Interview Q & A

The position I’m applying for is an Area Manager with Amazon in the SeaTac area. It emphasizes
looking for someone who has a completed bachelor’s degree, customer-centric, direct
management experience for employees and their performance, experience with performance
metrics and process improvement (how, when, who) and is committed to a diverse and inclusive
workplace.

1. Tell me a little about yourself. I’m born and raised right here in the Pacific Northwest. I
have a daughter who is 21 years old that I raised as a single mom, so I did the mom job
first while working full time and then went to college to get my bachelor’s degree once
she graduated high school. I’m not sure whether being a single mom made me a better
leader or being a leader made me a better mom, or both! I then met my husband when I
first started college while playing adult coed softball. We have a love for staying active
and playing sports so you can usually find us outdoors either hiking, rollerblading,
camping, snowboarding and boating or playing some sort of sport either softball,
dodgeball, volleyball and bowling. Which is the beauty of living in a state that has
outdoor activities year-round, we definitely take advantage of that! For my me time I
like to take my vacation time from work and travel internationally. I try to visit a new
country every year but sometimes places are worth going back! I love to work hard to
play harder.
2. Explain why you have applied for this position as an Area Manager with us? As I’ve
progressed my experience as a leader over the past 20 years with a few companies, I’ve
realized that my talent lies in developing my employees to success and achieving goals.
Often more successful than we imagined so the celebration usually gets bigger as they
develop new sustainable knowledge. Also, with being a single mom for those same 20
years has given me my daughter whom I am ultimately responsible for her success in life
as well. I absolutely love being a mom and a role model. I have grown the patience and
discipline it takes to lead others to be successful instead of just doing things myself. I
want to do what I do every day as a leader and have that positive effect on many
locations and not just one location.
3. What are your weaknesses? I would say that my weakness would be trying to do it all,
whether at work or home. They say time flies when you’re having fun, so I try to fill my
days with as much as possible. I love the experience gained and the memories I make.
However, this use to be a problem with managing my time until I learned how to
properly keep track of my prior commitments before committing myself to anything
else. The calendar on my phone was used for personal commitments with family and
friends while my day planner carried with me at work would have work obligations
penciled in there. I would refer to both when necessary at times.
4. Tell me of a time that you have turned a bad customer experience around?
NARRATIVE RESPONSE When I was with Total Wine & More, we completed keg orders
for our customers, either from our on hand inventory or by placing a special order.
When this customer came in to pick up his special order of kegs, he then must go
 through the checkout to pay for the product and in that time the cashier would ask if he
also needed to purchase a tap, tub, and ice to go along with his order. This customer
said yes to all the above, so then the cashier would say yes on the screen when
prompted to ask the customer these questions. By pressing yes, it tells the cashier the
type of tap the customer will need for the type of keg purchased since the taps are not
interchangeable. The screen prompted a D-style tap so the cashier went to the filing
cabinet labeled D-tap and retrieved one for this customer purchase. The customer then
left store but called us about half later regarding that his beer was not dispensing from
his keg. I apologized for any confusion and walked him through troubleshooting for a
few different scenarios but no luck on dispensing beer. I apologized and let him know he
probably either didn’t receive the correct tap or possibly received a faulty tap. I asked
him if he could return to the store and I would personally make sure he received one
that did work. When he arrived, I found that he received the wrong tap by the label
placed on the tap and apologized for the inconvenience. I gave him the correct type of
tap and politely explained where the confusion was at as to why he couldn’t dispense
his beer. He was happy that is was a simple fix besides him having to come back to our
store for a replacement. Another half hour later I received a phone call from him again
explaining that he still had no beer dispensing and his party was starting, he had no
more time to figure this out! He was furious and stressed. I apologized again and
reassured him that we would fix this for him and fast! I knew that I couldn’t leave the
store because a manager always had to stay in the building so quickly I hand signaled to
my supervisor to come over to me to hear me explaining to the gentleman on the phone
that my supervisor would personally drive to his location with taps and make sure that
he could dispense beer for his guests and that while he was on his way as we speak! My
supervisor took the note I gave him with the address and the tap style needed and left
while I was still on the phone with the customer. While still on the phone with the
customer I let him know I was adding points to his account and leaving a message for
the other managers to be sure he receives a discount on his next purchase when he
brought his deposit items back. The customer left a glowing review in voices, which is
our customer satisfaction survey the entire company can see, about how he was
thoroughly impressed with my quick on my feet thinking and was so grateful for how we
went above and beyond for him that night. Also, my supervisor trusted in me to know
he would be taken care of for time and miles to provide this customer service.
