Interview Questions

Walgreens Pharmacist Interview Questions & Answers (1st & 2nd Interview)

Walgreens is a pharmacy chain. Pharmacists require exceptional interpersonal and behavioral skills along with some basic knowledge of medicine. You have to be communicative, team friendly, and of amicable personality. Interviews at Walgreens happen in two stages, the 2nd interview is actually the actual interview. But the 1st interview is taken by a store manager near your home. In this piece we are discussing several questions that will be directed at you in this 2nd interview:

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General Walgreens Interview Questions for Pharmacist

The first interview is testing practical skills and your basic knowledge of medicine at the store. In the second interview, they will ask important questions to assess your knowledge, your ability to perform teamwork, and your emotional quotient. This interview will be taken by a recruiting panel. You have a Walgreens district manager that will head the recruitment panel and pose questions to you. This section of the interview is more important.

Walgreens Pharmacist Interview Questions

Before we proceed with the interview questions, it is pertinent to know that candidate’s outfit is very important in any interview. Please ensure that you are well-dressed during your interview.

Why Do You Want to be a Pharmacist?

This is a very important question and an easy one. If you have chosen pharmacy wholeheartedly, I don’t think you need to prepare this question with intense attention. You might have your reasons to become one. Some do it for mental peace, other people do it for helping others. Some also liked the mix of medicine and managerial tasks. I loved this question when I was asked about my profession which is writing. I can feel the answer as I jot down the reasons. You do have a dream to be someone of substance. Many people, small or big, rich or poor have desires and it’s the enunciation of that desire this question demands. Let us know more about this question by understanding the pros and cons:

Pros Concerning This Question:

  • Easy to elaborate on as pharmacy could be your passion.
  • Some experience or rather background in your education will help you in knowing the very basic aspects of this job.
  • You can also look deep into the intricacies of the position as you know what kind of work and jobs exist in the industry.
  • It also makes you a good communicator because the domain of the subject teaches interpersonal and behavioral skills. It tends to elevate your emotional quotient.

Cons Concerning This Question:

  • If you are taking or choosing pharmacy just for the money or treating it like any other job, that can hinder your interview.
  • Question is easy hence if a perfect answer does not appear, they might think of you as a non-efficient candidate.
  • In case you mention salary, cash, or monetary expectations as money is the primary motivation for being a Pharmacist, it can hamper your interview.

The hiring professionals however are looking for pointers that are beneficial to them and their enterprise. They want to know how you will perform once you are in the role. Include elements of behavioral skills and good interpersonal skills. How much technical knowledge do you owe etc? All of these aspects need to be in your answers.

What Specific Behavioral Traits do you Require to do the Job?

Your behavior is also very important in the job. The interviewers are keen to generate some responses that test how well you can resonate with people’s emotions. It is as much a behavioral job as it is a technical job. Questions will be asked regarding your plan for dealing with sensitive cases. They will throw confrontational questions at you to gauge your response as well as reaction. They will check how well-suited, stable, and calm you are in case a patient flips out due to an issue he/she is facing.

How Would You Build Relationships Here at Walgreens With Your Peers?

This question is a testament to checking and seeing How you can act as a team player. The team is just a term that there is a collegial group that works at the Walgreens outlet together. When you run a big chain, the mutual relationships of the workforce should be cordial. People depend on each other for work. They will look for traits of a team player, leader, understanding, maturity, and able to be clear and empathetic at the same time.

What Was The Most Difficult Decision You Had to Make at Work?

This question gently tries to indicate some difficult decisions that you had to make at work. These decisions involve compromising something to maintain, or some challenging project you have worked upon, or a situation when you had to persuade someone. It can also mean doing something right for the betterment as a whole, not just for the people with whom you enjoy a good relationship, but for the greater good. The best example shall be a crisis of values that might occur when you know about a dear friend stealing from the outlet. In that situation, you have to carry your heavy heart and do the right thing.

How Do You Deal With The Stress That Comes Along With a Pharmacist Job?

Stress can be detrimental to your health. It becomes a point of discussion since the recruiters know firsthand How challenging the job can be. They want to gauge and understand the way you get rid of stress. Supposedly a customer is in distress and needs his medicine. Your shift is about to end. You are about to drop dead from the day’s toil. In these situations, you need to keep your sanity intact and help the customer to calm down. And then help them with their medicine and then leave.

