Home Depot Interview Questions & Tips

How to Get a Job at Home Depot

Home improvement and construction-supply giant, The Home Depot enjoys notoriety for exceptionally helpful and knowledgeable staff. To maintain high levels of performance, the hardware store employs workers who fit the company core values of respect and diligence. Areas of employment include retail, management, supply chain, call center operations, merchandising, and corporate.

Interview processes often differ in each career area. Candidates generally encounter phone interviews and several rounds of in-person interviews.

Phone Interviews

The Home Depot hiring process predominantly takes place for store-level careers. Entry-level store jobs like cashier and sales associate positions feature structured evaluation processes beginning with phone interviews.

In each phone interview, applicants answer questions regarding work experience, work ethic, and personal background. The phone interview also informs candidates about jobs and practices used in the hiring process.

Face-to-Face Interviews

Applicants showing promise then receive invitations to interview at the preferred Home Depot store face-to-face. Store human resource representatives typically conduct interviews in private with applicants. Hiring personnel ask scripted interview questions further probing past experiences and personality traits.

What Kinds of Questions Do They Ask?
Questions are largely behavior-based. Some examples include:

• When have you helped an upset customer and changed their attitude?
• "Describe a time when you worked as part of a team to achieve a common goal"
• How do you handle a customer when you are already overloaded with tasks?

Applicants who perform well in the initial interview then move on to a second interview featuring roughly the same types of questions. In some cases, the second interviews play out as informal conversations with high-level store managers.

The Hiring Process for Managers

Home Depot managerial job hopefuls face standardized interview processes, as well. A manager interview consists of a phone interview and two to three rounds of interviews with store and district officials. In-store interviews take place in 1:1 or panel formats.

Aspiring managers answer questions about past experiences resolving customer issues and coaching team members. Common questions managerial candidates need to answer are:

• "Describe a time when an employee challenged your decision. How did you address the situation?"
• "Describe a time when you had to manage two or more associates that could not get along. How did you solve this problem?"

Preparing for The Home Depot Interview Process

What Should You Wear?
Job seekers should come to the Home Depot interview on time and dressed in appropriate clothing. Applicants for store associate jobs with the hardware retailer should dress business-casual. Management candidates need to wear professional attire.

Positive Attitude
During interviews, job hopefuls need to demonstrate positive attitudes and alignment with company core values.

Related Experience
When responding to interview questions, applicants should bring up relevant work experience.

Focus on the Customer
Showing focus on total customer satisfaction improves applicant chances, as well.

The Home Depot Deliveries Associate Interview Video

Video Transcript

Interviewer: Please describe your job title and primary duties.
The Home Depot Deliveries Associate: I am a deliveries associate. So I whenever someone orders an online order for pickup in store, which they expect the same day, I grab those. Whenever people order deliveries I get them prepared before the delivery date. And typically I load the truck myself. So if, they ordered drywall I have to use the forklift to load them onto the truck. And that’s mainly my deliveries, responsibilities. Whenever I have downtime I help in every department. I’m all over the store. I walk a lot.
Other things about entry-level, you have to be 18 I think to get a job at Home Depot but once you’re in there … It’s super lenient actually. At least where I’m at like in deliveries as long as I don’t mess any of the deliveries up obviously they don’t really say much to me.

Interviewer: What was your favorite part about working there?
The Home Depot Deliveries Associate: I like a lot of the people and I guess the freedom of deliveries in general. If I were like in a department like hardware or like lumber wouldn’t enjoy my job as much because I’d be restricted to that. And in deliveries I’m like everywhere.

Interviewer: Please describe the application and interview process.
The Home Depot Deliveries Associate: So when I got the job it was just online application and then they called me like a month later. But every other person that I’ve known to get hired was either from that obviously or they do like a week or a couple of days of like walk in interviews. That’s how one of my friends got hired, was just walk in interview. They hired her on the spot.

Interviewer: What questions did the interviewer ask during the job interview?
The Home Depot Deliveries Associate: When I applied, it was for garden. It was a seasonal position. So they just asked me general questions like what I know about plants or a yard work or different things you do in the yard. But I didn’t have much experience at that point and it didn’t really matter to them because they were just hiring to hire people that could pretty much lift. So the questions they seem kind of just like empty. But for the most part, they were just pertaining to the department I was applying for.

