Dick’s Sporting Goods Interview Questions & Tips

How to Get a Job at Dick's Sporting Goods

Authentic full-line sporting goods retailer Dick's Sporting Goods is committed to providing the best service anywhere. The retail chain hires highly knowledgeable and committed workers to fill positions throughout each store. Maintaining departments for team sports, exercise, footwear, apparel, golf, outdoors, and fan merchandise, the retailer needs a team with a diverse range of knowledge and interests. The sporting goods retailer uses a standard interview process to screen capable, entry-level applicants. Managerial interviews tend to vary by department and job title.

Types of Interviews and Questions To Expect

Job hopefuls looking for customer service roles, like cashier and associate positions, need to complete one or two face-to-face interviews with Dick's Sporting Goods store managers. Interviews are relatively relaxed and feature basic questions covering previous work experience and customer service skills. Typical questions include: "Have you ever asked customers to sign up for store credit cards or rewards programs?" and "When have you worked as part of a team to accomplish a common goal?" Applicants may also need to answer questions about sports background and company knowledge. In some cases, applicants may need to complete questionnaires after interviews.

Interviewing for Manager Roles

Most management careers with Dick's Sporting Goods require applicants to successfully complete two to three interviews. Managerial interviews are usually conducted one on one with district or regional management. Interview questions are largely behavioral and require applicants to draw answers from relevant experiences with past employers. Common questions management applicants encounter are: "Tell me about a time you had to resolve a situation with an unhappy customer," "Tell me about a time you had a problem that you didn't know a solution to," and "What have you done in the past to reduce loss?" Hiring personnel often wrap up interviews with salary discussions.

Using Past Experience to Your Advantage

Dick's Sporting Goods looks for customer-oriented workers with passion for sports, and applicants should show these qualities with each answer. Whenever possible, job seekers want to bring up past accomplishments with customer care. For best responses, applicants want to describe specific customer service challenges and actions taken to overcome the obstacles. When talking about past experiences, job hunters need to keep responses positive and truthful. Using proper eye contact and posture will demonstrate the communication skills and professionalism the sports retailer desires in an applicant. The company prefers to hire flexible crew members, and applicants want to show open work availability.

Dick’s Sporting Goods Bike Tech Interview Video

Video Transcript

Interviewer: Please describe your job title and primary duties.
Dick’s Sporting Goods Bike Tech: So I was the bike tech, but what that encompasses is bikes and fitness. So the bike technology, you could just be a sales associate, but the bike tech is like a leader. I wasn’t an assistant store manager, but I was a sales lead for bikes and fitness. But I also had to mechanically maintain the bikes. So people would bring their bikes in for repair and service, I had to fix them, I’d have to build brand new bikes out of the box. But then beyond that, all the fitness department, I had a talk to people about ellipticals, and treadmills, and stack the weights when they’d come off the truck, stock all the fitness stuff and help people find whatever; ankle weights or whatever they needed. Yeah. Bikes and fitness is one department, but the highest role you could have there was called Bike Tech.

Interviewer: What was the work environment like?
Dick’s Sporting Goods Bike Tech: Overall, it’s like a sporting goods store. Dressing and sporting apparel was actually mandatory. You would have to wear sweatpants or basketball shorts. You couldn’t just wear a tee shirt. It had to be like a Dri-FIT tee shirt or something, which I guess would be pretty casual. It wasn’t for me though. I thought it was kind of awkward. But beyond that, the way they had it structured is I feel like they broke down everything into such small little segments that you could give somebody that has no idea what they’re doing, these really detailed instructions on how to do it. They would just give you, they called it the playbook, everything is this big sports metaphor. So, they’d give you this broken-down playbook of exactly the steps to achieve your goal and you really couldn’t variate from that at all. They were really big into metrics. All day long, they’d report metrics, meaning the number of people who checked out using, like the percentage of people who checked out using their scorecard, which is their in-store loyalty tracker program, the amount of donations that they got for their own Dick’s Sporting Goods charity, trying to get people to sign up for credit cards. That was one that drove me crazy is they really wanted you to get people to sign up for the Dick’s Sporting Goods Store credit card and buy stuff with it. So that was something that, I mean, we all have to wear these little radios and we’re in constant contact with each other. Once an hour, they would read out over the radio our current metrics and encourage us to increase them no matter what they were.

Interviewer: What was your favorite part about working there?
Dick’s Sporting Goods Bike Tech: The flexibility was incredible. I was a full-time student at that time and it was a part time job, but I could work. Well, yeah. Pretty much, if I told them what days I needed off for anything, whether was class or just maybe to spend time with my family, if I gave them enough notice, they were really accommodating of that and that was probably my favorite thing. Well, that’s what I miss in my current position is just being able to more or less set your own hours within their structure.

