Retail Interview Questions & Answers

The lovely staff members were very welcoming.

The interview was made interesting by other exercises that not all recruiters do, it
wasn't too formal as people are dressed in sports clothes which made the atmosphere more appealing to me.

I was able to learn about the company and it was interesting to see their core values, what they can offer and what I can possibly be a part of.

Being asked to compare yourself to a cartoon was quite tricky.

maybe make sure more people attend the assessment day.

Some staff members were more involved than others, so it would of been nice to have spoken to them individually as well. Other than that, I don't have any other advice - the morning was a pleasant interview!

It was made fun with different activities which appealed to me and the
group exercises were fun and interactive.

The initial stage is an online assessment which consists of three stages including 1) Numerical Reasoning Test – This is a multiple choice test 2) OPQ (Occupational Personality Questionnaire) this is a self-report questionnaire and finally 3) Graduate Scenarios – This test is designed to assess your judgement.

The next stage is the assessment day which is split into 4 tasks. The one-on-one interview was with one of their seninor staff at the Boots headquarters. The experience itself was quite calm because my interviewer was chatty and relaxed. I felt that even though I was still under pressure to answer questions, the process was not as daughting as I expected.

Describe a situation when you have had to strive for something to achieve the outcome you want?

Ask loads of questions about the role and the company to show how much you’re interested. Also build up some knowledge to demonstrate commercial awareness - they look out for that in their candidates.

I do not live near Nottingham so I travelled their the night before and stayed in a hotel which I would recommend if you do not live nearby.

The assessment centre was full day from 8.30am-4.00pm at the Boots head office in Nottingham. Straight away I felt at ease because the other candidates were really lovely and the staff at Boots were very welcoming.

We were given a de-breif about what the day would entail and then split into two groups of 4. My first task was the one-on-one interview, followed by a negotiation task. For this task, we had 30 minutes to read a booklet on a pharmaceutical store that wants to introduce a new drug. There was infomation on the local population, the store itself, the side effects of the drug and the costs involved. We then ask to be the pharmaceutical sales representative and needed to pursade the local pharmacist to stock this new drug. We had 15 minutes to convince the ‘pharmacist’ to stock the drug. This was in a private room with one assessor and the other actor.

We then had a lunch break. The next task was the group presentation, we were given 5 scenarios with 5 options for solving the situation, we had to make a group decision within 5 minutes and were observed by 8 assessors sat opposite us. My group were really nice so everybody managed to have their say for each of the scenarios.

The final and probably the most difficult task was the analysis and presentation task. We had one hour to analyse a booklet of information on how we would introduce a new business venture, in my case this was a wine club. We were given a lot of infomation to analsye in a short space of time, we were allowed to make some notes and then prepare a presentation to present to one of the assessors. We were then asked questions about our winery idea.

Explain how you would procced. You receive this email:
I am not confident in the forecasts you have produced. They are not high enough and I want more stock.

The initial phone interview was extremely straight forward, it was a member of the Mothercare recruitment team and I was asked straight forward questions like if I knew what logistics was about and what the role would in tail. We quickly ran through my CV and she then asked me if I would be able to attend an interview the next day.
The interview was with the head of logistics and one of the team leaders, it started off with a quick run through of my CV, previous job experience, education etc. Then after that they had a sheet of pre planned questions in which they would run through. I think it was a total of 10 questions. Questions such as outside what is your greatest achievement? Name a time you have demonstrated good organisation and time management skills? What do you feel the role of an international logistics assistant involves? How would you rate your IT skills?
Once we went through the questions the head of logistics went on to talk about what the role involved and what would be expected of me on a day to day basis. I then asked the questions I had and that was the end of the interview process.

Name a time you have demonstrated your organisation and time management skills?

As always make sure you have a clear understanding of what the role involves, what it is you would be doing. Make sure you have good examples of times when you have demonstrated strong organisation and time management skills.

n/a

It was a relaxed face to face interview with the store manager and a department manager. They wanted to know more about my personality and experience to see whether I would be a good fit. They were both friendly and made me feel at ease. More specifically I was asked about previous management experience, why I wanted to work at the company and what I thought I could bring to the role.

I was asked to walk around the shop floor and pick 3 good things and 3 bad things about the store. This was a good exercise as it made you think on your feet and gave them an insight into how I thought.

Make sure you understand the core values of the company. They are key to how the company is run and the products designed and sold by Decathlon. In the interview make sure you let your personality shine through. The company wants passionate and energetic and it is important this comes across in the interview.

There was no assessment centre, I had to complete an online application. Once I had passed this stage I had a short telephone interview before being invited in for a face to face interview at the store.