I applied through the online portal, was contacted within 2 weeks by a Store Mgr. They told me that even though I was a recent grad and had extensive experience in retail and professional services, with experience in leading, coaching, and developing others, I needed to be in a dept/support mgr role for at least a year. All due respect, I understand that filling outs, maintaining inventory, and task management can be a long learning process for a typical associate but my resume and career clearly indicates that I could be an exception, however I was still excluded from the process. Corporate clearly prioritizes "lifers", and by that, I mean those in their existing workforce that have no external development, have a lack of higher education, and exploits their desperation as they know their "suitable" candidate has zero opportunities elsewhere. I was told by the store manager that they were constantly looking at new talent for the position as it has high turnover; flex scheduling, long hours, high stress due to nature of retail...which further solidifies my assessment of their hiring strategy.

It was a very long interview. The store manager kept me waiting for about twenty minutes. Afterward, I was led into an office, where I met the manager of another store. They both took turns asking me questions, very in-depth questions, like: 1) "name an instance when you were required to execute judgement in a situation based on information. In hindsight, what would have you done differently, should that situation arise in the future?" From what I gleaned from the interview, the demands and the hours of this position are grueling.