Interviewer: Please describe the application and interview process.
Dick’s Sporting Goods Bike Tech: Yeah. The application and everything’s done online. In the interview, again, is broken down in these playbooks. You’ll start with an assistant store manager and they’ll read you pretty much their scripted questions and then they’ll give you like a scripted scenario. Let’s say you’re in this scenario with an angry customer, how do you resolve it? What are your steps? So yeah. You do maybe like eight little sections like that, questions about work history, questions about your attitude about work and things like that. I guess my interview process was a little different because the general store manager was on vacation during that time, like an extended vacation. So I met with assistant store manager and then immediately following that, was the second interview with the acting store manager. He just kind of came in and we chatted a little more casually and yeah. About a day later, they let me know that I had the job. Usually, I guess you come back for your second interview, but everyone was there and I guess the people in the first interview felt strongly enough that I would be a good candidate that they just brought in the acting store manager and yeah. It’s usually like a two or three day process, but I sped through there in a day.

Interviewer: How were you notified that you received the job?
Dick’s Sporting Goods Bike Tech: I’m pretty sure it was a phone call a day later.

Interviewer: What set you apart from other candidates?
Dick’s Sporting Goods Bike Tech: I had a lot of experience in bicycles, specifically. Talented people that with bicycle skillset, like mechanical aptitude. I have certifications from technical schools that I can do all sorts of service on bicycles, whether it’s rebuilding suspension or tuning the shifting or whatever. There’s nobody like that. Looking back, I might’ve been a little over qualified to work at Dick’s Sporting Goods because quickly, I got all the other bike techs in the region, our Northeast Ohio region, would call me for support and they’d say, “I don’t know what to do with this and what do I do with that?” So, I’d have to, anyways, I think just even though it was a bikes and fitness position, I interviewed for a sales associate in bikes and fitness. Bicycles are my passion and that’s something that, right off like the first day, I could build a bike and that’s usually something they have to train people to do. I came to the table with some, some skills already. Yeah, it let me negotiate a little bit of a stronger entry salary and then yeah, just using that kind of push forward to… Eventually, because I guess most companies do, they tier your pay scale to your position you’re at. And the bike techs cap out at $13.50, so I was kind of making the maximum that I could and I did that for a little while and I went somewhere else.

Interviewer: What other advice would you give to a job seeker looking to gain employment?
Dick’s Sporting Goods Bike Tech: Yeah, it’s tough because I really look at the people that they turn into career people there and those guys get stepped on and squashed so hard. I would really just tell people like, it’s a really great part time job if you have something else that you’re cooking. You know what I mean? I’m doing school, right? So I really just need something to float me by. It’s a really great job if you need a part time job, but I’m scared for anybody that would want to plant their roots there and grow with the company. Maybe that’s a little bit too vicious to put on camera, but that’s really just how I feel is it’s a good job if you’re in the right circumstance, but if you’re looking for something, a place that will treat you well and compensate you equally for the amount of work they demand from you, which is really what happens once you become assistant manager and store manager, I feel so bad for those guys. I don’t know. A lot of them were my friends and they just had a whole different experience than I did. And I was nice because I only wanted to do part time. I was in a valuable position. The footwear guys, those guys could get fired so fast, but no one is applying for bikes. I kind of knew how much weight I had and I wasn’t afraid to throw it around so.

Dick’s Sporting Goods Footwear Associate Interview Video

Video Transcript

Interviewer: Please describe your job title and primary duties.
Dick’s Sporting Goods Employee: I was a footwear specialist so I worked back in the footwear department and like, so you’ll start out as like a just a normal sales person. But then like after a while you’ll have to take this like it’s not like a class but it’s just some type of training that like teaches you about like running shoes, like just basketball shoes, football cleats and just basically just tells you all about different types of shoes and everything. And then you’ll have to, there’s this thing called a gait analysis where so like say if I was going to give you one, you would hop on a treadmill, take your shoes off, I would record you from like the back of the knees down. And then I would, so like when people run, they either like their feet will roll towards the inside because their arch collapses or their feet will roll towards the outside. And then I would record them, then show them what’s wrong with them, fit them in the right shoe in order for them to like fix their problem. And I also worked in like the lodge departments, so like I sold like bow’s, like shotguns and stuff like that. I kind of just did everything there. That was pretty cool.

Interviewer: What was the work environment like?
Dick’s Sporting Goods Employee: The work environment at Dick’s is very, very nice. Like your coworkers are very like down to earth or like most of the time they’re more college students as like yourself. So you really make a lot of good connections with your coworkers and the managers are, I never had any problem with any of the so like there’s like the store manager who’s in charge of everyone and then like department managers, so like footwear has theirs, lodge has theirs and team sports and so on and so on like that.

