Food & Drink & Catering Interview Questions & Answers

The most difficult question was "What is your biggest weakness and why?"

After submitting my application I received an email asking to arrange a telephone interview.
This stage was awkward with the interviewer also asking questions that I found out of place, such as " Do you consider yourself a Geek? "
After our chat which took 30-40 minutes I heard back within 3-4 days. I was invited to their group interview/ assessment day.
There were seven candidates, with the exception of myself the intake was mainly recent graduates in business/ management related degrees. The ratio was two female to five male candidates.
The assessment was ruthless and involved a cull at lunch time. The stages up till lunch involved watching an introduction video about the company. A Group exercise and an individual presentation. They allowed one hour preparation for the presentation.
I felt everyone in the group was highly capable and skilled.
After the half way point the assessors ( 5-7 in total) choose one or two final candidates, who then would have been interviewed.

During the presentation I was repeatedly asked the same question which was challenging as I had already answered it so it meant finding other way of expressing the same thing.

Suit up, you need to dress professional and corporate.

Go all out stand up and really shout about how great you are, I guess in the end this is about you showing that extra grit, this seemed to be their style. Speak up and stand up.

The group exercise involved a case study approx. 5 pages. This felt like a typical A level business studies style exercise. In this case we had to develop different strategies to deal with the emergency. This included long term and short term planning. We had 10 minutes to read the brief and then 20 minutes to organize ourselves as a team, discuss and then present our solution.

My advise her would be to be aggressive. one candidate stood up and started drawing on the board and this appeared to go down well.

The interview was pretty tough, especially as the interviewers were a bit weird in terms of reacting to my answers (probably part of a little stress interview).
The questions were the usual ones, why the company, why me, why this job, what differentiates me from others applicants, background questions to my CV and experience, etc.
As the interview was part of an assessment center it also felt a bit clocked with only having a limited amount of time.

Why do you want to work internationally, conference rooms look the same everywhere in the world (on airports, in hotels)?

Seriously, what do they want to hear???

Think really hard about why you want this job and if you really could fit into their very specific company culture. They give a good overview of what they expect and what it is like working for them on their website.
Most of all, be honest and be yourself as they will be able to tell...

Well organised (incl. Hotel booking, descriptions how to get to the venue, time slots etc); we could meet with and talk to former trainees; interesting group exercise; useful information about the company and getting "a feeling" what it could be like working there

Telephone interview with member of HR, questions revolving around CV, Skills and reason for wanting the role.
Assessment centre involved a group exercise (20mins), an individual presentation (15mins) based on case study data provided on the day (1hr prep), a one-to-one interview with a senior member of management (50-60mins) then another group exercise (30mins). One to one Interview completely structured questions, entirely competency based + 1 question about why this company.
All employees were incredibly friendly, helping you throughout the day, regular breaks throughout the day to recouperate and refresh yourself.

Describe a time when you addressed a customer need prior to them needing it

Be interested in the role, be driven and be friendly. Ultimately they want individual who will fit their culture so by being yourself will enable you and them to make the right decision about fit. If not then you may find yourself in a role that you aren't a good fit for because you put on a persona during the selection process.

Group exercise (20mins), an individual presentation (15mins) based on case study data provided on the day (1hr prep), a one-to-one interview with a senior member of management (50-60mins) then another group exercise (30mins).

The first interview in the process was a telephone interview, which was approximately 30 minutes. This was rather informal and like a friendly conversation, where I was asked a little bit about my background, what drew me to the food industry, why I wanted to work for ABF, why I wanted to work in the Technical Graduate role and why I wanted to work for the FMCG as a whole.
The second interview (after being successful with the first interview) was a Skype interview with a different person, where similar questions were asked to the first interview but looking for more specific answers and why this particular company over other FMCG companies. Competency based questions were also asked based on the values of ABF.

What is your biggest failure and what have you learnt from this?
Can you tell me a time when you had to persuade someone in a more senior role of an idea you had and what was the outcome?

Make sure you research the company, not just all there brands but there beliefs and values and how you can apply this to tasks or experiences that you have done.

Be yourself, there was only one role for this scheme and they are looking for the right person, so if you're not perfect for the job you are not going to enjoy it as much.

A 60 minute group exercise (participants), in which the first 10 minutes involved reading a set of data and then the 50 minutes discussing as a group how we would go about the task.

A 10 minute presentation of which 45 minutes were given before to prepare. I was given with a set of situations and I had to choose the one in which I thought was the most important and why and come up with a 5 year action plan.I was provided with a flip chart to aid with this. I ended up talking about why the change in the current global economy and the effect of the UK's current financial status was going to be on the company and ideas as to how they would deal with this.

Had 3 interviews, one situational interview, one personality interview in which a personality test was undertaken before the assessment centre and one motivational interview.

After my application has been accepted and I also progressed through the testing stage (including an online situational judgement test and a verbal test), I was invited to a telephone interview. I haven't received the answer yet, but they told me that the final stage of the process is an Assessment centre.

The Competency Based Phone interview covered terms like motivation, teamwork, relationship building and influencing and lasted about 20-25 minutes. They also asked me HR specific questions and wanted me to link the theoretical knowledge from university to the business environments.

How do you think the HR department can influence the company position in the market?

Make sure you follow the advice they give you prior the interview, and research the company and the food industry. Also, it would be good if you refresh the SMART approach to structure your responses and try to be specific, as they take notes.

I can't comment on that, as the Assessment centre will take place from February onwards.