Professional Merchandiser Interview Preparation Guide

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Keep a cool, calm and collected head in this situation. Listen to the information you are given carefully, and try not to feel hurried or under pressure. Interviewers are usually looking at what you can do with the information you are provided, and how you handle pressure. Ensure you keep an eye on timings and how long you have to go over things. You will sometimes not have all the information you need to make a decision, so make an informed decision with what you can. Take this exercise seriously, and get involved as much as possible.

Ideally you'd like to state that you can take on a lot of work - this shows your work ethic, but at the same time it's okay to tell them that you value work and life balance.

Testing temperature is an ideal temperature where temperature maintain with relative humanity. To become a testing temperature relative humanity should 65% ± 2% and temperature should 20°C ± 2°C.

Book inventory is related to fashion accounting. Inventory book means the dollar value of inventory, as stated in accounting records.

If you want to show your ambition, you can discuss how you haven't reached all of your goals yet and in that sense aren't satisfied. However, if you want to discuss satisfaction from your job discuss an experience in which you achieved something.

Research the company, looking at not only at how they present themselves online, but also go and visit their stores for first-hand experience. For the second part of the question, give an answer that is similar to the store’s audience, but ensure that you have concrete reasons why you would target that demographic.

Show how you were able to over the "overwhelmed" feeling - by delegating tasks, getting people on your team to help you out, or by prioritizing your work and focusing on the most important issues first.

The experience that taught me the most about interpersonal skills was my time as a door-to-door salesperson. This job required me to foster positive interactions with people in situations where many of them probably did not want to talk to me. A high percentage of people I talked to immediately said they were not interested, so I had to learn to keep a positive attitude and to never let an encounter turn hostile. I also learned how to quickly build rapport with people so they would let their guard down and feel comfortable talking with me about my products.

It's good to be persistent, but not overbearing. Everyone will face rejection at some point in their life, so at some point you'll have to take no for an answer but then learn why you were turned down.

Make sure you know your CV inside out, and can speak about your experience without referring to it during the interview. Don't assume that only work experience is relevant. Try and think through any examples of achievements, extra-curricular activities or university projects (as well as work experience) which has given you transferable customer facing experience. For example, you could talk about working on a stand at your freshers’ fair.

Fully understand my responsibilities, work hard and exceed expectations, learn as much as possible, help others as much as possible, understand what my teammates' goals and needs are, be on time, and gain a mentor.

☛ How does your job fit in to your department and company?
☛ What do you enjoy about this industry?
☛ Give an example of when you have worked under pressure.
☛ What kinds of people do you like working with?
☛ Give me an example of when your work was criticised.
☛ Give me an example of when you have felt anger at work. How did you cope and did you still perform a good job?
☛ What kind of people do you find it difficult to work with?
☛ Give me an example of when you have had to face a conflict of interest at work.
☛ Tell me about the last time you disagreed with your boss.
☛ Give me an example of when you haven't got on with others.
☛ Do you prefer to work alone or in a group? Why?
☛ This organisation is very different to your current employer - how do you think you are going to fit in?
☛ What are you looking for in a company?
☛ How do you measure your own performance?
☛ What kind of pressures have you encountered at work?
☛ Are you a self-starter? Give me examples to demonstrate this?
☛ What changes in the workplace have caused you difficulty and why?
☛ How do you feel about working long hours and/or weekends?
☛ Give me an example of when you have been out of your depth.
☛ What have you failed to achieve to date?
☛ What can you bring to this organisation?