As compared to other behavioral questions, this question is primarily important. The company here likes to know how well you are after being overworked. A hardworking person is a very indispensable part of an organization as the crisis is relatively more important than focusing only on growth. Growth, if not accentuated, only occurs in fractions. But a crisis needs special skills to be mitigated, as one crisis can wipe out all growth.

Comparison of Dealing with Stress with the Other Mentioned Behavioral Questions

You have to understand that in the first two behavioral questions you are asked about things that you will be good at, or able to manage. For instance, questions that center themselves on forming groups and mentioning a bad experience are very intrinsic to you. Communication is something part of your course study and your characterization during your college days. There is a possibility you took up this job because you were a people person. If you have a jovial character then being a groupie is not going to be a hindrance for you.

Similarly, a bad experience is in the people’s past, you need to move ahead and look for new pastures to conquer. The problem occurs when you are asked How well you will be when you are broken. The question judges your hardworking nature, resilience, bravery, strength, stability, etc. You need to prepare this answer beforehand and take this question seriously.

What Are The Issues That Are at The Forefront of The Pharmaceutical Industry Today?

This question is an assessment of your inner abilities of the knowledge that you have gained with your work. These types of questions are put up because of the scrupulous ways the commercial economy is evolving. Pharma is a very competitive industry and the ability to see through this haze is a brilliant trait. How do you spot problems and help Walgreens deliver and provide solutions regarding the problem, that remains a pertinent question. The best part about this question is, this answer can catapult your interview miles beyond the settled lines. Here, if you do well, no one can stop you from getting the job.

Do You Have Any Special Skills That Can Help Elevate Our Organization?

So, this question is tricky when the interviewer questions about your skills and experience. Your recruiter wants to find a very talented candidate who can deliver, and who can think differently. Someone who does not fall into the normal crowd. You need to assess and find qualities about yourself that are indispensable for the organization and are unique. Standing out from the crowd is extremely essential to be preferred for selection.

Walgreens Interview Questions for Pharmacy Technician

A Pharmacy Technician interview at Walgreens takes place based on three central pillars: Knowing depth in detail about medicines, knowing how to handle grieved patients, and learning to work in teams. These central pillars are important. Some pertinent questions that might come your way:

How Does a Pharmacy Technician Check a Prescription?

Here you need to be sequential about the steps. The process in itself requires a bit of caution as you will be filing the prescription at last. You need to follow these steps:

  • To confirm whether any prescription is fake or real, first check the patient ID and look for the same prescription that has been in the database.
  • Once you have confirmed that the mentioned medicine and the Doctor that provided the medicine are the same as mentioned in the physical copy, you can hand over the medicines.
  • After providing the medicine, I go on filing the prescription to maintain purchase records.

How Would You Help Someone When They Ask You About the Proper Dosage of Their Medication?

There can be people who are old and might not be able to read the prescription properly. You can read it for them and suggest How they can go about consuming their medicines. They need to know if they have to take 1 or 2 in a day, or divide a medicine in half and take them in the morning and evening.

Hospital Pharmacist Interview Questions

Hospital Pharmacist interview questions are a tad bit different from the normal questions being posed to a normal pharmacist. Hospitals have a highly stressful environment where a pharmacist has to understand consoling and extending a helping hand to people in need. You need to be exceptionally strong in your technical skills at a Hospital Pharmacy. Some questions you are usually asked:

How to Work as a Team Player?

The question here is intended to check How amicable you are in keeping all the workers as a team. When you work inside a hospital there is a rapid pace at which the filing of any prescription happens. You need to work as a team. All the Pharmacy Reps and Technicians need to work in a cohesive unit, especially in situations where patients’ families are in distress. You need to focus on higher efficiency and intelligent networking in the answer.

How to Match the Pace of the Hospital as a Hospital Pharmacist?

The pacing at which you work in a hospital environment is fast and requires efficiency. You cannot be a slog. This question is asked to understand if you are one or not. From personal experience, I had a friend who was a pharmacist at a renowned hospital. She told me that in hospitals the patients come to the pharmacy counter frequently and the person who files prescriptions, which is usually the technician, needs to be well acquainted with the computer system. There needs to be a well-bridged network between a person that checks the prescription who is a Pharmacist technician, once verified the other person takes out the medicine, meanwhile, the technician files it.

