Jared Jewelers Interview Questions
& Process

The people who work there and the store manager were kind and patient during my interview. I didn't hear back about a second round, which I think might be because I don't have a strong sales background.

I saw an ad on Indeed and a recruiter set up a 1-hour process. It was very professional and thorough. I enjoyed seeing how happy the employees were, and the store is beautiful with a great location and fair salary and good benefits. Most current employees had been there for decades, showing amazing instruments, organization, and customer relations. It was a good relationship.

So, the interview process for this Bench Jeweler Apprentice role at the Lubbock Jared’s was really a disorganized mess, quite unprofessional and disappointing overall. It started with a late-evening phone call from the hiring manager, which is odd, where she immediately launched into interview questions about my interest in jewelry and my general skillset, specifically asking if I could size rings. She then asked me to come in the next day for a face-to-face interview. That interview lasted about an hour, with the manager filling out a lot of notes on a form. Right after, she asked me to come back the following morning for a 'bench exam' from 10 am to 2 pm, which, by the way, is unpaid. When I got there early, she was late. Before the actual exam, she had me spend about 90 minutes buffing, cleaning, rhodium plating, and prepping a backlog of rings for shipping. Then the bench exam started in a very small, dirty studio with no safety equipment or ventilation. She gave me five minutes to organize the bench. The tasks included soldering tiny silver chain pieces, making a jump ring chain, constructing a ring from a silver shank, sizing two silver rings (one up, one down), and repairing a bracelet, then repurposing it into earrings by adding posts. This took much longer than planned because their setup was basic and unfamiliar. Due to the earlier unpaid prep work, the exam ran past 2 pm. By 3 pm, she took a lunch break and I had to continue afterwards. After finishing the bench work, I had to spend time verifying shipping details for the rings I'd prepped. It was 5 pm by then. She finally looked at my bench work and then, three hours past the scheduled end time and seven hours after I arrived, she handed me two white gold rings and had me size them before I could leave. Just as I was getting ready to go, she mentioned a 'second phone interview' would call within the hour. I suggested Monday, she pushed for tomorrow, and when I said I needed to think, she insisted on the day after. I was really let down by feeling taken advantage of and the extremely unprofessional studio conditions.

I applied online and got an email from the DM about a week later. After I mentioned I'm currently employed, things got complicated with more emails. Eventually, the DM called and gave me only one interview date and location option, which was an hour away and couldn't be changed. When I got there, the DM was already there but about 15 minutes late to see me. The interview lasted about 1.5 hours. At the end, the DM told me that both the GM and GM in Training jobs were already filled by people who were a better fit for the background they were looking for. They also mentioned other manager roles but said they don't hire externally for those. So basically, they offered me a Sales Associate job, which is over 20% less than I'm making now, saying I could get promoted to Assistant Store Manager in 6-12 months, but it would take at least 24 months to become a General Manager.