Professional Retail Management Interview Preparation Guide

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► 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?

► 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?

► 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 criticized?
► 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?

► How many employees do you manage in your current position?
► How do you hire employees?
► What questions do you ask during interviews?
► What statistics do you use to measure employee performance?
► Do you do employee performance reviews?

► How have you sold product X in the past?
► What objections did you hear, and how did you overcome those objections? What did you say, and what did you do?
► What have you done successfully to get people to try on clothes or to interact in other ways with the products?
► Tell me about the most difficult customer you've ever had to serve.
► What were your units-per-transaction or average-dollar-per-transaction stats in your prior positions?

► Not at all daunting so don't be at all worried. There are no questions designed to trip you up.
► The assessments were deliberately organised to put pressure on you time-wise. The point of most of the assessments didn't seem to be getting to the correct answer but seeing how you got there - so bear this in mind. One or two of the candidates tried too hard to impress and were very overbearing when it came to the group exercises - I'm not sure that this is what the assessors were looking for and it certainly didn't make them popular with the other candidates!
► The assessment center was incredibly well organised, though at times the assessments ran over time which meant that scheduled breaks didn't really happen. It is a very very tiring and long day so be prepared! The assessors were not actually from BT but from a recruitment consultancy hired by BT. They did not have access to any of the information given previously to BT by the candidates so each person was essentially equal in their eyes at the start of the day.

Questions I asked included:
► How do ..... manage to break into other markets?
► Would we all start off as store managers?
► What's the staff turnover like?

► Interviewers were pretty friendly. You could make a joke with them.
► Come prepared to be confronted.
► Be confident!
► Ensure you have many examples to give in the interview - competency questions.
► Make sure you see if they're right for you!

► Body Shop want someone who is going to deliver sales results and promote their values. Find out as much as possible about the products especially for the shop floor trial.
► Be prepared. Know the company and its competitors. Know the retail industry.
► Don't go in not knowing why you want to work in retail.
► Prepare answers to common questions in advance.
► Make sure you know exactly where to go for the interview.

► An employee has been arriving 30 mins late to work everyday. Why do you think this is? What would you do?
► A certain product is being sold at the same price, same quantity, etc. (i.e. same product) as the competitors, but the product at our stores is not selling well as compared to the competitors. Why do you think this is? What would you do about it?
► You had to give a presentation with other colleagues. The others got "good" as their grade, but you got "acceptable". Why do you think this is? What would you do about it?
► The interviewer pretended he was a customer and I had to sell him a few things?

► Give an example of when you had to make a difficult decision. Explain all aspects of coming to this decision?
► What leadership experience do you have?
► How flexible are you?
► How do you work under pressure?
► Can you adapt easily to different people and environments?

► Describe a situation where you showed motivation?
► Have you made any presentations? When? How? Why? Do you enjoy making them?
► Describe a situation where you demonstrated team work?
► Tell me about a situation were you have had to stay calm?
► Tell me a situation that you had to take control of?

► How do you set vision and direction for your team?
► Describe a situation where you were:
Under pressure?
Able to influence someone?
Creative?
Able to plan something?
for each of these:
► Why?
► How?
► What did you do?

► What are your key strengths as a communicator?
► How have you successfully managed conflict?
► When was the last time your plans were disrupted due to an unexpected event? How did you react?
► Tell me about a time when there was an unpopular change in an organisation?
► How do you ensure goals are reached?

► What do you already know about the company?
► How do you meet the changing demands of customers?
► What changes would you make to?
► How do manage to break into other markets?
► What would you take into consideration when deciding what product to supply?

► What do you know about our company?
► If you were CEO of our company , what would you do?
► Why Supply Chain?
► Why you want to be a retail buyer?
► How many hours per week do you think you will be working?

► Why do you want to work in retail management?
► Who are our main competitors?
► What differences do you see between us and our competitors?
► What differences do you see between our stores and our competitors' stores?
► Who are our customers?

► Why should we pick you?
► What are your strengths?
► What are your weaknesses?
► How would you deal will employees who are older than you and don't like you because of your age?
► Why do you want to work for us?

Tell me a little about yourself?
How are you customer orientated?
Tell me about yourself academically and socially, any hobbies, other awards or skills you may have?
What have you got to offer the company?
What skills can you offer the company?

Employees often won't live up to expectations if you never tell them what you're looking for," Stockett says. "Take the employee who shows up a few minutes late for work every day. The store manager keeps letting it slide but inside is getting frustrated until one day it boils over, and he brings the associate into the back and chews him out. But the associate never knew he was doing anything wrong. To avoid this, managers need to be consistently setting and resetting expectations.

On the surface, it might seem like a good idea to treat all your employees alike. That way you're not showing favoritism, right? Wrong, What you're really doing is failing to acknowledge them as individuals.
"Every employee has unique needs and desires, and they want to feel valued," says Connor. "Treating employees without regard for these personal needs sends a clear message that they are not special to you. If you want the labor of a person's heart and not just his hands, you must treat people with respect."

Since they tend to view their employees as little more than working automatons, bad managers think their staff should focus 100 percent of their attention on their jobs, says Les Stockett, store manager of the Bridge water, New Jersey, Circuit City.
"These managers don't take associates' time away from work into consideration," he says. "But a lot of retail associates are going to school, for example. They need time for classes and homework. If you act like your store is the only thing that should be important to them, they'll see that as a lack of respect, and performance will suffer."

The employer is looking for evidence that the job suits you, fits in with your general aptitudes, coincides with your long-term goals and involves doing things you enjoy. Make sure you have a good understanding of the role and the organisation, and describe the attributes of the organisation that interest you most.

State how you are looking for a new challenge, more responsibility, experience and a change of environment. Do not be negative in your reasons for leaving. It is rarely appropriate to cite salary as your primary motivator.

The purpose of this question is to find out what your definition of difficult is and whether you can show a logical approach to problem solving. In order to show yourself in a positive light, select a difficult work situation which was not caused by you and which can be quickly explained in a few sentences. Explain how you defined the problem, what the options were, why you selected the one you did and what the outcome was. Always end on a positive note.

This question is really about your self-esteem, confidence and career aspirations. The answer must be 'yes', followed by a brief explanation as to what it is about your career so far that's made you happy. If you have hit a career plateau, or you feel you are moving too slowly, then you must qualify your answer.