Acing the Duane Reade Interview Insider Tips and Sample Responses
With over 250 locations across New York City Duane Reade is one of the most recognized and trusted pharmacy chains around. Working at Duane Reade offers great opportunities to build your retail, pharmacy, or management career. But first you need to impress hiring managers in the interview to land the job.
In this article, we provide everything you need to shine in your Duane Reade interview. We’ll overview the company, explore common interview questions asked, and provide sample responses to help you craft your own winning answers.
Armed with these insider tips, you’ll have the confidence and knowledge to ace any Duane Reade interview and launch your career with this pharmacy leader.
Get to Know Duane Reade
Founded in 1960 and headquartered in New York City, Duane Reade is a subsidiary of the Walgreens pharmacy chain. With over 250 locations across metropolitan New York, the company offers pharmacy, health and beauty products, photofinishing, convenience foods, and more.
Duane Reade’s mission is to be the most-loved pharmacy-led health and beauty company. They aim to provide fast, friendly service and a clean, welcoming shopping environment The company values integrity, respect, excellence in execution, and passion for winning
Some key facts about the company:
- Employs over 5,000 people in the New York area
- Offers a mix of name brand and affordable private label products
- Many locations open 24 hours and include walk-in clinics
- Acquired by Walgreens in 2010 but kept the Duane Reade brand
- Major competitor is large pharmacy chain CVS
Understanding Duane Reade’s business objectives and company culture will help you craft strong interview responses that show your fit. Now let’s look at specific questions that often arise.
General Interview Questions
Duane Reade interviews often start with common behavioral and situational questions aimed at all applicants:
- Why do you want to work for Duane Reade?
Show you understand and share the company’s commitment to friendly service, quality products, and community care. You might say: “Duane Reade’s focus on delivering excellent pharmacy services while also making healthcare convenient and accessible is very appealing to me.”
- What does good customer service mean to you?
Demonstrate you prioritize courtesy, patience, active listening, and meeting customer needs. An example response could be: “Good customer service means greeting shoppers warmly, listening to their needs, and doing all I can to satisfy them. This could be helping them find an item or providing advice on over-the-counter remedies. I believe customer satisfaction should be the top priority.”
- Tell me about a time you exceeded a customer’s expectations.
Share a story highlighting how you identified a customer’s underlying issue or need and went above-and-beyond with your service response. Emphasize how your actions made the customer happy and enhanced their experience.
- Why do you want to work in a pharmacy setting?
Focus your answer on your interest in healthcare, desire to help customers manage health needs, and any relevant experience or education like medical training.
- How do you handle stress on the job?
Discuss tactics like staying organized, being proactive, collaborating with co-workers, and maintaining perspective on what you can control. Convey that stress won’t impact your work quality or interactions.
- Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Align your goals to growing with Duane Reade, like seeking leadership roles or advancing as a pharmacy technician. This shows commitment.
Pharmacy Technician Interview Questions
For pharmacy technician roles, you can expect more specialized questions including:
- What pharmacy computer systems are you familiar with?
Discuss experience with common systems like McKesson, ScriptPro, or Walgreens own Intercom Plus. If none, show eagerness to learn on the job.
- What qualities make a successful pharmacy technician?
Highlight accuracy, organization, customer service skills, ability to multitask, and strong collaboration with pharmacists. Show you possess these qualities.
- How do you stay up-to-date on medications and pharmacy practices?
Share proactive efforts like reading industry journals, taking continuing education courses, and networking with pharmacist peers. Demonstrate a commitment to continuous learning.
- How would you handle a customer who became angry about a prescription wait time?
Spotlight empathy, active listening, apologizing, thanking them for their patience, explaining the reason for the wait, and offering options like contacting the prescribing physician to possibly adjust the script.
- Tell me about a time you made a mistake as a pharmacy tech. How did you handle it?
Be honest, take accountability, and explain the actions you took to immediately fix the error and put preventive measures in place going forward. Convey how you learned from the experience.
Management Interview Questions
For management roles, common questions include:
- What experience do you have handling day-to-day operations and store management responsibilities?
Highlight skills like staff scheduling and oversight, inventory management, maximizing sales and profitability, ensuring regulatory compliance, controlling expenses, reporting, and implementing company initiatives.
- How would you go about building strong relationships between the pharmacy and front end staff?
Discuss tactics like cross-training employees, conducting joint team-building activities, sharing performance updates across departments, and publicly recognizing collaboration successes.
