Hollister Co. Interview Questions & Tips

How to Get a Job at Hollister

A retail chain with a California feel, Hollister Co. uses the interview process to evaluate for candidate personality. The major fashion company looks for social, welcoming, and laid back applicants. Management generally keeps the interview process streamlined, as most applicants participate in a single interview. Hiring personnel often approach and select applicants to interview in-store at time of receiving employment forms.

Hiring Process

Group Interviews
Most Hollister jobs require associates to participate in group interviews. Typically, group interviews last half an hour and feature between five and ten candidates.

What Question Do They Ask?

Because the fashion chain promotes diverse workplaces, a standard inquiry all applicants must answer includes What is diversity, and why is it important in the workplace?

Interviewers usually ask a number of fun, personality-based questions like

• How would your friends describe you?
• If you were an animal, what would you be and why?
• What is something nice you've done for someone recently?

Group interviews also feature a number of questions gauging knowledge of Hollister Co. and current fashion trends. Examples include

• Why do you think people prefer Hollister over other brands?
• What are some of your favorite Hollister Co. products?

Toward the end of interviews, applicants may need to recite store tag lines, like "Hey! How's it going?"

What Should You Wear?

Fashion Matters
Appearance plays an important part in the success of candidates during the Hollister Co. interview process. The laid back fashion retail brand looks for associates who reflect natural, unaffected looks. Hair should look neat yet effortless. Girls want to keep makeup minimal. Few or no accessories, including jewelry, remains preferred. Clothing should display modern and stylish trends. If possible, applicants should wear outfits made up entirely of Hollister Co. clothing.

Examples include:

• Jeans
• Shorts
• Modest t-shirts
• Button-ups

The best references for achieving the full "Hollister Look" include current store employees and company catalog models.

How to Behave

Smiling, Shining, and Always Outgoing
In addition to fitting Hollister styles, candidates need to possess personalities matching company cultures. Applicants want to exhibit pleasant, relaxed attitudes throughout interviews. Before group interviews start, applicants should socialize with other candidates to display friendly personalities. During interviews, applicants want to smile often and exhibit bubbly personalities. When reciting taglines, candidates want to sound as genuine and helpful as possible. To stand out from other candidates, applicants need to offer original answers to questions. Following interviews, applicants should wait patiently to hear back about hiring decisions, which usually come in about a week.

Hollister Model Interview Video

Video Transcript

Interviewer: Please describe your job title and primary duties.
Hollister Employee: For Hollister, I was a model. My job duties consisted of me standing in front of the doors, helping customers, introducing myself, asking customers what they needed, seeing if they found everything correctly, and basically setting up the tables for our merchandise.

Interviewer: What was the work environment like?
Hollister Employee: It was very energetic. The manager… she was a nice manager. She was very lenient toward how much she put on us because she figured it’s Hollister – you’re supposed to have fun here.

Interviewer: What was your favorite part about working there?
Hollister Employee: My favorite part about working there would be season changes, where we change the color codes of the store, and we got to get 80% off of our clothing.

Interviewer: Please describe a typical day as an employee.
Hollister Employee: Typical work day for me: I would walk into the building, clock in, look at my position for the day, where I would be, what I would be doing, and just work.

Interviewer: How would you describe the application and interview process?
Hollister Employee: The application process was online. It was about 30 minutes long. The interview… it wasn’t as long as the application, to be honest. Interview… she asked a few questions about my communication certification, and how well I work with customers, and my strengths and weaknesses.

Interviewer: What questions did the interviewer ask during the job interview?
Hollister Employee: How well I worked with others. Some of the questions dealt with the amount of time it took me to work with the project, if I had to work with supervision, or if I could work better alone, if I was a leader, and something that I have done with a group that was successful.

Interviewer: Did you earn any benefits or other job perks?
Hollister Employee: Yes, we received 15% off original prices, and for season changes, we get 85% off of clothing.

Interviewer: What set you apart from other candidates?
Hollister Employee: Individualism. I believe in diversity, personally, and that job – the main focus was diversity.

Interviewer: What other advice would you give to a job seeker looking to gain employment?
Hollister Employee: Confidence. Stay confident because that’s basically what they look for when they interview you. Give straight eye contact and smile the whole entire time.

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Hollister Floor Model Interview Video

Video Transcript

Interviewer: Please describe your job title and primary duties.
Hollister Floor Model: I was considered a model at Hollister. It’s just basically a person who stands by the clothes, basically customer service, all-around crew. If people needed different sizes, we’d go through the clothes, find their sizes for them. If they didn’t see something that they saw online, we’d go to the back and look, so it’s like part of a crew, but they call it a model there.

Interviewer: What was the work environment like?
Hollister Floor Model: It was dark. It was fun though, there are a lot of people that work at the same time there. It was a very strong … They spray their house, their perfume, and their cologne everywhere, so it was really strong. If you work there you got to be able to take the smell. It was a little dark for some people, some people have problems with that, I was fine with it. There’s always a lot of people there, so that was something that was fun.

Interviewer: Please describe a typical day as an employee.
Hollister Floor Model: Typical workday is you come in, you clock in, your manager will look at you to make sure you’re not showing too much and then about Hollister, they don’t want you to wear a lot of makeup, they want you to be really natural. Just have a natural amount of makeup, there’s no nail polish, things like that, minimum jewelry, and of course, you want to be in Hollister clothes or something that’s not name brand. You won’t walk in there wearing Abercrombie or anything like that. You just get looked through by your manager, and then they’ll tell you what station you’re on. You’re a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, then you go to that station and you just start cleaning up, tidying up, and helping customers.

