Nordstrom Mock Interview
Practice 30 Nordstrom interview questions covering customer service excellence, fashion retail, and brand values.
Question 15 of 30
What was one of your biggest setbacks, and how did you overcome it?
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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.
Your interviewer is trying to assess your emotional intelligence. One of their core values is that they are owners at heart, "We treat every interaction as an opportunity to make an impact and deliver excellence." Their ideal candidates take ownership for their commitments and responsibilities. This includes holding oneself accountable for their mistakes or setbacks, and taking what they can from the experience to learn from them and not repeat such mistakes or failures.
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.
"When working in a customer facing role, as I do, setbacks occur on a semi-regular basis. I recall one time when I hit my weekly sales target by just a hair. Ten minutes before closing, a customer returned an item purchased from me. It put me in the hole! It felt very discouraging. With that said, I took that energy and applied it to my following weeks' KPI's and knocked it out of the park the following few weeks."
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.
Think about a time when you had a setback, personal or work-related, and where you didn't allow that challenging situation to get the best of you. Offer an overview of the situation. Share what you did to maintain a positive outlook and avoid this setback to getting the best of you. Finally, share what you did to keep moving forward instead of focusing on the setback.
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