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    • Jobs at Powell's Books

      1 jobs in United States
      Store Manager
      Portland, OR
      ·
      $53K - $83K /yr
      (Employer provided)
      View job
      View all Business to Business Manager Jobs

      Business to Business Manager Interview

      Nov 4, 2015
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      Portland, OR
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I applied online. I interviewed at Powell's Books (Portland, OR)

      Interview

      This was one of the strangest interviews I've ever been in. It was with 3 individuals, and my immediate feeling when I walked in is that they didn't want me there. They explained in a robotic, scripted way that they'd be asking 10 long questions, but it was apparent they had no interest in asking the typed questions on their pages. Not a single question pertained to me as an individual or my skill set. They didn't even ask about the current role I was working in a different company, which was quite similar in many ways to the position I was interviewing for. They never once went off script of those ten questions until I asked my own at the end, which they seemed uncomfortable with. Instead, every question invited you to describe a very specific instance of something you did in a previous job. The questions were so long and meandering, questions of the type that not even presidential candidates are asked in debates, that it was hard to keep track of all the different points I was supposed to be making in my answer. Those ten questions could have easily been 50, and could have been much better asked in a back-and-forth with the interview candidate for a much better assessment of skills and capabilities. I understand that it was a way to glean how I behaved in past instances, but not having been in that exact role I'd been interviewing for, the questions seemed impertinent. The only thing I came away with after the interview was that they were already intending to hire someone internally and had to go through the interview process anyway. Maybe it had something to do with the fact they're unionized. I was not offered the job, but the environment was so impersonal, unfriendly, and odd that I wouldn't have taken it anyway.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Describe a specific instance in which you had to make a quick decision. What factors influenced your decision, what led you to that decision, why do you think that it was the best decision? (probably more parts to this question but impossible to remember.)
      Answer question
      1

      Powell's Books interviews FAQs

      • Common stages of the interview process at Powell's Books as a Business to Business Manager according to 1 Glassdoor interviews include:

        Group panel interview:  100%

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