I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Lowe's Home Improvement in Feb 2013
Interview
Applied online to 3 Lowe's locations. I was contacted by each location and scheduled for an interview. At each location I first met with HR for an initial interview and then met with the assistant manager for another interview (except in the last location where I met with the store manager) All the HR people asked the exact same 6 question. The assistant managers asked you another 6, these varied slightly from store to store.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Not really that difficult. Tell me a situation when you were criticized by a customer, coworker or manager. What were you criticized for and how did you react?
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Lowe's Home Improvement (Pittsburg, CA) in Jun 2012
Interview
Lowe's does not accept unsolicited resumes or applications. They post a position online and leave it up until a few weeks have passed or until they get too many applications. Some positions are up only for a few days.
After putting in my online application, I was called in for an interview with the HR manager. It was very pleasant, she was very nice and even let me change answers a few times. Some of the questions like "Tell about a time management was not around and you had to make an executive decision", I had a hard time with. But if I ever gave a lame answer she would usually go over the answer with me, ask questions of her own, then write down that finalized answer. I thought that was super nice, because sometimes you don't have a great answer right away, so she basically made sure each of my answers were dynamite. This first interview took about 30 minutes.
After that interview, a week or so went by and I was called back for an interview with an assistant store manager. This one was a little tougher, I could tell he would not help me with my statements so I had to be much more careful. This interview was much quicker, I think he only asked 5 questions or so that required some explanation on my part. The questions were along the line of "what would you do if...?", so my answers were not as concrete as questions about my past (from the first interview). Overall not bad though, I think this interview is a chance for that manager to see you for himself, since you'll be working with them daily.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I was asked if I had ever stolen anything, if so, had I been caught and what was the overall action taken. This surprised me, I would have expected this question for a police examination, not a lowly customer service gig.