Interviewer: Please describe the application and interview process.
Dick’s Sporting Goods Employee: So you would go onto, I think it’s like Dickssportingoods.com/employment or something like that and then you would sign up there, you would make an account, fill out the application, they’ll call you, and then you’ll go in for your first interview. And then if they like you or they think that you’d be good for the job, they’ll call you back in for a second interview. And then from there you’ll just start and then you’ll go through like your first day will be doing training stuff, but it’s not hard. You’re there for like an hour and a half maybe. And then you’ll go home. And depending if they need someone the next day, you’ll start right then and there. And if not, they’ll put you on the next week’s schedule and then you’ll just start work.

Interviewer: What questions did the interviewer ask during the job interview?
Dick’s Sporting Goods Employee: Just basically how you, like if there was a problem with a customer, how would you handle it? Like just stuff about like, oh, if this job wasn’t done at the end of your shift, what would you, they just want to see how he would like how you would react in certain situations. Like your job not done at the end of your shift. Are you going to like go out of your way to like get the job done or are you be like, all right, I’m going to go home. I’m off the clock. Like I’m scheduled til two and then it’s like just stuff like that.

Interviewer: How were you notified that you received the job?
Dick’s Sporting Goods Employee: So I got, I applied in August of 2017 and then they called me like a couple of days later. I had an interview and then but I’m also in the National Guard. So like I was going to be gone for like two weeks and then they were like, oh that’s fine if you’re like, you’ll be back for back to school time and everything. So I came back after two weeks and I just jumped right into it.

Interviewer: What set you apart from other candidates?
Dick’s Sporting Goods Employee: I already knew a little bit about shoes and like just, I played sports my whole life and at Dick’s Sporting Goods you kinda like bounce around from department to department. So if you could go into it like with a small understanding about everything, it’s pretty easy.

Interviewer: What other advice would you give to a job seeker looking to gain employment?
Dick’s Sporting Goods Employee: Just go into it open minded and just have like make the most out of it. Like I made a lot of friends from Dick’s Sporting Goods. I still hang out with them and everything. Just have fun, you know, it’s a fun place to work at.

Dick’s Sporting Goods Stock Associate Interview Video

Video Transcript

Interviewer: Please describe your job title and primary duties.
Dick’s Sporting Goods Stock Associate: I held multiple job titles, but the biggest one is probably stock boy or just kind of stock in general. The duties included re-shelving items, unloading freight, re-loading ship from stores. We would have employees that would package up items and then part of our stock duty would be loading up the trucks to send them out, just other things like that, moving inventory in and out of the back rooms.

Interviewer: What was the work environment like?
Dick’s Sporting Goods Stock Associate: For the most part, I was kind of behind the scenes so not really much going on outside of the store other than just re-shelving it. In the back stock rooms, it’s kind of dim and quiet so if you’re a peaceful person, it’s obviously not a bad thing because you’re doing your job and it’s not too stressful.

Interviewer: How would you describe the application and interview process?
Dick’s Sporting Goods Stock Associate: You have to apply online and then you call or they call you, one of the two, whichever one you’re searching for. It’s typically better to call them because they get so many applications in a day. They try to weed out and see who calls them because then it shows initiative and that’s what they like to see. When I went in for my interview after my application process, I originally interviewed for cashier and then stock kind of just came up. The manager of stock is actually a manager of the footwear department too because that’s where most of the back rooms are, so I had to do an interview with him and then an interview with the store manager as well and be approved by both before I could get the position.

Interviewer: What questions did the interviewer ask during the job interview?
Dick’s Sporting Goods Stock Associate: Since it is Dick’s Sporting Goods, their questions were kind of different. They look for people who are athletes, so everyone is kind of like a certified professional; you have knowledge of everything in the background. They ask you, “Do you have any leadership roles on any high school sports?” “Did you participate in any sports?” “Provide an example of a time when you and a teammate had an argument and how you worked past it,” just simple things like that, stuff that could transfer over into a job interview, questions that could be easily transferable or reworded to sound more professional, but they like to make it seem more driven to the sports side.

Interviewer: How were you notified that you received the job?
Dick’s Sporting Goods Stock Associate: I was notified actually the day of my interview with the store manager. After sitting down and talking with the stock manager, we rescheduled an interview for the next week, same day next week. I don’t know if that’s how it goes for all of it, but that’s just how my store did it. When I went down and I sat in, and I talked to the store manager, he actually hired me on the spot. He told me I would start my training on Saturday, unofficially, and I would go in to watch a video. I had to do all of my video training before I could actually go on to start working.

Interviewer: What other advice would you give to a job seeker looking to gain employment?
Dick’s Sporting Goods Stock Associate: Dick’s is a laid back store from my experience. Working in Toledo, there’s three different stores here, so I would go and I would help out with other stores. No matter what store I went to, it was a laid back experience. I would say, just go in and be positive and have a good attitude and good personality because that’s what they look for at Dick’s. They want people who are going to be happy while they’re working, not people who are downers, so just kind of be positive and happy.

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Related Links:
Dick's Application
Dick's Cashier