I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Books-A-Million in Jun 2013
Interview
This interview was a total mess. I was not informed that it was to be a group interview. The store manager was in the back with her keyholder and her daughter (age 7.) They talked and joked about the little girl's employment and current employees while we (the interviewees) were filling out questionnaires. Both were exceptionally unprofessional. We were then encouraged to go find a product from the store and sell it to them, learn about another person in the group interview and sell that person to them, and pick general HR questions out of a hat to answer. Now, I appreciate the selling tactic as a tool to figure out if we should be in retail, but I dislike that selling the stupid discount card and magazine subscriptions are so deeply apart of this position that it seems to be the only skill they are hiring for. Knowledge or experience seemed a distant second. Also, all this for a minimum wage mall job. Ugh.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Go find something in the store to sell to me/talk to your competition and then explain to me why I should hire them.
Group interview. So come prepared with multiple different responses so you can stand out. Also once hired I was not able to start until a month later. The onboarding process was very slow! Other than that the experience was fine.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you deal with a coworker in a disagreement?
It was a quick phone call and was very easy, casual conversation. Questions focused on background and interest in working at the store and knowledge of stock management. I also went in person to discuss further.
Bookseller applicants have rated the interview process at Books-A-Million with 2 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 55% positive. To compare, the company-average is 58.4% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Bookseller roles take an average of 16 days to get hired, when considering 106 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Books-A-Million overall takes an average of 12 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Books-A-Million as a Bookseller according to 106 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 32%
Background check: 22%
Personality test: 10%
Drug test: 8%
Skills test: 8%
Group panel interview: 7%
IQ intelligence test: 4%
Presentation: 4%
Phone interview: 4%
Other: 0%
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