- How would you handle an employee who consistently shows up late and misses shifts?
Spotlight a progressive approach focused on understanding reasons, providing coaching and feedback, setting clear expectations, and implementing consequences for ongoing issues.
- Where would you cut costs in a pharmacy with declining profitability?
Provide examples like adjusting inventory levels, reducing overtime, renegotiating vendor contracts, implementing automation tools, and not filling vacant positions immediately.
- How do you plan to drive sales growth for this location?
Share innovative marketing and merchandising tactics, community outreach ideas, utilization of customer data to inform promotions, employee training, enhancing services like immunizations, and leveraging company resources and promotions.
Stand Out with Strong Responses
With strong preparation using these sample questions and answers, you can develop compelling responses tailored to Duane Reade’s needs. Be sure to:
- Demonstrate your passion for pharmacy services and healthcare
- Convey excellent customer service and communication abilities
- Showcase leadership skills and business acumen as relevant
- Align your goals and values closely with Duane Reade’s mission
- Exhibit flexibility, collaboration skills, and a commitment to growth
By nailing the interview with confident and thoughtful responses, you can launch an exciting and rewarding career with Duane Reade. Come prepared to show you have what it takes to contribute to their ongoing success in serving New Yorkers’ pharmacy and healthcare needs.
Five Interview tips from a Walgreens recruiter
Koretta Fitzgerald, senior early talent recruiter, has been in the recruiting industry for over six years. If you’ve had the pleasure of meeting Koretta, you’ll notice her energy right away. She uses her huge smile and determination to help people find their next job, and she was kind enough to give us her best interview tips.
Follow Koretta’s top five tips for interview success
She has placed over a thousand candidates, from entry-level workers to directors, in tech, healthcare, business, and retail, among other fields.
Interview Tip #1: Be diligent. Use the company’s website to research the mission and goals, recent press releases and social media. Check out the interviewer’s LinkedIn profile or what Koretta shared. Knowing important facts about the company you’re interviewing with will boost your chances and confidence. Most importantly, look for companies that align with your values, interests, and passions.
Interview Tip #2: Use the STAR method. Koretta said that Walgreens uses behavioral-based interview questions, and that most candidates can do well if they are well-prepared ahead of time. Behavioral interviews are those asking questions to understand how you’ve handled a certain situation in the past. The STAR (situation, task, action, result) method can help you answer behavioral interview questions in a storytelling format. Koretta advises to carefully read the job description and tailor your answers appropriately. She also says to make a list of everything you’ve done well and be ready to talk about how you did it. Be detailed and authentic to provide your interviewers with a deeper understanding of your skillsets.
Interview Tip #3: Do mock interviews. You can prepare for an interview by practicing your answers out loud, either by yourself or with a friend. Koretta suggested that you keep getting better by getting feedback, recording yourself, or writing down your answers. Don’t forget to also prepare your interview space in an area that is clean and quiet. Before your interview, you should also make sure that all of your audio, video, and internet connections are working.
Interview Tip #4: Make a great first impression. Be yourself. Being genuine during interviews can help you feel confident and professional. Koretta says to dress for the culture of the company during the job interview. For example, a start-up tech company might wear a rock band t-shirt under a blazer, while a big company might wear a collared shirt and tie. If you want to know more about what the company expects, you can look up their dress code or ask your recruiter. Remember to smile and relax. The company has a strong interest in learning more about you and your qualifications. Also, don’t forget to send a thank-you note to everyone you talked to at the company to show that you are still interested and appreciate their time. When you personalize your follow-up message with details from your conversation with the interviewer, you can really show how valuable you are to the company. This last opportunity for a good impression can give you a strong chance of moving forward.
Interview Tip #5: Ask questions! Interviewing is a two-way conversation. This is your opportunity to see if this company is the right fit for you. Koretta recommends identifying a few questions you want to ask the interviewer ahead of your interview. Asking questions shows you’re invested, and you’ve been paying attention. Some questions to ask would be on professional development, culture, and team structure. Lastly, it’s okay to show your enthusiasm and ask about the next interview steps.
If you want to do well in your interview, follow these tips. All jobs at Walgreens are based on the idea of helping others. We’re hiring in all of our locations, from the aisles of our stores and warehouses to our headquarters and technology hub. Everywhere you look, you can feel the excitement and new ideas.
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