Aldi Area Manager Interview - tips

justwantajob!

Hey all, I've gotten my PFO from Aldi for the Area Manager position but thought I'd share the experience in case it helps anyone else get a job:

Group interview: about 14 people
1. Everybody introduces themselves, gives info on university attended, qualification, work experience to date
2. Individual exercise, some kind of survival question. E.g. you've crashed in the Artic, these fifteen items can be saved from the wreckage, rank them in order of importance. You've ten minutes to answer this, I don't think it's a very important part of the interview as I didn't read the instructions correctly and so answered very badly, but still got through to 2nd round interview.
3. Same exercise but this time as a group. You're not allowed vote on anything so basically it's seeing how you influence the group to adopt your opinion I think. This part lasts an hour, I would suggest that you refer to other people in the group by name (everybody's name is in front of them) e.g. As Patrick pointed out, hypothermia is a real risk, therefore I think the outdoor jackets are important. This way you've shown that you listen to other people's opinions. If you've ever watched Bear Grylls or anything like that use any info you have, but your actual choices in terms of what you save don't matter, we were told afterwards that if we were really stranded our group would have died as we chose badly!
4. Aptitude tests - five tests, the first was basic arithmetic, adding, subtracting and I think some multiplication. YOu have a pen and paper but no calculator.
The second aptitude test is number sequences, these aren't too hard (though there's a bit of thinking involved), e.g. 4,9,16,25 - what comes next (answer 36)
Then there's spelling, "circle the correct word for use in the following sentence, The ____ required John to make a planning application, Council or Counsel"
Next verbal reasoning and finally analytical skills, Mary runs faster than Joan, John runs slower than Joan, who is the fastest
5. A debate. Even if you disagree with the topic try to find something you can argue for and stick with that. Obviously if you agree with the topic you're luckier!

Second round interview:
Very hard. About forty five minutes of grilling, questioning every decision you've ever made about anything. Be ready to defend yourself, but not come across as defensive, which is relatively easy for the first few questions but by the end it felt like i'd been backed into a corner and was trying to fight my way out.
Examples of questions (I've spoken to another girl who was interviewed the same day, she had similar questions):

1. You got x in your Leaving Cert, y in your degree and z in your masters, your results are decreasing in every case (v high leaving, middling degree, pass masters). Would you agree that you're on a downward spiral and peaked when you were in school?

2. Why didn't you get a 1.1 in degree? Why did you get a pass masters? Does that mean you were at the back of the pack in terms of your ranking in your class?

3. How did you pay for your masters? (i answered that i got a loan, in retrospect I should have said a combination of saving, working through uni and part loan)

4. You chose to study in the UK. Do you regret this now since you're applying for work in Ireland?

5. You studied x and now you're applying for a job as an area manager. Does that mean that your career to date has been a failure and you have to restart?

6. Convince me you're able for the demands of working for Aldi

You get the picture - lots and lots of "I think you're rubbish, convince me I'm wrong"

One of Donald's questioning techniques is to ask the question then start explaining what he means by his question, so he ends up talking for ages and by the time he stops you've forgotten what his original question was. I tried to keep repeating the original question in my head, while still listening to him.

I would strongly strongly recommend going into an Aldi store before the interview and talking to an area manager. I didn't do this and I honestly believe it cost me the job. (I know it might have been my answers, just giving my honest thoughts on the matter). I didn't do it because I thought it would be weird, then the night after the interview I happened to be in aldi and while the store assistant was scanning my stuff I asked him what he thinks of the area manager, does he seem happy in his job, is he ever unnecessarily snappy, etc - and thought to myself, i'm such an idiot, I could have come in before my interview

Another of the big questions is have you ever fired anyone, how did you do it. How do I know you've got the people skills required for this job? How are you going to motivate people to do their job

Third Round

I didn't get past the second round, but one of my questions in the second round was what happens in the next round.

The third round is with two regional directors. They will have seen your cv but not donald's notes on you so it's another interview like the second round. Donald can overule their decision if he chooses, but really if the regional directors aren't coming to the same conclusions about you then he's going to question his initial decision.

And finally, I asked him about the role of area manager. It's constant auditing of your stores. Each store is marked based on different criteria, and these marks are added up to give the store a total score. Then each of the area manager's stores' scores are added up to give a total score for the area, and it's the area manager's job to make sure that that score is maintained at a certain level.

I hope that helps, if I think of anything else I'll add it!

mydadsandy

Thank you for this. Great post! Have the interview in the morning!

Raiser

First of all your post was very decent of you - to go to that much trouble in the interests of others is very admirable.

- Second of all, can I just add that, in my opinion, the Management Program at Aldi is based around recruiting bright young folks, working them 105 hours, 7 days a week until they are a gibbering soul-destroyed wreck of a person - a mere shell of their former selves.

Inevitably they'll note the signs of your sanity crumbling and arrange the next round of group interviews just in time to replace you as you collapse - a used, empty husk.

monsterbunch

It has not changed much since 2009 then, I was just at the group interview last monday. Donald just sits at the top like a dark over lord i got the impression he made up his mind about people very quickly and I didnt seen him take notes. Came across as very hard nosed person with little personalty. It must be what it take to make it in Aldi. I prefer a some sort of work life balance which is what he was offering.

Lily1225

Hi- I'm new to boards so sorry if I'm jumping on this bandwagon too late. I'm wondering how long was it between submitting your application and when you got called for the group interview? I submitted an application in early January, got the obligatory auto response email and have heard nothing since. Have just taken redundancy after 18 years with the same company so everything around recruitment is new to me.
Thanks in advance