How to Pass the Walmart Manager Test 2024
Updated November 20, 2023
Walmart managers require leadership skills to manage a team of employees and oversee the operation of a multi-million-dollar business, as well as ensuring that customer expectations are exceeded and the company’s values are being demonstrated by all staff.
With salaried managers earning an average annual salary of 170,000, as well as having access to health benefits, paid time off, quarterly bonuses and associate discounts, it is not surprising that Walmart has high expectations of their potential managers, or that demand for their jobs is high.
These roles have a rigorous screening process that involves a series of interviews as well as requiring applicants to complete a written assessment.
Walmart will fail all candidates who do not score well on this test.
What Is the Walmart Manager Employment Assessment?
As part of their management hiring process, Walmart uses a written test to assess candidates on their compatibility with the company’s values and standards of practice.
Using a series of questions designed to test the applicant’s personality, decision-making skills and ability to prioritize, answers must fall in line with Walmart’s expectations or the candidate will fail.
The Walmart Manager Employment Assessment (MEA) is used to screen candidates who apply for management-level roles within the company, whether they are existing employees or new applicants.
You might expect to take the MEA if you apply for Walmart roles such as store manager, assistant manager, area manager or coach trainee.
Embedded in Walmart’s identity as a company is the idea of the customer being at the center, and their mission statement is ‘Saving people money so they can live better'.
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They are proud of their culture which revolves around providing exceptional customer service, high performance and always striving for better.
Their core values are:
- Service to the customer
- Respect for the individual
- Strive for excellence
- Act with integrity
They are also keen that the corresponding set of behaviors relating to each of their values is consistently embodied by their employees.
Some of the questions on the Manager Employment Assessment will correspond directly to these specific behaviors and expectations, and candidates who wish to pass the assessment must answer accordingly.
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What Is Included in the Walmart Manager Assessment?
The assessment is divided into five separate sections, each designed to test for the qualities that Walmart consider will make a strong leader within their company:
- Work With Associates
- Run Your Business
- Manage Your Day
- Tell Us Your Story
- Describe Your Approach
Work With Associates
This section of the assessment presents a series of potential scenarios that a manager at Walmart could face.
It is a situational judgment test and requires you to consider the scenario and how you should respond to it.
You may be asked to select what you are most likely and least likely to do based on several multiple-choice options.
Remember, your answer should be in line with what you learned during your research about what the company expects from its management-level employees.
You are a department manager. It is brought to your attention that a customer has phoned to complain about the lack of stock on your shelves as she was unable to find the product she was after. You hear that a member of your team addressed the stock situation and managed to locate the item that the customer was looking for and put it aside for her to collect. The customer was very happy with the resolution and sent a thank you card to the store.
What are you MOST LIKELY and LEAST LIKELY to do?
a) Thank your team member for her approach and being so considerate and helpful when dealing with the customer. Ask her if she has any ideas about how this problem could be avoided in the future.
b) Thank her for her good work and ensure that she receives the 'team member of the month' award.
c) Decide that this probably won't happen again as it occured after a particularly busy weekend. Ask the team member what she thinks should be done to prevent a recurrence.
d) Praise the team member and ask her to make sure she remembers to act in that way again.
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Run Your Business
This section requires basic math skills and tests how well you can interpret and process data.
The questions may seem straightforward, but the correct answers will always be in line with the company’s criteria. They are not usually based on common sense or simple calculations.
| Average body count | Year-to-date turnover | ||||
| Total | <90 Day | This year | Last year | ||
| Shift A | 86 | 7 | 3 | 8.1% | 3.5% |
| Shift B | 44 | 6 | 4 | 13.6% | 11.1% |
| Shift C | 66 | 3 | 0 | 4.5% | 5.4% |
| Shift D | 91 | 10 | 3 | 10.9% | 12.6% |
| Total | 287 | 26 | 10 | 9.1% | 7.9% |
Your department has the highest 90-day turnover of new staff and you have been asked to reduce it for next year.
Take a look at the table above. Which shift would you start with?
Manage Your Day
Here, you will demonstrate how strong your skills are around organizing, prioritizing and delegating tasks.
You will be presented with a series of scenarios, based on the realistic experiences of Walmart managers, and you will be required to organize them in order of urgency.
