I got a call to come in and interview at their store in the mall. One of the department managers met me and we went back to, what I assume was, the employee break room to conduct the interview. The interview lasted about 45 minutes, however about 30 to 35 of those mins. was just the interviewer talking (about how the store operated and how commissions worked in various departments, The “sales per hour” they track on each sales associate, her past career in banking and how boring it was, how the finical crisis of 2008 impacted when she was working in banking and of course stories about past employees and funny stuff that had happened). Most of the conversation was alright but I did start to fear I might be there for the next several hours stuck in endless chit chat. At least the talk about their store was very informative regarding the job and I got to learn how things worked around there. She was supposed to ask me a set of pre-determined “interview questions” but she had forgotten the sheet they were on and of course couldn’t remember what they were. All in all it was by far the weirdest interview I’ve had yet and despite the excessive chit chat the interviewer was extremely hospitable and welcoming. It turns out this was only the first interview (you have another one later with the store manager) and by the end of the “interview” I got the distinct impression that this was more of a pre-screening then any kind of real interview for the position. She informed me they would contact me shortly to set up another interview with the store manager. A week later I got a call back to set up a second interview. I had assumed they weren’t going to call back so it was a pleasant surprise when the call came in. For other reason however I decided to not pursue the position (I was starting to realize that the working schedule for retail positions wasn’t for me and some of the information I’d heard from former employees about the job was very different then what I’d heard from the interviewer and wasn’t sure how to reconcile the two accounts). I suspect the process probably varies greatly depending on who interviews you first (and this depends on who’s available to conduct the first interview whichever day you come in) but at least with this store it seems to be a two-step interview process. And the first “interview” may just be to get a sense of who they’re meeting with and your personality.