The phone interviews were with the recruiter and the hiring manager. Both were stand interviews with lots of experience-based questions.
The onsite interview in Oregon was with a panel of 8 people from various areas within the company. See below for a full description:
Interview structure for 90 minutes:
45 min:
We’d like you to think about opportunities for the adidas brand at Dick's Sporting Goods.
There are 3 questions we'd love for you to address on a few PowerPoint slides. It will help to take a quick walk through a couple of your local Dick's stores as you think about these questions. Perhaps also a couple of Dick's competitors to compare and contrast:
1) Based on what you see in store currently at Dick's, what is the biggest new product opportunity you see for adidas and Dick's to grow our joint business? This would be something that you don’t see in-store today - but think adidas could or should have - that addresses an unmet Dick's consumer need or addresses a need better than Dick's current offerings.
2) Using rough estimates and assumptions (e.g. based on numbers you have from your business on sales and margins), quantify how big this opportunity could be – on a top- and bottom-line basis – for both adidas and for Dick's. This is just to get a sense for how you think about, work with, and communicate the numbers; no need to get overly precise or have the "right" numbers, just tell us what your assumptions are.
3) Based on the adidas product and in-store marketing you see currently at Dick's, what is the biggest opportunity you can identify for us to increase sell-through of adidas product to Dick's end consumer? How would you capture this opportunity? Again, this is based on current product, but you could change pricing, any in/around store marketing elements, promotions, etc. What do you think the impact would be on a quantified basis? How do you make the case to Dick's to partner with us to realize this opportunity?
We’ll have an overhead projector available if you want to bring your presentation on your computer or a memory stick – or feel free to bring print-outs if more convenient.
30 min:
For the second part of the discussion, we’ll ask you some specific questions about your background, experience, and how you’ve handled or would handle different situations.
15 min:
For the final few minutes, we’ll open up for questions you may have on the role, career path, adidas more generally, or the people in the room and their backgrounds.
Because adidas tries to put so much stuff into the 90 minutes inevitably some of the 8 people will feel like they didn't get to ask enough questions. The toughest part is trying to speak to all of the individuals in the room.
After the interview I was taken on a tour and the people seemed very nice and the casual very laid back.
When I returned home from the interview I was told to expect word of whether or not I got the job within a couple weeks. After a couple weeks passed, adidas had me turn in references because they wanted to show they were still really interested. I turned in the references and then waited another 3.5 months to hear final word. I kept in touch with the recruiter often.
Finally I received word my recruiter was moving to recruit a different functional area but would still be my contact for the job. He said a new recruiter would contact me in person once they had a decision. The new recruiter never contacted me in person and instead I received an email form letter telling me I had not been selected. I thought this was a horrible way to treat someone you had kept in your back pocket for 5 months.
I emailed my previous recruiter and he was able to dig up the whole story for me. adidas had been interviewing for 3 of these positions and eventually determined to compress them into one position and only hire one person where as before they were going to hire three people. He apologized for the form email and said I should not have been treated that way especially because he could see me qualifying for another job there in the near future.
So all in all, the onsite panel interview is a bit chaotic and adidas is not good at making quick hiring decisions and might string you along. Make sure they aren't your only option.
