Adecco Group Interview Questions & Answers

Obviously, as with any other company, the first thing I have done was to send my CV and cover Letter. I then received a call from one of their recruiters just to have a brief chat and he sent me some information about the company and the role. He told me to call him back in case I was interested. As I was, I have done a phone interview where I was asked some general questions on my background and on why I wanted to join that company. Specifically they asked me why I wanted to take over that role and how I would have been successful doing it. After the telephone interview I was invited to an assessment center in their HQ in London. We were previously given a couple of short case studies that we had to read for the assessment day. That day we had 3 exercises. The first one was a group one where we had to acquire a potential client: we were given time to discuss as a group of three people and then we had to do the role-play. The second was a face-to-face interview where we were supposed to be the interviewer; we were given a couple of CVs and the job description. Individually we had to decide which CV fitted the best and then we had to sell the position bargaining on the salary. Lastly, we had to solve an issue. They gave some real life problems and we had to pretend to be on the phone to calm the situation. Overall, the assessment center lasted around 2 hours and we were 6 people. At the assessment center they invite people for any type of position: from the entry level ones to the more specialized ones. Candidates were then given a mark in different relevant categories.

I found extremely hard pretending to be an interviewer. As I have never done it before, I missed some fundamental questions.

If you are interested in applying for this company there are a couple of things to keep in mind. First, as with any other company, make sure your CV is up to date with all the relevant information, and the cover letter is tailored to the needs of the company. You do not have to be an expert in Adecco or recruitment consulting, however, it is important to possess some knowledge on the subject. What Adecco does, how it is divided, how it operates, and how it differs from its competitors. During the phone interview, just be calm and confident. This is what they want to see I think: a friendly confident individual who does not have problems to talk on the phone. Be interesting, keep the conversation going and prepare a couple of questions to ask the interviewer when the interview is finished. You can ask him the team members, the culture of the company: show him you are interested in understanding better the philosophy of the agency. For the assessment day, I do not have any real good advice that I can give since I did not get the job. Nevertheless, I would say to meet with a friend of yours and pretend to interview him for a job. I think that people should do some more role-playing at home. Try to imagine having a conversation with the HR manager of a big company and attracting him to make a contract with Adecco. Always be polite, but confident and firm.

That day we had 3 exercises. The first one was a group one where we had to acquire a potential client: we were given time to discuss as a group of three people and then we had to do the role-play. The second was a face-to-face interview where we were supposed to be the interviewer; we were given a couple of CVs and the job description. Individually we had to decide which CV fitted the best and then we had to sell the position bargaining on the salary. Lastly, we had to solve an issue. They gave some real life problems and we had to pretend to be on the phone to calm the situation. Overall, the assessment center lasted around 2 hours and we were 6 people. At the assessment center they invite people for any type of position: from the entry level ones to the more specialized ones. Candidates were then given a mark in different relevant categories.

In my initial phone interview they wanted to make sure I knew what the role was and was comfortable doing it. They asked questions like would you be able to support yourself on 16-18k the first year in a new place (ie. Bristol). They didn't want people dropping out as they couldn't afford to live. They wanted evidence of self motivation, happy to work in an individual role, evidence that you are money motivated. Not so much asking for experience, but when we were talking about the role as in why I applied I would say certain things and they would go "Ahh so you are self motivated!" "Ahh so you are money motivated!" etc..

The most difficult question would probably be in one of the tasks when doing a mock exercise as a recruitment consultant the intimidating mock client when told that we had a wider range of graduates than our competitors, announced he was in talks with recruitment businesses just as big and professional as us, what makes us stand out? As we had not started a career as Recruitment Consultants yet, our team was a bit stumped how to answer this and we were only able to offer whimsical suggestions.

Be really confidant straight away, talk to the other guys who are interviewing with you, don't see them as competitors. It's an interview, but also a great chance to social network with people interested in the same career as you. I have stayed in touch with four people from my interview and we have all tried to let each other know about jobs that are available. If you are moving to a new city it's a great way to meet people as well! From a purely interview perspective then the people you are speaking to may be doing the tasks with later, it's to your advantageous to already have a rapport in order to do tasks!

As much as it is not about the facts they give you for tasks, rather how you approach people, make sure you pick up the key tasks! There is nothing worse than when they ask you where a graduate works and you guess London! (Even if it is London!)

In groups of three we had to sell ourselves to a company looking for 5 graduates to use us and then see if there were any deals e can do ie. use us permanently or get a higher price.

The next task was individual where we met with a graduate and tried to convince them to take a job.

The next task was in groups of three again and it was doing problem solving, so hard issues by clients and graduates came up, played by the interviewers, that we had to deal with them accordingly.