Nicole NicholsonThere are many different interview techniques and styles out there. You can come at your job seekers with a behavioral interview and really try to understand how they dealt with issues in the past. You can interview them mostly on their personality to try and see if they would be a good fit for your company culture. There’s tons of options out there for you. Perhaps one of the most important aspects of the interview process though is knowing that this candidate has produced results in the past. Any candidate can say they can get the job done, but you want one that has already shown that they have. Walmart seems to be one of the companies that values this greatly.
You may not have ever interviewed with Walmart personally, but you may have heard of their interview techniques. No matter what position Walmart is hiring, they seem to take the interview process very seriously. They ask multi-part questions to which they expect multi-part answers. On top of that, they grade you on the answers you give as well as your past experience. Whether hiring a manager or a cashier, this interview process is implemented. As stated by Interview Penguin, fitting into the company culture centered on awesome customer service at Walmart is so important.
For that reason, asking in-depth questions of how their job seekers handled workplace situations in the past gives employers great insight into how they will deal with the same situations at Walmart. If they don’t fit in with their customer oriented policy, then they likely won’t get the job. Let’s take a look at some of Walmart’s interview questions via Zoklet and see how you can benefit from using them in your own hiring process.
1. Sometimes extra help is needed during difficult times. Describe a time where you offered extra help during a difficult time, what made you offer extra help, and how did your help improve the situation?
No matter what kind of position you are trying to fill, the answer to this question can tell you a lot about a person’s work ethic and their character. Likely you want someone with great teamwork skills. Depending on how they answer this question you can see if they are what you need or not.
2. There are rules for everything we do. Tell me about a time when you thought it was important to follow a rule. Why was it important to follow this rule, and how did following this rule affect others?
Every business and company has rules or certain ways of doing things. For some, those rules may seem stupid or inappropriate, but they work for you. This question can give you insight into how this person views set rules and if they are willing to follow them or not. You may also gain insight into whether or not they will break them.
3. There are times when you have to work as a team to get things completed. Describe a time where you had to work with several people to get something completed, what issues came from having several people working on the same thing, and what part did you play to reach your goal?
Again, in most cases working as a team is extremely important- especially for growing companies. Asking these kinds of questions allow you to see how the candidate worked in teams before and what they learned from it.
4. Sometimes quality can be sacrificed when we are in a hurry. Tell me about a time when you had to work really fast and were expected to maintain high quality in your work. How did you change what you were doing to get more done, how did working faster affect the quality of your work?
There may come a time when the person in this position is placed under a tight deadline. In fact, they may always be working under tight deadlines. There are some people that can cut it and some people that simply cannot. You can learn if this person can when they answer this question.
If you want to gain real insight into your candidate’s work ethic and personality, then you have to be creative with your questions. Most candidates know the answers to the traditional interview questions and can easily work their way around them. Instead, see if they can think on their feet and ask outside-the-box questions that give you real insight into their abilities.
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