OfficeMax Technology Specialist Interview Questions & Reviews

Interviewed Jan 2009 in Columbus, OH (took 5 days)

OfficeMax has a very specific interview process. The beginning of the process will always be through an online application. The application process is pretty easy but ensure that you take the online assessment. This is presented as optional -- it isn't. As someone that was responsible for hiring at OfficeMax, over several stores, I was not allowed to even talk to someone if they didn't receive a yellow or green on the assessment. If you don't complete it, in some cases they will send you an e-mail to get you to take it, but in most they will not. MAKE SURE YOU TAKE THE ASSESSMENT!

Uour first interview will be a phone interview in most cases. When a representative of the store calls you, even if they aren't asking questions, you are being interviewed. Questions are pretty simple. OfficeMax follows "Passion, Innovation, and Fun" -- so the questions will try to follow this.

You'll know at the end of the phone interview whether or not you're moving on. Basically, if they tell you something along the lines of "Well, we're going to have phone conversations with our other candidates and should we want to move forward, we'll give you a call to setup a face to face interview." If they like you, they are going to schedule an interview right then and there.

Following this you will do between 1 and 2 interviews. OfficeMax gives its managers very specific interview guides to follow. There will be a minimum of four questions. If they ask follow up questions in the same vein, then they most likely didn't get the answer they wanted.

Under each question that they ask, there is a section that says "EAR" with boxes for each letter. Event, Action, Result. They are looking for specific examples of what you have done in the past. When they ask the first question "What do you think an ideal customer experience would look like from entering the building to exiting?" They don't want you to say "Well, they should enter, be greated, etc." They WANT to hear "Well, this is something I'm very familiar with at So-and-So employer. Whenever a customer entered, I always made sure to great them. I always felt that I should let our customers enter the aisle where they are looking. We always approached our customers, greeted them again, and introduced ourselves. The best thing about So-and-So employer was the way we found out what our customers needed! We used open-ended questions... ... etc."

The questions are pretty simple. For an associate position, they will ask about customer service, teamwork, dependability, and multitasking. For a specialist position, they will add on questions as to what makes you passionate about Technology or Furniture sales. They will also ask about coaching and working with associates.

Assistant manager and Operations Supervisor positions will ask about the hiring process and how to select candidates. The questions will also be reworded for cost control.

The second interview is very varied. This will be with the actual store manager. In most cases, they will begin with something along the lines of "tell me about yourself". As someone that has asked that question a HUGE number of times while at OfficeMax -- they are not looking for a canned answer. Good interviewers are looking for who you are, both professionally and personally. OfficeMax pushes for this. The passion that you display for what you do in your freetime is a signal for how passionate you'll be at work.

What almost every single one will do is give you a pamphlet for the MaxAssurance program. They will ask
you to read the brochure and then have you offer the plan. Normally it will be on a furniture product, as they are a little less complicated. They are looking for several things. First, eye contact. Secondly, use a personal story about how your chair broke to sell it. Also, offer only a couple features. If the manager says "No" then you really need to attempt to overcome that. Something along the lines of "Are you sure? I mean, it does cover it for X time and if it breaks you are going to get your money back."

Basically, keep in mind the three things OfficeMax holds important: Passion, Innovation, Fun (PIF!). OfficeMax is very pro-teamwork and as such, you need to ensure that you are dsiplaying that.