5. Give me an example of a time that you led your team to achieve a specific goal. As the
Wine Manager for Total Wine & More I was responsible for the type of items we sold to
the customers, we always wanted to sell Winery Direct and Spirit Direct products
because they generate more profit than National brands. At the time both WD & SD
numbers to goal were negative ear to date. I leveraged the weekly selling line practices
with my service team (those who are on the floor selling) and team tastings with all
three departments in the store (the merchandisers, cashiers, and service team). I
needed to get them knowledge of the products they needed to sell and how to sell it. I
kept records for both tools so all employees could remember which line they choose to
sell a certain product and what that product tasted like to have that conversation with
the customers. I helped them by coaching on the floor with them and leading by
 example of how to work the aisles to sell to all customers. After the first year they
received a letter from one of the brothers that owned the company congratulating them
for being 8 out of 199 stores for our Spirit Direct numbers and being 12% up in sales
over the goal.
6. Tell me when and how you helped train and develop a difficult direct report?
NARRATIVE RESPONSE When I first transferred to the Central Park 7-Eleven location
there was a man named Don who was my graveyard clerk. I asked everybody the same
questions whenever I transferred to new locations, what can I help you learn? Don said
he wanted to learn everything that I knew. While training him from shift supervisor to
assistant manager was the difficult part because he caught on and did very well with the
process and procedures, but he was lacking the personal side of team work and helping
others to achieve as well as himself. After receiving this feedback from looking into why
all tasks were not completed, Don thought they should be able to get everything done
without his help. More that he shouldn’t have to help them do their work. When my
coaching didn’t seem to have any affect on his outlook about teamwork, I scheduled him
to work those same shifts by himself. After only one shift he admitted that he couldn’t
do it by himself and asked for me to teach him how to build his personal skills to help
others succeed. Don is now a Field Manager for 7-Eleven and doing very well in his
leader role.
7. Give me an example of a time when you took a business risk with the intent to
improve performance. NARRATIVE RESPONSE When I was a store manager with 7-
Eleven at the Lacey location I was having a casual business conversation with Scott, sales
rep for Olympic Eagle, about how energy drinks are becoming a trend. From the
company’s reset instructions, I was to expand from one shelf in the cooler to half a door.
So, in our conversation we talked about running them on a special promo price to get
people to buy more at one time which would increase the average transaction and keep
my store competitive over the others. Typically, we ordered only a case or two a week. I
asked Scott how many cases I need to buy to get a discount so I could sell them on a
2/$4 promo while not losing profit money for my company. He said he could do two free
cases with every pallet I bought, which meant buying 30 cases! I ran the numbers to
make sure the gross profit would come out the same. I checked the system to make sure
I could make this ring at the registers for the customers. Scott said he would help with
signage and build a display with the excessive cases to draw more attention. So, after
checking that my I’s were dotted and t’s were crossed, I ran this idea by my field
manager. He didn’t think we would sell as much as I projected but since I wasn’t losing
any gross profit, he allowed me to do this case study so long as I documented all my
steps. After about one-month, Olympic Eagle was delivering pallets of energy drinks to
other 7-Eleven locations in Washington state since we went from selling an average of 2
cases per week to 10 cases!
