apple Retail. Once this task was out of the way there were several presentations from each of the team leaders about the various sections with in the store, and eventually we were split up in to small groups and the each group went to various parts of the store to carry out an activity. The group that I was in had the task of taking any product from the range of accessories and sell it. This was a fairly easy and enjoyable task, which gave everyone the chance to show their enthusiasm and demonstrate to the team leader that they could make what it takes to become a member of the team. During this stage the store manager came around and had a quick chat with everyone, and then after about 2hrs the event came to an end, and we were all thanked for attending, and told we would be notified in the next week if we had been successful and made it to the next stage.

One week passed and I received my phone call. Good news I had made it through to the second stage, and was invited for a 1 to 1 interview. This is where the process in my opinion began to fall down, as the interview was not with the store manager, but instead with one of the team leaders, and not the team leader who had obviously recommended me for the second stage. Despite this I was over-the-moon, and on the day of the interview I headed off excited as a pig-in-shit, as I was hoping for great things. When I arrived for the interview, I was left hanging around waiting for the team leader to come and interview me, and whilst the interview process took about 30-40mins, it was flawed from the start. The team leader did not have my CV, and had done no preparation, as she did not know anything about my background. I had taken with me a copy of my CV, and as it was apparent that she new nothing about my past, I offered to get my CV out for her to reference, but this offer that was turned down!!! Because of this lack of preparation she had no idea that I had attended an Apple training course, and was planning to study for, and take (and hopefully pass) the Apple Certified Help Desk Specialist exam. Also during the interview process at no time were salaries discussed, so I know you should not ask about pay, but I felt this had to be asked, and the reply to my question about pay, was "we pay above national average rates", but she would not elaborate on any hourly rates or salary pay scales scales. I left the interview somewhat disappointed, and it came as no surprise when I received the email saying "Thank you for your interest in an opportunity with Apple retail. At this time we have chosen to move ahead with candidates who better meet the business needs today. We wish you the best in your future endeavors."

One month later, a very strange thing happened, I received another email inviting me to another recruitment seminar at the same Apple Retail Store. This invite was from one of the Team Leaders I had met during the first seminar, so I sent an email querying the invite, and I pointed out that I had already attended the previous months recruitment seminar, and did this mean they wanted to see me again? Surprise, surprise I never got a reply to this email!!

All-in-all I was disappointed with the whole experience, and the way in which some of the management team carried out the process, and getting a second invite left me thinking that there was a lack of communication in this store. I would like to think this was an isolated experience, so if anyone else reading this post has any good or bad experiences then post a comment, or get in-touch.

Tags: Apple Retail, Jobs at Apple

Welcome to the Mac Café, my name is Glyn Evans and I am the owner of Pocket PC Solutions, iCase Shop and justMAC. You can read more about me and why I have created this blog here.

This is my first, of what I hope will be many posts, and my plans are to produce as many video posts as possible, and hope that 70% of this blogs content will be video reviews and interviews. If there are any products or topics you would like me to try and review or report on, or if you are a manufacturer or supplier who would like to submit products for review, then please contact me with your details and request.