Speaking of Interviews

Have any of you ever applied to J.Crew Corporate?

I found the process to be odd at best, and pitifully um, pitiful at worst. Clicking on the "Careers" link from the footer takes you to J.Crew's job listings. That's actually a misnomer. There are no job listings.

According to this article at Excite (no idea how old this article is):

J. Crew does not post listings for corporate jobs...The company only recruits on college campuses for telemarketing and warehousing staff. Interviews are "very relaxed," and generally involve two or more rounds with HR and then with people from specific departments.

Okay, I get it. You want to be all mysterious - promote from within. That's fine. I figured I'll give it a shot anyway - putting a resume out there into the ether - that's always a good use of my time (okay, I realize it's not - but I do it occasionally just because.) But can you imagine the discounts? Plus I have friends at AOL, which just happens to have its headquarters in the same building. A win-win, yes?

A search of all jobs for the New York Corporate offices at 770 Broadway displays "Department Listings." I was looking for anything design-related, to which there are four options:

1) Brand Creative. This doesn't necessarily mean you'd be doing anything related to branding, like, you know, if you had applied to a "Branding Studio" somewhere else. Semantics I suppose. The website designers fall into this category)

We're famous for the way our catalog looks, thanks to this department. Brand Creative develops the image of the brand through photography, styling, copy, graphic design and catalog production. It supports key merchandising initiatives through a creative display of product and visually communicates marketing messages to the customer.

2) Technical Design, which seems to include the design of store window displays and the planograms within the stores? I'm not sure - obviously I've never worked in retail.

The interior designers and in-house architects for every J.Crew store. Visual Merchandising creates an exciting environment that includes everything the customer can see: engaging and creative windows, easy-to-shop and well-presented merchandise. Store Design transforms raw space into brand environments through architecture, fixtures, lighting and signage.

3) Visual Merchandising & Store Design - interior design. Wait, this description is identical to the Technical Design department (see above)

The interior designers and in-house architects for every J.Crew store. Visual Merchandising creates an exciting environment that includes everything the customer can see: engaging and creative windows, easy-to-shop and well-presented merchandise. Store Design transforms raw space into brand environments through architecture, fixtures, lighting and signage.

4) Design - I'm assuming this means clothing design.

The birth of a product starts here. Designers help to define the color, print and overall inspiration for each seasonal collection. They select fabrics, create sketches and develop samples. The presentation of each collection gives clear direction for all of our products and influences the overall look of our stores, catalog and jcrew.com.

So, you've decided you're going to apply. Good luck! Clicking on "Apply to this department" takes you to another page, where you are forced to create a profile. This, in and of itself - not so strange. Most sites will require you create an account and/or a profile with them before you may apply. Perhaps the strange part of this process at J.Crew's site, is that when you click on "Submit Profile" you may think you're just creating your profile - then you'd go back and actually apply for the departments you're interested in. NOT SO! Creating a profile and saving it actually SUBMITS your profile. Am I the only one who finds this disturbing? Guess it was just an unexpected behavior. I'll get over it.

According to that (old) Excite article, if you really want to apply, "resumes with cover letters can be mailed to the NY Human Resources department, or e-mailed to resumes@jcrew.com." I did this, but I didn't so much as even receive a "thanks for applying" confirmation email. So yes, sending into the ether. Fun way to spend a Sunday morning. :)