☛ As a merchandiser, what do you think is the most important aspect of your work?
☛ What factors into your decision to buy a product?
☛ Who are our customers?
☛ How are we different from our competitors?
☛ How do you prioritize your tasks? Walk us through a typical day at work.
☛ Describe your experience with reading planograms.
☛ How would you handle working overtime, such as during a holiday reset?
☛ Talk about a bestselling product at your previous place of work. What was the last quantity that you ordered? What types or sizes did you have, and which had the highest rate of consumption?
☛ Describe one of your more successful campaigns. What worked well? What didn’t work well?
☛ What do you consider when deciding what product to supply?
☛ You’re selling an item at the same price and quantity as a competing retailer, but somehow your competition is selling more. What factors might be involved?
☛ Describe a time you worked with a difficult coworker.
☛ What would you do if you caught a co-worker stealing?
☛ Describe a time you resolved a problem with an angry store manager.
☛ What do you think our brand does well? What would you improve, if hired?

☛ What do you think is an important aspect of your work as a merchandiser?
☛ Do you know who our customers are?
☛ What factors should a buyer consider while buying your product?
☛ How will you prioritize your tasks?
☛ Explain your experience with reading planograms.
☛ Are comfortable in working overtime?
☛ Have you ever worked with a difficult colleague?
☛ Explain about the best selling product at your previous workplace.
☛ How do you decide what products to supply?
☛ How would you deal with the colleague you caught while stealing?
☛ What are your most successful campaigns so far? Elaborate what worked well and what did not.
☛ Do you think our brand does well? If shortlisted, what you will want to improve?
☛ Have you ever faced a situation when you resolved a problem with a hyper store manager?

Accessories mean items need to complete a garment. There are different kinds of accessories used in garments industry such as thread, zipper, interlining, buttons, label, pocketing fabric, elastic, etc.

Describe your responsibilities but discuss the results/metrics that show how you made an impact on the company in that role. This way it shows you hold yourself accountable.

I believe I will excel because of my dedication to doing the job well. When I was hired as a sales associate at an electronics store, I had very little knowledge of any of the products. Most of my coworkers learned about the products only while they were on the clock, but this method was too slow for me because I hated not being able to give useful input to customers. I made flashcards to study at home, and I quickly became the most knowledgeable employee in the store. I approach every new job with this same mentality.

This question is as much about your personality as it is about your knowledge of merchandising. Pick up on a point about a product and say why it is important and appealing to a customer e.g. the colour is important because a consumer can associate a colour both with their identity and with a specific brand.

One good way to find out about the department is to try to "informally" interview the existing employees over coffee (outside of the office) if possible. It's hard if you don't have any connections there, but if you do a great way to learn about it. Other than that, it's often hard to learn about the department so you can turn the table back on them by asking questions to learn about it.

This is the number of manufacturers those are involved in the manufacturing of clothing. Apparel industry includes with garments, lathers, technical textile, etc. industry.

Yes, I would. I ran track in college, and through that experience I learned how to set goals and make plans to achieve them. I also learned how to keep raising the bar in order to challenge myself to improve, and I’ve carried this practice over into my work life. I enjoy pushing myself by setting challenging goals, and I’ve been able to succeed at every job I’ve held because of this attitude.

Make sure you research Merchandising as a whole across different industries, and you are able to explain the differences. You should be able to distinguish between head office merchandising and in-store (visual) merchandising. In your answer, try and come up with tangible reasons why this particular sector interests you, and especially why you would be passionate about working within this market.

You want to be persistent enough to understand why someone is saying no so that you could potentially convince them otherwise with a sound reason. However, if they are still saying "no" to you, then you need to humbly accept their position and move on.

In a previous sales position, I was exceeding my sales goals for every product except one. My manager met with me to discuss why I was underperforming. My contention was that the product was too expensive and not useful enough, meaning the established sales goal was unrealistic. After a long discussion in which we both genuinely listened to the other’s viewpoint, we reached a compromise. My manager agreed to reassess the price and nature of the product, and I agreed to try some new sales techniques he showed me.

This is a subjective question so there is no right or wrong answer. It is important that you justify the response that you give. A typically answer might be that it is the appearance of the product is the most important part of merchandising. Other avenues you could go down could be the placement of the product or the product's location relative to different products. Show a creative approach and acknowledge that merchandising different types of products requires different approaches.