Woolworths is an Australian supermarket chain that has locations in Jamaica, Australia, and South Africa. The chain currently has more than 900 stores around the world, including several supermarkets under other names.
If you’re lucky enough to have landed a job interview at Woolworths, the majority of the questions are going to be asking about experience and availability.
For those of you who want a bit more detail, however, keep reading. Let’s check out some of the top interview questions at Woolworths and how to answer them.
1. Why Should We Hire You?
When answering this question, you’ll want to talk about a few of your strengths and how they relate to the position you’re applying for.
For example, if you’re applying to work as a cashier, talk about your years of cash-handling experience. Or, if you’re applying as a stocker, talk about your ability to lift heavy items over long periods of time.
Just remember that whatever answer you give, it needs to be tailored to match the position you’re applying for. You can read up on the job description before the interview in order to ensure your answer makes sense when this question comes up.
2. Tell Me About Yourself
This is one of the most common interview questions out there and basically looks to get a quick breakdown of your past experiences.
In general, you’ll want to give a brief overview of any past relevant jobs you’ve held as well as your professional education. This helps show the interviewer what skillsets you have and how much experience you bring to the table.
Just remember that when answering this question, you’ll want to keep your answer to 1-2 minutes. Try not to talk too much or too little.
3. What Do You Know About Woolworths?
This question looks to test how much you actually know about the company you’re applying for. It also gauges your interest level in the company that you’re applying to work at.
For this question, you’ll want to come prepared with a few fast facts about the company. A few that you can use for Woolworths include:
- Woolworths also owns Countdown, a chain of stores in New Zealand
- The company was founded in 1924
- Woolworths got its name from the founder, Frank Woolworth
You can grab more quick facts from the company’s website to help you provide a more well-rounded answer.
4. Why Do You Want to Work at Woolworths?
When answering this question, you’ll want to come up with responses that are specific to Woolworths. You can talk about how you align with the company’s vision or how you appreciate that the company puts customers first.
Regardless of what you say, make sure that it specifically relates to Woolworths. This helps show the interviewer that you’re interested in working at their company in particular and not just at any grocery store.
5. How Would You Handle an Upset Customer?
Upset customers are an unfortunate yet very real part of working at a grocery store like Woolworths. The result is that you’ll need to know how to deal with upset customers in order to be successful in a position at Woolworths.
When answering this question, focus on your listening skills. Talk about how you’d fully listen to the customer’s complaint in order to identify their pain points and come up with a solution that helps the customer while still supporting the business’s goals.
6. What’s Your Availability Like?
Grocery stores like Woolworths tend to have a number of different shifts. Many of these shops are open until late and night and are open on weekends as well.
As a result, you may be required to come in early or stay late sometimes. You may also be asked to work on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.
Make sure that you’ve got fairly open availability when applying for a position at Woolworths. Although it’s not always a make-or-break response, having better availability may make you more hireable.
7. How Would You Handle an Issue if There Was No Manager on Duty?
Although ideally, there will always be a manager on hand to help you out in tricky situations, that’s not always necessarily the case. In the event that there’s no manager on the floor, you’ll still need to know how to handle tough situations.
To answer this question, let the interviewer know that you would assess the gravity of the situation. If the situation can wait until the floor manager is available, you would do your best to handle the immediate ramifications while the manager was able to come over.
On the other hand, if the issue requires immediate attention, you’d need to find the best solution to the problem. Remember to put safety first when coming up with a solution.
8. What Would You Do If You Forgot to Charge a Customer for an Item?
This question looks to test your problem-solving skills and see how you would respond in a difficult situation.
This question is particularly tricky because your response will have a direct impact on the company’s finances.
For this question, you’ll want to let the hiring manager know that you’d find a way to discreetly let the customer know you’d forgotten to ring them up for a particular item. Then, you can apologize for the mixup and ring them up for the missed item.
9. What’s Your Greatest Weakness?
The trick with this question is to give an answer that’s not really a weakness at all. You’ll want to find a way to make your weakness a strength.
You’ll also want to make sure that the weakness you select doesn’t hurt your chances of landing a job. Come up with something that’s not necessarily relevant to the position that you’re applying for.
For instance, you could say that your greatest weakness is that you’re overly-self critical, so you can sometimes focus too much on the negative. However, you’re working on this characteristic by practicing positive affirmations and reminding yourself that a mistake from time to time isn’t the end of the world.
10. What’s Your Greatest Strength?
For this question, you’re going to want to get comfortable tooting your own horn. While any strength is fine to say here, you’ll want to focus on strengths that directly relate to the job you’re applying for.
For example, since Woolworths is a grocery store, you can talk about your outstanding interpersonal skills or the fact that you’re a fantastic listener. These types of strengths will help you be successful in the position if you get the job.
11. Why Did You Leave Your Last Position?
Employers ask this question because they want to see how committed you are to a company. They’re also looking to gauge whether or not you’ll pack up and leave your new position with little to no warning!
If you recently left a new job, you’ll want to have a good answer for why. A couple of reasons you can give include:
- Relocated to a new area
- Needed more flexibility with your work hours for family reasons
- Medical reasons
- Pandemic-related reasons
12. Do You Have Any Questions for Us?
Once upon a time, answering this question was a must in order to land a job. Today, however, most interviewers are fine if you don’t have any questions for them.
Still, that doesn’t mean that you don’t want to go above and beyond! This part of the interview is a great place to showcase your interest in the job by asking questions such as:
- What would someone need to be truly successful in this position?
- What are a couple of the KPIs I’ll be expected to meet?
- How would you know that a candidate is exceeding expectations?
Land a Job at Woolworths
Now that you know what to expect when it comes to interview questions, you’re ready to land your next job! Just remember to try using the STAR method when forming your answers.
With those tips in mind, however, you’re well on your way to scoring your next job and making it past the interview process.