What Kind of Questions are Asked on a Walgreens Pharmacist Phone Interview?

Often candidates fail phone interviews, the questions in a phone interview are asked and assessed in a manner where you are judged solely based on your response to questions. There is no conventional setup to check signs of distress, underconfidence, conviction, etc. Phone interview questions can be the same as that of Personal Interview

Why Did You Become a Pharmacist?

This question when asked in a phone interview requires more emphasis on the real requirements of a job. For a pharmacist overtime should not be a problem. Hence, you can mention how you performed hard work in the previous job and are accustomed to it. You get to help and heal people as well. You can talk about how you were doing social work and being part of a solution to problems makes you happy.

What are Your Goals for the Company?

The goals require to be specific. Here your commitment and practicality are at test. Mention goals that can be achieved by Walgreens. Do not hype it in any fashion. Be realistic and offer goals that you can control. You can be time efficient, you can improve on customer service. These small pointers add a little glitz to your answers.

Recommended Reading – What To Wear to a Pharmacy Residency Interview?

What Kind of Questions are Asked on a Walgreens Pharmacy Manager Interview?

The Pharmacy Manager’s questions are concerning managerial skills and a bit on the technical side of medicines. It would include questions that center on building teamwork and helping your team not lose hope in harsh times. Being able to connect with many workers that are part of the team. Questions that are usually asked for this position are as follows:

How Do You Resolve Conflicts at the Workplace?

This question is designed to test your managerial skills. Here you need to explain what causes conflict and what can be its solution. Every animal in the animal kingdom possesses a self-identity. Just like any other animal, humans also have a self-identity that they like to assert.

When you apply for a Pharmacist position, it becomes self-evident that you need to work as a team.

  • The first point is you need not engage in conflict with someone.
  • The second point being, when conflict occurs make your peers see their faults and make them acknowledge that they indeed have committed a mistake.

Try to put the lid in a steaming pan so that the heat simmers. And when the right time comes, make them understand How conflicts do not work in favor of a business, especially a pharmaceutical business. The people involved here have to be careful when they hand out drugs.

How Do You Foster True Trusting Relationships in the Long Run Among Employees?

This question usually is posed to understand How you will weave relationships among your workers. This question is pertinent. And here you need to talk about letting them discuss emotions, family, and finding common ground with each other. This will help to condense the ties between all the workers in the shop.

How Do You Keep Employees Happy?

This is also a managerial question. It focuses on How you maintain people in a certain way to expect the best type of work for them. The question essentially borders around one’s ability to keep the working environment joyful and amicable. Here you need to talk about mutual respect among different workers in sequential hierarchies. How do you plan to build that community sentiment among the workers?

What Kind of Questions are Posed on a Walgreens Pharmacy Grad Intern Interview?

For a grad intern, the questions will be more on the line of technical skill and assessment. Here your bases and roots are judged more than performance. If you have a strong understanding of Pharmaceutical industries and hospitality work, you can get it easily. As an intern, you have a scope to commit mistakes. Here are some questions that might be asked to you:

What is the Most Important Trait Required to Become a Pharmacist?

Here, a grad student’s preference is usually to check what they think a Pharmacist should be like. Once there is clarity on that subject, the other pointers easily follow. Here you need to be as realistic as possible as the interview panel is also accepting people who have not built castles in the air and knows what the actual industry is like.

Concluding Thoughts on Walgreens Pharmacist Interview Questions

Walgreens is a big Pharmaceutical chain and in this piece, I have discussed some important points regarding its Pharmacist position. I have compiled all the important information about the interview questions for the position. If you give it a read, you will get a good idea about what kind of questions are being asked and How you will answer them.

About the author

Atish Ranjan

Hi there, I am Atish Ranjan! I have been into work and business for more than 11 years now; I have given and taken numerous interviews over the years.
Thus, I started TheInterview.top to share my knowledge & experience with you! Hope you enjoy reading here.

About the Author

Hi there, I am Atish Ranjan! I have been into work and business for more than 11 years now; I have given and taken numerous interviews over the years. Thus, I started TheInterview.top to share my knowledge & experience with you! Hope you enjoy reading here.