8. How do you handle stress and pressure? With a plan and some fun! Part of my time
with 7-Eleven was as their new store opener. I would get the keys from construction and
do a punch walk with them to ensure they completed their job while I was coordinating
orders with 10 vendors, interviewing to find our next team of 10-15 employees to run
the new location and verifying we received all point of sale and logo material for the
 new store setup. I was usually given 4-6 weeks to complete all of this. Well with the new
store setup for the store on 6th ave in Tacoma, the construction crew was late by 2
weeks of being ready to hand over keys. On top of that my boss wanted to know if we
could get the doors open by the end of the quarter which was in 5 days! I asked the
question if overtime was approved and if I could have the same food budget for my
team for 5 days that they gave for the 4-6 weeks. My boss said yes and yes but I’m not
sure you can pull this off, he knew I was always up for a new challenge! So, I said ok then
we will open by end of quarter. I was also managing another store at the time, so I
called my team over there and asked who wanted overtime with food to help do the
sets and logos at the new store, everyone volunteered to help around their scheduled
shifts. I called all vendors and coordinated help with placing orders, deliveries, and
setting their own items in store. My assistant and I reminded everyone of the employee
referral bonus if they had anyone in mind that could do this job well that they wanted to
attach their names personally to, that gave us plenty of people to interview. All the new
hires typically would go through training of working a cash register first before they
learned about product sets, but I chose to do those steps in reverse order to get their
help with setting up all the aisles in the store while my team from the other store could
run the register the first few days of opening while they all got up to speed. I lived half
hour away while my assistant lived 3 blocks away, so I stayed with her at her place while
we worked around the clock completing all the requirements of the setup. Thank
goodness 7-Eleven is open 24 hours a day because we finished on time and with a walk-
through score of 98% from my boss! He couldn’t believe the things we taught to new
hires and all the excitement that was happening with our team that just worked around
the clock to achieve opening that store in such little time.
9. How would you describe yourself as a leader? I am a firm believer in letting others
discover their talent by letting them succeed through trial and error and effective
coaching. When I was first hired at Starbucks starting as a store manager it was like a
blank slate for all my employees. I assured them that I was there to help them with
anything they wanted to learn or know. I had one barista, Jeff, approach me in front of
others and ask if he could learn how to run the bar (the espresso machines). I said sure
of course! There were some whispers from his peers, but I paid no mind to it. I asked
him what all training has he had. He replied that he had everything leading up to bar
training, but the previous manager said that he wasn’t ready yet but didn’t explain why
to him. So, I told him I would schedule him with a trainer and give him bar time. Later
that day I was informed by my shift supervisor that he couldn’t learn how to bar
because he had not been with the company for a year yet and that’s what the previous
manager had set for an expectation. With just being hired and learning the bar in my
second week I knew this was not the direction of the company. So, I went ahead and
scheduled him for bar training with my certified trainer who also questioned my
decision to train him with less than a year time. I explained to her my expectations of
her ability as a certified trainer to show him just like she would as if he had been with
the company for a year. She did as I requested when it came to that training day. Jeff
had completed his training from her performing up to expectations, he was thrilled! The
trainer was shocked he did so well! I was impressed with all the celebration going on
 and joined in! Then I had a line of 15 baristas that were begging for their training so over
the next few days I figured out where each one was at in their learning journey and put
them all on a path that I coordinated with the schedule of my two trainers and myself to
help assist with all the training. A few months down the road we were all celebrating
reaching goals that that store had not achieved in quite a few years. That was also the
year that we promoted 18 baristas to trainers and then to shift supervisors to send out
to other stores to help our market win.
10. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? In 5 years, I see myself succeeding in this role as
an Area Manager by achieving all goals through the work of my team. We will have
sustainable growth in every location with year over year improvements. Within those 5
years, once I’ve mastered my responsibilities well enough to train them to my
replacement, I would like to grow into a higher-level position of management for
Amazon. I would like to stay employed and growing with one company until I retire in 22
years.
11. Are you interested in travelling for your job, or being part of a remote location while
working with the company? Yes, I am willing to gain any experience that will help
develop my skill set for this company while helping them achieve their goals. When I
worked for 7-Eleven I stopped counting stores at 65 locations that I had been
transferred to. I had learned how to flip locations from being a corporate store to a
franchisee, so I did that until we went from being only 25% franchised to 95%. I gained
insight about customer demographics and patterns are different in different areas. You
must get to know who your customers are to be successful anywhere.
12. Why should I hire you? I feel you would benefit from hiring me for my 20 years of
management experience and my recently obtained degree in business management. I’m
a leader who has the company’s best interest at heart and gets the work needed done
through my team, so they can grow and celebrate the achievements with me. I’m high
energy with a very quick change curve. Me and my team will have fun while being
successful!!