Ocado Graduate Scheme Assessment Process

Careers at Ocado

Ocado group is a British technology company specialising in online food grocery delivery through its technological know-how and unparalleled IP. considered to be an attractive company to work for with high ratings on Glassdoor and other review sites. Ocado's growth was boosted by the pandemic with an increase in the adoption of online food delivery in the fast-paced consumer shift to online shopping.

many graduate opportunities exist for potential graduates and other early career job seekers. as an international company with offices in America, Europe and Asia Ocado has various roles in a range of categories from finance to engineering from office to its grocery fulfilment centres. a full list of the graduate opportunities is shown below:

• Join an innovative and fast-growing FTSE100 business
• Global reach- Partnering with grocers all over the world
• We're an equal opportunities employer that celebrates diversity and individuality

Graduates schemes

We have 9 graduate scheme programmes that begin every September offering the chance to work across different teams and departments to determine where your passion and interest lies.

Ocado offers 9 graduate schemes as part of its earl careers programme. each recruitment cycle begins in early September across the different departments and teams. the list of the 9 graduate schemes are as follows:

Analytics - Be part of a team that harnesses the power of data to deliver real-world results.

Business management - Get a broad insight taking on projects across our business, rotating around our functions such as Group Operations, Logistics, Platform Implementation, Technology, and Solutions.

Engineering - Apply your knowledge to a range of projects encompassing design, automation, buildings technology, and more.

Engineering Operations - Get hands-on experience maintaining and improving our Ocado-owned and developed mechanical handling solutions.

Finance - Collaborate with senior stakeholders to analyse and interpret data from around our global technology business in our finance team.

Logistics Concept Design - The CFCs we build for clients all around the world aren’t designed by magic. Combine your creativity and analytical skills and be part of the team that fits everything together to make our new CFCs seamless.

Operations Management - Be responsible for a team of over 30 operatives, overcoming any and all of the challenges that our warehouses can provide.

Software Engineering - Work with complex software systems and write your own independent systems in the ongoing journeys to improve our world-leading grocery platform.

UX - Get involved in designing, testing and implementing the user interfaces and systems that power Ocado.com as well as our colleague-facing systems.

10 valuable nuggets of wisdom from the Ocado team

1. There’s a lot of unique information at Ocado, so use your time as a graduate to ask loads of questions. Get involved in a variety of learning activities.
2. Set yourself short, medium and long term goals (3/6/12/24-month goals). This will allow you to tailor your own journey so you achieve them (a member of our Emerging Talent team will always be on hand to help you determine and achieve your goals).
3. There are a lot of great people at Ocado. Not only will they help with your development journey, but they become extremely valuable for networking. Being willing to get involved in initiatives and asking to be involved in projects that interest you in the long run.
4. In Engineering Operations, our technicians are valuable and inexhaustible sources of engineering-related knowledge. Listen carefully and take on board everything. This will allow you to make more informed decisions and become a better manager.
5. Your attitude towards work is essential. You should be a leader, not a boss. There might be times when you have to get your hands dirty. You’ll get a lot of respect if you're willing to get involved in anything.
6. Respect everyone. At Ocado, we value and hear everybody’s voice. Feel empowered to speak up with your insights, and help others to feel empowered too.
7. Some placements may require hands-on work, so be willing to get your hands dirty. For some, this is the best way to learn.
8. We have a strong, valuable graduate community. Get close with others, both in your cohort and from other years. It’s likely you will work with them all at some point, so having a good workplace relationship will help.
9. If you don't know where you'd like to go and what you enjoy in engineering (but you know that you want to work on something that is at the cutting edge of innovation in its sector), then the engineering graduate programme is a great opportunity to expose yourself to a variety of roles and responsibilities. Go into everything with an open mind and reflect on what you enjoyed and what you were best at.
10. This is an important one. We are always here to help. If you ever feel like you are up against a challenge then your scheme owner, your manager, or your buddy are always here to support you. Discuss the challenges you're facing and how to overcome them. Examples could be learning modules (both internal and external), extra secondments, shadowing, and so on. You should be doing the chasing, don't expect anybody else to.

Ocado Application Process

1. Online application
2. Telephone Interview
3. Online assessment
4. Video interview
5. Assessment centre

The start of the process is broadly the same for any career path in Ocado: it begins with an online application form. This is usually followed by a telephone interview, then perhaps a face-to-face interview. Applicants may be asked to take online assessments, including psychometric tests and job-related, skills-based assessments. Finally, they may attend an assessment centre.

Online application

Ocado tends to advertise job openings on its career site, as well as using some of the bigger online job boards. The initial stage in the application is an online application form. This is broadly similar to most such forms you will have encountered, requiring basic identification information, qualifications, education and prior experience.

Telephone interview

If you’re successful with the online application form, the next stage is a telephone interview. During this, you will likely be asked questions about Ocado and what you know about the business, as well as some simple questions about your experience and qualifications, as shown in the online application. The telephone interview will usually involve someone from Ocado HR.

Online assessment

As with many employers, Ocado uses psychometric testing, and two test types in particular: numerical reasoning and verbal reasoning.

Numerical reasoning tests require a basic understanding of numerical data, typically provided in the form of tables and graphs. Candidates need to be able to understand the given information and use it to find the correct answer.

In verbal reasoning tests, the information given is usually presented as text. Typically, the candidate must decide whether a statement relating to that text is true, false or cannot be determined. For both these tests, no prior knowledge is needed – the answer can always be derived from the information provided. Practice questions on tests of these types can help make you more confident about the way information is presented and how questions need to be answered.

Video interview

The video interview may include questions regarding how the candidate has dealt with challenging situations, for example. A presentation or other demonstration of skills is sometimes also required at this stage. The interview may be conducted by one or more of the Ocado hiring team, including HR and managers.

Assessment centre

For some roles, the final stage of the recruitment process is the assessment centre. Several applicants will be invited to attend a day at a specified location to complete some further assessments. These usually include group projects, like building a tall tower with various foods, as well as job-related assessments. The skills tests might include something related to coding for a software role, or planning a driver route for logistics. Further interviews and presentations might also be done at the assessment centre.

Ocado Interview Questions

Competency style questions with 1 minute and 30 seconds for each answer to the questions

• think about a circumstance in which, despite drawbacks or obstacles, you managed to remain positive and overcome the difficulties. It could be anything from a university/work project that didn’t go as expected, to an event you organised in the past.
• What previous experience do you have?
• think about situations where listening carefully and asking questions helped you solve a problem. What did you do? What was the outcome? What attracted you to apply to Ocado?
• Give me an example of when you overcame a challenging situation?
• Communication Skills: think about situations where listening carefully and asking questions helped you solve a problem. What did you do? What was the outcome?
• Team Orientation: think about a circumstance in which someone was not motivated to fully contribute in organising an event, a party, a university task or a piece of work. How did you ensure they could get fully on board with your plans?
• Relationship Building: think about situations where you were unfamiliar with someone or a group of people, either in a social event or at university/work. How did you get them on your side, developed a relationship or build trust?
• Passion: think about a circumstance where a plan you had made didn’t go as expected. Why did this happen? What did you do to correct the situation?
• Positivity: think about a circumstance in which, despite drawbacks or obstacles, you managed to remain positive and overcome the difficulties. It could be anything from a university/work project that didn’t go as expected, to an event you organised in the past.
• Proactivity: think about a situation where an event, a celebration or a piece of work you cared about required you to change your usual approach to ensure it could be a great success. What conditions made you step away from the methods you were familiar with? What did you struggle with the most in your new ways, and how did you succeed?