Nordstrom is a century-old company, which is in business since 1901. This flagship company has headquarters in Seattle, Washington, United States of America, and currently has business operations spread across more than 32 U. S states and a few provinces of Canada. This company founded was founded by two entrepreneurs who were John Norstrom and Carl Wallin. Presently this company serves in more than 468 locations and has more than 75,000 employees.
Being such a successful, prominent, and financially sound company, every year there is a huge interest from the candidates who apply to the various job openings. Only serious and committed candidates are able to make it through the tough interview process. Thus, always read a lot of frequently asked interview questions and their answers.
21 Best Interview Questions To Study
1. Nordstrom Is Into Several Businesses. Can You Name Our Prominent Operational Areas?
This is a fact-based interview question that checks your level of acquaintance with the company and its business. Nordstrom is into several business areas which are, Clothing, Footwear, Jewellery, Banking, Finance, Home furnishings, Weddings, and Handbags.
2. In Which Countries Do We Operate?
This question checks whether or not you are aware of the company, its business, and its history. When going for an interview for Nordstrom, you are expected to know all the basic details about the company. This company operates in the United States of America, Canada, Puerto Rico.
3. Who Is The CEO Of Our Company?
The current CEO of the company is Erik B. Nordstrom (at the time of writing this article), who was appointed at this designation in May 2015.
4. We All Face Failures In Our Life. How Do You Manage Your Work Related Failures?
Success is not a guarantee and we all experience failures at some point in our lives. Humans are perceived as creatures who are simply not able to cope with their failures, which ultimately affects their mental well-being and productivity. Thus, an interviewer always asks this question so as to know about your strategies or techniques which help you to manage your professional failures.
5. Customers Are Our Assets. How Do You Handle Our Disgruntled Customers?
Customers are the undisputed kings of the business world and hold a lot of relevance. No business organization can be successful until it achieves customer satisfaction. Through this interview question, an interviewer wants to know about the strategy or technique using which you can handle the discontent customers of the company. As an ideal response, you have to state that you will actively listen to the complaints of customers and then would analyze them critically, so as to give a perfect resolution.
6. We Have A Few Subsidiaries. Can You Share Their Names With Us?
This question checks your knowledge about the company and its operations. Nordstrom has diversified itself into several business operations and has even established a few fully owned subsidiaries so as to run its business operations smoothly. These subsidiaries are, HauteLook, Nordstrom Rack, Trunk Club, and Jeffery Boutique.
7. Describe About A Time When You Displayed Dedication At Your Workplace?
This is a situation-based interview question in which you are requested to share a practical work-related instance. Dedication is one of the most sought-after qualities of employees and every business organization wants to hire loyal, committed, and dedicated employees. As an ideal response to this question, just share a real example when you worked overtime at your workplace or may be completed a few projects before the deadline so that the company earns good profits.
8. What Is Your Ethical Team Culture?
The established business organizations such as Nordstrom, prefer to work in a team environment. They divide their employees into different sets of teams on the basis of their skills, educational qualifications, and the nature of tasks. Through this question, an interviewer wants to know what are the various qualities and attributes that you want your team members to possess. The ideal qualities are, committed, dedicated, supportive, hard-working, intelligent, loyal, honest, etc.
9. We Are A Big Organization and Assign Challenging Tasks To Our Employees. How Do You Manage Your Stress Levels?
Business organizations like Nordstrom, operate in a challenging business environment and are affected by a variety of political, legal, and socio-economic factors. This business stress is ultimately transferred upon the employees and they have to accomplish tough tasks within a strict deadline. Stress management is a common expectation of the organizations and in response to this question share stress management techniques, such as deep breathing, positive pep talk, meditation, yoga, etc.
10. What Are Your Strengths and Weaknesses?
This is a common interview question and is asked by several interviewers across the world. This is a master personality evaluator and helps an interviewer to analyze and understand your personality in depth. To give a perfect reply, just self-assess yourself, and note down three of your closest strengths and weaknesses. Prepare for them and draft a compelling answer that seems genuine and true.
11. Being In Nordstrom, A Single Failure Affects Us A Lot. How Do You Remain Patient At Your Workplace and Deliver Excellent Performances?
“Patience” is an important virtue and is considered the most important mantra to achieve success. People, do not prefer to wait for the right time and just deliver performances that let them as well as their organizations down. Through this question, an interviewer wants to know about the various strategies that you adopt to remain patient and wait for the right time. This is a common expectation and you are expected to share a compelling answer.
