Applied online, received an email a few days later inviting me to book in for an interview slot. Was advised in the email that the interview would be split into three sections lasting for one hour, a styling section, floor walk, then one to one chat. I was also told to dress in my own style and not typical interview clothing as it was a styling interview.
I arrived and was greeted by one of the visual merch managers, he took me up to a room where the main visual merch manager was waiting, I sat down with them and they talked me through what the process would be, they were really nice and said to not be nervous and they know how it feels to be in an interview etc etc.
They left me for 45 minutes to style two mannequins and an extra outfit that I laid out on the table. I had a choice of clothing on a rail which was mainly made up of lots of coats, jumpers and jeans (the clothing choices were pretty horrendous)
They came back and I talked them through my styling choices for the mannequins, they said they were really impressed with what I had done and then we moved on to the floor walk, I was asked to critique their window displays and then point out the differences between two different sections on womenswear, they asked quite misleading questions such as 'How would you dress that mannequin differently?' (Bit difficult to answer if you aren't given different clothing/accessory choices to dress it?) and seemed a bit stumped themselves, constantly asking each other if they had any more questions....
We then went back upstairs to the room and they asked questions about my experience and why I want to work for M&S. The whole process lasted about 1 hour 30 mins.
I felt the interview went really well and the interviewers were really nice. I was quite disheartened to receive an email a few days later from a 'no reply' account saying they wouldn't be taking my application any further, not even an opportunity to request feedback, a call to let me know would have been more appropriate.