I applied through Monster.com and a wonderful recruiter for this region called me. She was extremely nice and to the point about what the interview process was. I went through the initial screening and was set up with a phone interview with the recruiter, which took about an hour. It went well, and she called again and set up a date and time for an interview with the District Manager at the store here in town.
When I got to the store, I asked for the Store Manger, as instructed and a rude cashier who didn't offer even a smile or name in greeting looked me over and paged the manager to the front. There were boxes all over the front of the store with product in shopping carts.... very chaotic.
The store manager came to the front and informed me that the District Manager was running late due to weather circumstances, but that we would talk for a few minutes. We went through some light questions/overview for about 30 minutes before the District Manager called and said she wouldn't be making it to the store for the interview and instructed the Store Manager to let me go and they would call and reschedule the interview later. (During the interview, I was told that the store 'was behind,' and the work load was about 55 hours a week, and that there were rules we follow and rules we don't....What does that mean?)
I never received a reschedule phone call (I waited a week,) so I called the recruiter to follow up. I left a message in the morning, and she called me back by about lunch the same day asking how the interview with the District Manager went. I informed her that there hadn't been an interview with the District Manager as they couldn't make it into town, and that there had been zero communication from anyone at that level. The recruiter asked how the discussion with the Store Manager went and I told her I thought it went well, but didn't really seem to be any sort of real interview.
The recruiter thanked me and said that she would follow up on the situation. She called back about a week later to tell me that they had decided to go another direction.
I enjoyed the recruiter and the interview with her. She asked straight forward questions that would be indicative of my future work ethics and behavior. I did not enjoy my time being wasted by a Store Manager who wanted to sit and chit chat for an hour about what she does all day in the store that is apparently behind on everything, or the District Manager who couldn't seem to drive in a little winter weather, OR make the time to call an applicant who had taken time out of their schedule to come to an interview that didn't happen. She hadn't even left her house yet when she called to say she may not make it, and her house was 2 hours away from the interview site. Talk about poor planning and a complete disregard for others' time and effort. I'm kind of glad that this was my interview process, because after what I saw, I'm pretty sure that it's rather revealing as far as the respect, dignity and treatment of their associates goes as a company... or at least a district.
