Applied online. Telephone screening interview, followed by interview at store with Department Manager. At the store, you are assigned to interview with a specific department based upon your experience and their needs. I was assigned to Women's Clothing. At the end of the interview, I was taken to a department to role play. The Manager pretended to be a customer, and it was my job to put together outfits for her. The key here is to put together lots of interchangeable pieces that offer the customer many different options. Also suggest jewelry, scarves, perfume, make-up and and shoes that can be purchased in other departments to accessorize your outfits.
Don't stress over what to wear - a pair of dress pants and nice top will be just fine. The employees I met with were dressed very plainly, and not at all stylishly. This did not speak well for the income potential of the sales associates.
I applied online for a seasonal sales position. At the time I applied, there were also full-time positions posted on the website, which I did not select. I told the phone interviewer that I was only available part-time, and I was told that was fine. The Department Manager I spoke with said that she expected new hires to work full time over the holidays and into early January. During the first two months of the new hire period, Sales Associates are paid 2% lower commission (4%) than the experienced associates. I asked why, and I was told it was company policy. This two month period would coincide with the holidays, the time when you would have your highest sales potential. Sales goals vary per store. The location I met with expected sales in $180/hour. If you meet your goal of $180/hour during training, that translates to $7.20/hour, in which case they bump you up to the minimum of $9/hour. I asked several times what the commission potential was for a typical and above average sales person, and I could not get a specific answer. I was told "it varies" and "it is up to you how much you will make in this job". From what the other Sales Associates told me, a new hire could not make over $9/hour.
Nordstrom offers free shipping on its website as a way to bring customers into the store to process their returns and exchanges. Customers are not required to go upstairs to Customer Service to return the online purchases, and the customers can return their items to any department. If your department is located closer to a store entrance, you'll have more returns. Online returns processed in stores are counted against the quota of the sales person who processes each return. So, it is the luck of the draw how many online returns you might have to process on any given day. Critical to success at Nordstrom is "upselling" customers with those returns, where you sell them new merchandise to offset the potential deduction in your commission. There are many clothing lines only sold online, so it can be difficult to find something in the store that might satisfy your online customer.
All of the Sales Associates I met were great - upbeat, positive, helpful - what I expected to find at Nordstrom. The Department Manager, however, was a disappointment. During our interview, she looked around distractedly, and was doing other work while I was answering her questions. I had to ask several questions more than once because she wasn't paying attention. She was not friendly at all, and did not have positive things to say about Nordstrom. During our interview, I watched her talking with several of her employees, and she was very negative and dismissive to them.
I rated my interview experience as negative for two reasons. First, I was told that part-time hours would be available. If the website's job description had stipulated that they needed full time hours through the holidays, I could have saved my time, and theirs. Second, my conversation with the decision maker, the Department Manager was very frustrating in that she was not a good person to work for. I did not accept the job.