Target Corporation: Analysis of Job Interview Process, How to Conduct a Job Interview
Target Corporation is a growth company focused exclusively on general merchandise retail. Target Corporation states that there are four main reasons why people should work for them: the culture, the diversity, the benefits, and industry leaders. Every employee at Target is an important part of the culture at Target Corporation. Employees like the challenging work tasks, the motivation, and the feedback, which helps personal and professional growth. Target Corporation is dedicated to allowing their team members to show their individuality. Diversity at Target Corporation goes beyond age, race, or gender to include sexual orientation, language, physical ability, family, religion, socioeconomic circumstances, education, and life experience. There are many employee benefits to working for this company. The benefits include discount on merchandise, 401 k plan, savings on prescriptions, flexible work schedules and many more. Employees of the Target Corporation are industrial leaders because Target Corporation is one of the nation’s top retailers and companies. Target Corporation ranked 25th on the Fortune 500 list in 2003 and consistently receives national recognition for its comprehensive team member benefits, training and education, productive work environment and community giving. Those are the main reasons to work at Target but how can a person go about getting a job there.
The parts of the selection process for getting a new job are completing an application, the preliminary interview, employment testing, the diagnostic interview, reference checking, and then the human resources final decision. The major part of this selection process is the job interview. The typical interview process for Target Corporation begins with an initial human resources screening, followed by 2 or more interviews with potential managers. Interviews also involve a programming test, but job offers are not based on the scores of the test. Target Corporation’s interviews are structured interviews, which are interviews conducted according to a predetermined outline. In the interviews the human resource manager asks the same basic questions that most retail stores ask.
Suggestions for Target Corporation are not many. One suggestion is doing a stress interview. A stress interview is an interview method that puts the applicant under pressure, to determine whether he or she is highly emotional. This method would be good for Target Corporation because working in retail can become very stressful especially during the Christmas season, the managers should know if the potential employee can handle the pressure and stress. Another suggestion is a job knowledge test. A job knowledge test is a test used to measure the job-related knowledge of an applicant. The applicant should answer written questions that can differentiate the experienced workers from the non-experienced workers. One type of a job knowledge test that would work for Target Corporation is the sales skill test. The test can be found on www.waldentesting.com. The test is a four-page report that informs the employer of the skills of a potential employee, the test takes 65 minutes to complete and should be given in complete silence. The test shows the applicants knowledge of general sales principles, knowledge of sales terms, relevant vocabulary skills, understanding of issues that can influence the sales process, the ability to deal with different sales situation, and basic mathematical and calculation skills. The last suggestion would be to make up more in depth interview questions to ask applicants. If applicants are being asked the same questions at every retail store that they apply for then they will have answers already pre made before the interview and this will not help the employer learn anything about the applicant.
Target Corporation has a lot of good qualities that an applicant should look for in a company. The process of being hired at Target involves a screening by human resources, 2 or more interviews by management, and a programming test. Target Corporation should change their interview process in the following ways: introduce a stress interview, give more tests to applicants and come up with new interview questions.