Interviewer: How were you notified that you received the job?
The Home Depot Deliveries Associate: Phone call. About a month after my interview or maybe like three weeks. It wasn’t too long.

Interviewer: What set you apart from other candidates?
The Home Depot Deliveries Associate: I’m not even sure. I don’t know if anything set me apart because at that point they just hire like 20 new associates. I was probably just one of the first ones to walk in, but then once I proved myself over the three month seasonal period, they hired me on presumably because I didn’t really call off and I got most of my work done.

Interviewer: What other advice would you give to a job seeker looking to gain employment?
The Home Depot Deliveries Associate: Honestly, just tell them what they want to hear. If you’re trying to apply at Home Depot, because if it’s a seasonal job, they’re probably going to hire you. If it’s a cashier job, they just want to make sure you’re not crazy. That’s pretty much it.

The Home Depot Freight Associate Interview Video

Video Transcript

Interviewer: Please describe your job title and primary duties.
The Home Depot Freight Associate: My job title was freight associate, and my primary job duties were to just take the freight from the back room and get it out onto the shelves, which it involved either taking cart loads of freight from the back room or I would take pallet loads, but either way, just had to make sure to get that freight out on the shelves.

Interviewer: What was the work environment like?
The Home Depot Freight Associate: Work environment, it’s fast paced. It’s a warehouse, so you have to be careful because, you know, there’s equipment going around all the time, reaches and forklifts and things of that nature. It was a good work environment, though, because it was team oriented, so you’re usually always partnered up with somebody in order to get your job done, if not part of a whole team, so, yeah. That was what it was like.

Interviewer: Please describe a typical day as an employee.
The Home Depot Freight Associate: A typical day, I would come in at about 7 in the evening, and usually at that time there would be pallets that had been offloaded from the truck, and they needed to be broken down and organized into carts by department, so you might have a cart for electrical, for plumbing, for doors and windows, and you would have to make sure that, you know, that all the product on the pallets was organized and put onto those carts. You would pull those carts out to each of those departments, and you would just go systematically by each department and just work your way down, and get all the product onto the shelves properly. When you were finished with the department, you take a ladder and take any product that didn’t fit onto the shelves, and put it up onto the overheads to store it until it was needed again. We would take a break at about 11 o’clock, and at about an hour after our break, we would start checking the store, making sure that all the product was up on the shelves like it’s supposed to be, making sure that all of the wing stacks in the aisles were turned at a 45 degree angle, and just making sure the store was generally presentable, and then we would leave.

Interviewer: How would you describe the application and interview process?
The Home Depot Freight Associate: I did an application online, and that’s pretty standard. I don’t think there’s any, I don’t think they have any paper applications. I can’t remember if I called or they called. No, I’m sorry, they called. It was a hotline that you had to call back, and they just had a couple more intake questions, just basically saying, “Are you ready to take this position? Do you want to take this position? These are the things you might have to do in this position, are you absolutely sure you’re ready to take the position?” I answered yes, and they scheduled me for an in store interview. I interviewed with my, the head of my department, and at that time, he was able to bring in the operations manager, who is like the, basically the second in command in the store, and he interviewed me, asked a few questions, and then after that I was accepted. I had to come in for some job training, about 5 and a half hours, and after that, I was free to start working.

Interviewer: What set you apart from other candidates?
The Home Depot Freight Associate: I just, I had a fair amount of experience in retail, so when they asked the questions about how you would handle specific situations, I was able to actually draw upon my previous experience and just pull together a story that showed my leadership skills, my initiative, and how good I am with customers, because no matter where you are in Home Depot, you’re going to have to interface with customers, and you’re going to want to make sure that you know how to handle people properly.

Interviewer: What other advice would you give to a job seeker looking to gain employment?
The Home Depot Freight Associate: Just to be prepared to work in a high paced and physical environment, because it is a warehouse and it’s a home improvement warehouse, so it’s, you’re going to be lifting things, and you’re going to be, you know, hustling around, helping customers, and you’re also going to want to make sure you’re good at interfacing with customers and teasing out their problems.

More Home Depot Interview Videos:

Related Links:
Home Depot Application
Home Depot Manager
Home Depot Sales Associate
Home Depot Cashier
Home Depot En Espanol