Schuh launches investigation after 'teen made to wear paper bag and make animal noises' during interview

The interview took place at a Schuh store in Sheffield
Rex Features
Sophie Williams12 May 2018

Retail chain Schuh has launched an investigation after a student claims he was told to put a bag on his head and make animal noises during a group interview.

Seventeen-year-old Dom Wright said the "degrading and humiliating" experience was part of a group interview for a sales advisor role at the shoe store.

After attending the two-hour-long interview at Sheffield's Meadowhall shopping centre, Mr Wright was told he had not got the job.

He told The Sun that the group interview was attended by 25 hopefuls looking for employment at the store.

"All 25 of us were given a bag and an animal we had to pretend to be," he said.

The A-level student said he was told to be a cow.

"We had to make the noises until we found the other person in the room who had been given the same animal," he added.

A spokesman for Schuh told the Standard: "We are appalled that this ice breaker was used and do not condone this or any similar tasks being suggested in an interview situation.

"We often use group interviews as part of our recruitment process for sales advisors and within those interviews our store management teams are encouraged to use ice breakers designed to put candidates at ease.

"Stores are issued with a list of tasks that can be used which are pre-approved by our training and HR departments as well as our senior management team however in this case the store have attempted to be creative and used their own task.

"We have opened an investigation with store as to why this happened and reiterated to all company personnel that any deviations from our current policy on interview techniques must be approved in advance by our training and HR departments as well as our senior management team."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT