The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Grainger in July 2011
Interview
The interview process started with a phone interview with a recruiter. The recruiter sent me an email with information about Grainger which included a questionnaire that needed to be completed and sent back prior to the phone interview. I was also given a copy of the questions she would be asking and the salary range for the position (I don't think I was meant to be given that information). I passed the phone screen and then was scheduled for a 1:1 interview with the District Manager and Branch Manager. When I arrived at the branch they were running behind and I had to wait 45 minutes for my interview to begin. The interview lasted 2 hours with questions using the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result). Everything went fine and I felt like I clicked with the District Manager who would essentially be my boss if hired. A week later I had another phone interview with a District Manager from different territory. I think Grainger wants to make sure everyone feels good about the canididates. Do they fit the Grainger profile? Once I passed that test I as asked to interview with the Regional Sales Vice President. Typcially the final candidate gets a phone call from this person but I had to travel 2 hours to meet in person with this individual. I meet with District Manager and Regional VP for about an hour. Typical interview questions. It was explaned to me that this was the final process and another feel good about the candidiate type of thing. At no time during this whole process which took about a month did I ever receive any signals that I was not a good fit. One would assume that if you made it that far there was a good chance you would receive an offer. A week later I received an email from the recruiter indicating that they were going to pursure other candidates and thank you for my time. That same day on monster.com they re-posted the job. They hired no one for the position. I should have known it was next to impossible to please this District Manager since he fired the person that had this job for years. I'm not sure what type of person Grainger is looking for. The perfect person does not exist and it is their loss by not hring me.
I applied online. I interviewed at Grainger (Saskatoon, SK) in Apr 2026
Interview
Initial interview was easy, just asked about what you know about the company and STAR based. Although was told I would be interviewing in the next round and they really put that into my head only to get a one sentence email at 1am saying they went a different direction. Extremely misleading.
They asked STAR questions and very template questions just to fill in the pages per the manager. Although it could change since I went through this 6 years ago. They are stock driven, so learn a little about their market price and how they play in the industry.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me a time when you have to make a very difficult decision.
They do interviews in the typical STAR format. Very tiring as they ask you a ton of questions. If you can handle that kind of thing you'll be fine but the average interview is like 40 minutes of straight questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Desribe a time where you had to deal with a difficult customer. What was the issue and how did you overcome it.