A friend who works for Target forwarded my resume to their recruiting staff. About a week later I recieved an email requesting a phone interview. During this interview we talked about my resume and the merchandising business analyst position. I am not a business major so it was a bit surprising when they told me this was the position they were considering me for. I agreed to a second interview. After a rather lengthy game of email tag (around 2 months) this one was set up in person. The interview questions were very simple behavioral "tell me about a time when" type questions. It was a very positive experience and I was shown around Target headquarters which was pretty cool. After that interview I was sent an email explaining I needed to take an online test. Maybe this is common for business majors but I was completely blindsided by its difficulty. If I remember correctly, you are given 30 minutes and there are around 25 questions to answer. These questions were terribly difficult for me. An example would be something like "Sally arrives at work before Bob. Bob arrives after Kim. Kim comes late on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. John always arrives after Sally etc. etc. who is the second person to arrive after Bob?" I don't think I would have had trouble finding the answers were it not timed, but to me doing these questions in roughly a minute a piece was simply impossible. I suspect there is an order of operations method to solve these types of questions quickly, which made me feel a bit cheated if I'm being honest. I akin it to asking students to solve derivatives without teaching them the short-hand method first. Of course the one kid in the class who has an older sibling that made them aware of it will be able to solve the problems faster. Does that in any way reflect them having intrinsic problem solving skills or intelligence above their peers? No. That is how I felt about this, and despite my positive experience with the recruiters it didn't leave me with the most positive impression of the hiring process.

I met target at a career networking event, followed up at career fair, and was selected for an interview on campus. My on campus interview was fairly straightforward. Target overall asks more complex questions than other interviews that I have had. About a week later I found out that I had been selected to go to Minneapolis in 5 days for a final interview at HQ. The day started with a speaker and then 2 interviews, lunch, and then a tour of Minneapolis. The interviews were extremely difficult. My first interviewer came into the room, said his name, and asked the first question. No small talk at all. He would not make eye contact with me and his phone went off during one of my answers. The second interviewer wasn't as rude but not professional. Overall I felt like Target wasted a lot of my time to fly all the way there and not even listen to me. I don't know what they're looking for or if they already have candidates in mind, but my overall HQ experience made me have 0 desire to work for them and even shop with them.

The interview was 30 minutes long, consisting of 4 standard behavioral questions. Interviewees are encouraged to apply the STAR method: concisely describe the situation, timeline, actions taken, and results of each scenario. There was about 5 minutes for the interviewee to ask questions at the end.