The process took 5 days. I interviewed at J. Jill in Feb 2010
Interview
Overall very easy interview. The store I interviewed for has employees who have been there for several years, so obviously they are happy. I work in the same shopping center so I knew there was an opening. Interviewed with the Store Manager, totally connected and then had an interview with the DM about four days later. Both were very nice. What I find to be a lack of respect for my time is that they knew they were going to do an internal promotion yet they still had me interview. In the end they gave the job to an internal candidate. The DM was not good about following up with their decision after the interview as he/she said they would, I waited almost a week and then I received a call from the store manager.
I met a Store Manager at a retail networking event. She reached out and asked if I'd like to have a conversation about an open position. In the chat, I learned a lot about the company. It was a pretty casual conversation without standard behavioral questions. I then proceeded to interview with the district manager. A little more formal this time, but still quite personable and non-intimidating, After that, I was invited to the store to meet some current employees and check things out. The SM seemed ready to hire me. All of the above happened within a week. After that in store interview, the SM said she and the DM had to finish up a few other interviews.
About a week later, the SM called to say they'd gone with another candidate. That candidate had more visual merchandising experience , which was fair.
