Retail Tryouts?!

I don't know about you but when I hear the word "try outs" I never expected to hear it in a retail environment. Seriously. When I hear that word I think sports and dang its been a long time since I tried out for sports (mostly because I grew to old for the youth league in town....anyways moving on) 

Try outs and retail...hm....at first I have to admit that I imagined employee candidates running around the store in some kind of frenzy, picking out products that best represented the company, how they handled themselves under pressure etc etc. There definitely was no running around the store in a frenzy but the other candidates and I were definitely being analyzed about our composer and how we interacted with other people on a team. Tryouts.

Apparently JCPenney involves something they like to call tryouts in their new hiring process. I tried doing some research on the topic before my tryouts but there was a surprisingly lack on information. on the internet. Whoa. That doesn't happen very often. By the end of the process, I was grinning from ear to ear because I had so much fun (maybe too much fun) with the tryouts and I loved the idea behind it.

At first it looks like a group interview. They sit us around a table with some not-so-mysterious wooden blocks in the center. there were six of us being "tried out" but for different positions in the store not all the same position. Surprise number 1. After some quick introductions, the managers explained our first activity which was building a structure from a reference photo as a team. The catch? Only one person could look at the photo at a time and direct the others what to do. Surprise number 2. This instantly reminded me of my DECA days in high school. Loved it. It also reminded me a bit of Jenga...wobbly wooden structures..about to fall over, that sort of thing. Of course, my creative, hands-on essense loved this assignment. Our group finished the structure in the time limit and was apparently the first of many groups to do so..... TAKE THAT. The second activity they handed each of us a sheet of paper, each for a different department of the store, with two ideas on it. We then had to individually create a pitch for one idea to the team and then as a team choose one pitch we liked the most. Surprise number 3. Fun fun fun! Seriously...I'm that freak who apparently enjoys this.

That is what retail tryouts are my friend. I personally think its rather brilliant and gives us a little bit of sight into the company as a whole. JCPenney obviously cares about who it hires. They want to make sure that the people they hire can function on a team, directs others efficiently, follows directions to the best of their abilities as well as thinks critically in a marketing/business environment. Companies who want to hire "higher quality" employees should start using similar tactics or even a smaller scale idea during the one-on-one interview.

I'm not sure whether or not I got the job yet (apparently people don't work on weekends...whaaaat?) but after going through this try out process, I have so much more respect for JCPenney as a company. Bravo.