Your ability to organize and prioritize tasks is a key part of your success as a manager, but your operational experience may not align with Walmart’s expectations. Ensure your answers adhere to what they expect even if that is not necessarily the way you have managed in the past.
Rank the following scenarios in order of urgency from URGENT, VERY IMPORTANT, IMPORTANT, LEAST URGENT.
a) It’s a busy day and you notice that for the last three days the same associates failed to attend work.
b) As you are leaving for the day, you find the back-of-house areas are disorganized and unclean.
c) You see a customer in need of assistance on the shop floor whilst an associate chats on their cell phone.
d) A new associate has transferred to your team and they are struggling to fit in and keep up.
Tell Us Your Story
Here, you will be asked questions relating to your previous work and experience. To pass, answers must suggest that you will fit in with the company culture.
When answering, it is vital to have Walmart’s core values in mind.
We decide to contact your most recent boss and ask them to evaluate your customer service skills in comparison to your former colleagues. What might they say about you?
a) The best
b) One of the best
c) Average
d) Below average
e) Poor
f) Very poor
Describe Your Approach
This is where you get to demonstrate your approach to managing, teamwork and staff relations. This section is essentially a personality test.
Questions could be two statements about opposing management styles, then the option to select which one relates most closely to your approach.
Example:
Which of the following relates more closely to your management style?
a) I set realistic, achievable goals for my team
b) I strive for perfection and set my team goals that are hard to achieve
The testing system flags inconsistencies here, so whilst showing yourself in a positive light, do not exaggerate or select statements that contradict previous questions.
In this assessment, consistency is key. It is also important to remember that, although managers are required to be ambitious, Walmart is very focused on high performance, so your answers should ideally strike a balance between ambition and plausibility.
Their ideal candidate will be someone who has high expectations but whose projections and ideas are achievable.
How to Pass the Walmart Manager Employment Assessment in 2024
Step 1. Be Decisive
As with all of the Walmart assessments, the company is looking for someone who can take decisive action. Select the ‘strongly agree’ or ‘strongly disagree’ options – the questions are designed to identify someone with strong leadership skills and they do not want to see neutrality.
Step 2. Know Your Subject
Research as much as you can about Walmart beforehand: its culture, ethos and expectations they have of their employees.
Try to learn their mission statement and memorize their core values – arm yourself with as much knowledge as possible.
Step 3. Keep It Relevant
Your priorities are unlikely to be in complete synchronicity with Walmart’s.
However, for the MEA, and specifically for the Manage Your Day section, you need to answer in line with the company’s expectations, even if these differ from your own.
Step 4. Practice
Search for practice questions online so you know what to expect before you take the assessment.
Familiarise yourself with the format of the test as each section is quite different and make sure you understand exactly what each part is testing for.
Step 5. Prepare
Many candidates fail the assessment because they do not adequately prepare.
There are online simulation tests (some of which you have to pay for) that can help you familiarise yourself with the question types and general layout of the test, but understanding the company is equally as important.
Make sure you dedicate enough time to fully prepare yourself for the assessment.
Step 6. Be Believable
The test is sensitive to both inconsistencies and exaggeration, so be mindful of this when you answer.
Naturally, you may want to manipulate some of your responses to align with the company’s expectations but try not to do this at the expense of your credibility and make sure your answers are forming a believable pattern, rather than going from one extreme to the other.
Walmart is looking for individuals who can demonstrate industry-related expertise. They also want to see that you can reinforce the skills and experience listed on your resume with tangible, real-life knowledge garnered from work-related scenarios. Therefore, simply trying to memorize answers is not an adequate way to prepare for this type of assessment.
It is common for Walmart to invite applicants to ask some questions of their own during the interview stage. While you are researching the company before the MEA, you may want to consider some thought-provoking questions that will impress the hiring manager.
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Final Thoughts
The purpose of the MEA test is for Walmart to be able to select the most suitable applicants for their managerial positions. They will only hire candidates whose answers identify them as effective extensions of the company.
Take the time to inform yourself not only about what is being asked, but also why it is being asked. If you have suitable background knowledge about the company, are aware of Walmart’s expectations of their managers and answer in line with these expectations, you stand a substantial chance of success.