Talent Plus Interview Questions
& Process

I previously worked at Belk for a year and then decided I wanted to move into the cosmetics department. Because of this, I was able to skip a lot of the usual interviews. Most candidates have to interview with the Cosmetics Department manager, the counter manager (like the Clinique Manager or Estee Lauder Manager), Talent Plus, and then Belk's Human Resources. I spoke with the cosmetics manager about my interest in cosmetics, and she arranged an interview for me at Clinique. After talking to the Clinique manager, I was sent directly to Talent Plus. So, I only had one phone interview with Talent Plus, which lasted about 25 minutes. A key part of this interview is how you interpret the questions. The interviewer can repeat the question, but they can't say anything outside of their script.

I had an initial chat with the Director of Talent and it went well. After that, I was asked to do the formal interview, which was a 3 hour phone call a week later with tons of questions, very exhausting. Once that was done, I sent a follow up thank you email. I didn't hear back for 7 weeks until the Director of Talent called me to set up another interview with him and two senior consultants I'd be working with. We had that conversation a week later and it went really well. Only one of them replied to my follow up email thanking me and saying they were looking forward to next steps. It's been over 3 months since then with no word. It's wild because your company helps clients find and keep talent, but your own hiring process is terrible. Honestly, practice what you preach, and you'll do much better.

There were two phone interviews, each lasting about 90 minutes. It was a behavioral "structural" interview process. They asked a lot of questions about how competitive you are, if you can win someone over in an argument, and asked for specific examples. They also asked to rank yourself on a scale of 1 to 10. Many questions were multi-part, usually followed by "... and why?". They also asked about dependability. Many questions were repeated. You should have a lot of specific anecdotes that demonstrate positive attributes handy. Left me with the impression this might be an annoying place to work.

It was a really thorough process. I did an online interview first, then I talked to the recruiter. After that, there were two more phone interviews that were structured. The last one was pretty cool and made me think - they asked some really unique questions. It was longer than most interviews I've done, but it felt very considered. The recruiters I spoke with were great. Since it's an assessment company focused on HR, it makes sense that their interview process is a bit longer than usual.