Interviewer: How would you describe the application and interview process?
Hollister Floor Model: The application process was, for me, they took me in and I tried on their clothes, and they see how I fit in them and how I looked in them, and took pictures, and then they sent them to their bosses or something like that. That was basically the interview, and of course they asked me questions and things like that. That was a big part of it, they wanted to make sure that I looked good in the clothes, and then of course just the initial interview. Then they sent the pictures and then they called me back after they got a okay or something from their managers, so that’s why I was able to come back and start working.

Interviewer: What questions did the interviewer ask during the job interview?
Hollister Floor Model: Just like have you ever worked in retail? They wanted to get a sense of your own style, like, let’s hope you have some type of style. Do you interact well with people? Do you have any customer service experience? Things like that.

Interviewer: What set you apart from other candidates?
Hollister Floor Model: I don’t know. I just think a lot of people like my attitude, I’m very friendly, so things like that. I’m very upbeat, they like that there because it’s just always busy so they don’t want people who are drained or not very talkative because that’s not how you sell clothes. Just things like that.

Interviewer: How were you notified that you received the job?
Hollister Floor Model: I would say, 3 or 4 days, she got back to me, and she called me to tell me that I had got the job and when to come in for the next day of paperwork.

Interviewer: What other advice would you give to a job seeker looking to gain employment?
Hollister Floor Model: What I would tell people with any job, first of all, be yourself, show your personality. If these are people who you want to work with for the year on out, let them know who you really are. If you’re very talkative, talk, people will talk to you forever, just be really upbeat and happy to be there to show them that you are interested in this position and you actually do want this job. Just things like that, just be yourself, be energetic because no one wants someone who’s dull or looks like they’re sleepy to come in to an interview. Things like that.

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Hollister Cashier Interview Video

Video Transcript

Interviewer: Please describe your job title and primary duties.

Hollister Cashier: My job title was a model/cashier. My job description was more of a cashier. I would be on the floor, making sure the clothes were all organized, folded correctly, customer service – interacting with customers, making sure that they’re happy. Also, making sure nobody is stealing.

Interviewer: What was the work environment like?

Hollister Cashier: The work environment at Hollister is very fun. Everybody’s friends, everybody’s really nice; the managers are really relatable. It does get hectic at times when the mall is busy, but the work environment is actually very nice, and it’s just more of a calm store.

Interviewer: Please describe a typical day as an employee.

Hollister Cashier: Typical day at Hollister… you would go in, you would clock in, go in the back, you would read this poster board of “What’s today’s motto?” or “What are we focused on today?” You wear a fixed uniform – Hollister jeans and a shirt – and you make sure it’s fixed. You speak to the managers, and they either assign you to the room or the cash register. After that, you make sure you maintain standards, make sure the customers are happy, and it goes from there really. At the end, you just clock out. They check your bag, and you’re good to go.

Interviewer: How would you describe the application and interview process?

Hollister Cashier: The application is either online, or you can do it in store. It is a group interview. They tell you at the end of the application. I want to say my interview – there were about two or three people for the job I was applying for, and maybe six people for the other positions. It wasn’t that long, maybe 45 minutes – just kind of varies by the amount of people applying for the job. We went up to the food court. It was chilled. You kind of just want to relax, not be enthusiastic or anything.

Interviewer: What questions did the interviewer ask during the job interview?

Hollister Cashier: Hollister is very big on diversity – a lot of questions about diversity: “What is diversity?”, “How would you use it in the workplace?”, “How would you handle different situations?” They do ask a situation you have to use diversity in the past, and how would you work it in the workplace. “What do you think about company standards?” “How would you handle the uniform standards and the floor standards?” It really expanded off diversity. Very big on diversity.

Interviewer: What other advice would you give to a job seeker looking to gain employment?

Hollister Cashier: If you’re applying for a job with Hollister, don’t be discouraged if you don’t get one position. There is always another position you can apply for. You can apply immediately after you found out if you got it or not. Even if you get a position you want to switch, you can always do that, as well. Just be prepared in the beginning to not get as many hours because it is a store that’s based on how many people, so they have to divide the hours up. But once you’ve been there for a few months, your hours will increase, and a lot of people don’t know that, and they usually try and quit before that. It’s kind of like if you stay for two months, you’re going to get a lot more hours because they see that you’re dedicated.

Hollister Stock Associate Interview Video

Video Transcript

Interviewer: Please describe your job title and primary duties.
Hollister Stock Associate: I was a stock boy. I would restock the floor, rearrange boxes in the back. When new stock would come, put that out, move the old stock to the sales section.

Interviewer: What was the work environment like?
Hollister Stock Associate: It was very chill, to say the least. That’s just kind of the vibe that Hollister puts out… is very chill.

Interviewer: How would you describe the application and interview process?
Hollister Stock Associate: Turned in my resume online, got a call, went in, did the interview process and that’s it; just one interview.

Interviewer: What questions did the interviewer ask during the job interview?
Hollister Stock Associate: Well, they wanted to see if I had previous experience. They also wanted to know when I was available and what time I could come in. They wanted to know what kind of things I had done or what I was going to look forward to doing there, I guess you could say.

Related Links:
Hollister Application
Hollister Model