12. Nordstrom Is Successful Because We Believe In Quality Business Operations. How Do You Interpret The Term “Quality”?
This is a word-based interview question and you are required to interpret the term “quality”. This word can be interpreted in multiple ways and can have different meanings attached to it. An interviewer is interested in understanding your own version of interpretation. Usually, a task that meets the satisfaction level of the clients and is at least at par with the established standards or benchmarks is termed as a “quality” task.
13. How Do You Prefer To Work – Individually or In A Team?
This is a tricky interview question and no matter what option you choose you will never be safe. This is because if you prefer to work individually then you will be termed as a person who is not able to maintain camaraderie and work in good rapport with his colleagues. On the flip side, if you choose “team”, then you are a person who can not work with minimum supervision and guidance. Hence, whatever you choose just give a proper explanation for it.
14. Describe Your Best Boss and The Worst Boss.
We all work in several business organizations and meet a lot of seniors/bosses at our workplaces. However, not all of them remain in our good books and for some of them, we even create negative feelings. Through this question, an interviewer wants to know the reason/basis/parameter using which you separate your bosses and categorize them into good and bad. Be logical and explain your reasons with effective rationales.
15. What Is Your Dream Job?
This is a common interview question. We all dream and want to work in a specific job that uses our special skills and abilities. You might be tempted to work as a personal assistant of your favorite celebrity or maybe at a position in which you have to barely work. But, just never give such answers. Stick to the corporate world, and give answers that relate to your job description.
For example, Nordstrom always hires creative employees, as it is primarily known as a luxury brand. Hence, you can always say that you dream to work in a business organization that gives creative tasks to its employees that require an out of the box thinking.
16. We Assign Various Tasks To Our Employees. How Do You Prioritize?
It is common for established business organizations, such as Nordstrom to assign several tasks to their employees. It is necessary to arrange these tasks on the basis of a developed prioritization technique. You might prefer to order your tasks on the basis of their difficulty level or simply on the basis of their time consumption. Whatever it is, just share it with your interviewer and give some good logic.
17. When Can You Start Working With Us?
This question requires you to share a true date of start on or after which you can start working with the business organization. There is nothing technical in this interview question and you are only expected to share your availability. Further, this question in no way guarantees your selection and you are expected to maintain a thorough focus for the rest of the interview session.
18. We All Are Motivated By A Few Factors To Work Hard and Persevere. What Motivates You To Work?
There are always a few factors that prompt us to work hard at our workplace and achieve all our tasks in a time-bound manner. These factors are influenced by the personal conditions, circumstances, and situations of an individual. An interviewer is always interested in knowing these factors to conduct a thorough scrutiny of the personality and attitude.
19. What Are Your Salary Expectations?
It is common for the interviewers to know about your salary expectations during an interview session itself. This question is not at all technical, yet it has the ability to ruin your selection chances. Hence, you are always requested to share a salary bracket that is not at all random and is based upon the diligent research of the industry to which you belong. Always try to calculate a mean salary and share a salary bracket that holds not more than 15% of the deviation.
20. Why You Chose Us?
This question checks your level of commitment and seriousness towards the business organization to which you belong. The best way to prepare for this interview question is by browsing the official website of the company and noting down all the achievements, historical facts, and other accomplishments of the company. Post this, couple your answer with your personal interests in the company, and draft a perfect response.
21. Do You Have Any Questions For Us?
It is common for the interviewers to ask this question towards the fag end of an interview session. Through this question, an interviewer wants to know about your apprehensions and doubts that you might be having in regards to the business organization. Skipping this question is not at all recommended as that would make you a non-serious and unprepared candidate. Hence, always ask a few relevant interview questions on the lines of the model question mentioned below:
Model Questions
- What are the various work timings that are adopted by Nordstrom in various shifts?
- Can you please share a list of all the incentives and allowances that are paid to the regular employees by the company?
- What are the anti-harassment policies that have been devised by the company for its employees so as to maintain a peaceful working environment?
Download the list of questions in .PDF format, to practice with them later, or to use them on your interview template (for Nordstrom interviews):
References
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17483107.2019.1646821
- https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:1586529
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Sandeep Bhandari is the founder of PrepMyCareer.com website.
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