Costco Mock Interview
Practice 40 Costco interview questions covering membership values, teamwork, and customer service excellence.
Question 32 of 40
Tell me about the last time you made a mistake at work.
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Kevin Downey has an extensive background in business management, recruiting, branding and marketing. He's volunteered his career coaching services at job fairs, lecturing on interview techniques and crafting winning resumes and cover letters.
In an interview, it is common to worry if admitting to a mistake on the job could reflect upon you poorly or present you as a liability. But the way to showcase your merits when answering such questions is to reveal what you've learned from your mistakes and how those lessons made you stronger and increased your professional worth. So take ownership of and responsibility for your mistakes. "You take an educated gamble. If you don't occasionally make a mistake, you're not doing your job." - Jim Sinegal, Founder of Costco.
Kevin Downey has an extensive background in business management, recruiting, branding and marketing. He's volunteered his career coaching services at job fairs, lecturing on interview techniques and crafting winning resumes and cover letters.
"Well, I was punching orders, and normally when I punch orders, I write tallies of the running case count at the bottom of each page. But on one occasion, our delivery truck had run behind, and there was a real rush to get the store open in time. So I cut a corner and didn't cross-check my work before I finalized the order. Sadly, I had performed a mis-punch, and instead of ordering three cases of toilet paper, which are large, I'd ordered thirty. Our store had very limited space in our backroom, and we did everything truck-to-shelf. So there we were with more toilet paper than we could handle. I immediately got to work to rectify my mistake and called our other stores, offering to deliver some cases to each of them in exchange for a valued product so our inventory wouldn't be affected. I got most stores to agree to lighten our load, and that left us with eight cases. Then, I created an eye-catching display of toilet paper on our landing zone and increased our TP sales by three-hundred percent. Needless to say, despite the happy ending, I never made that mistake again."
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