A Change in Staff: Student Store holds annual interviews, new members will be announced on Monday, Jan. 24

Next year’s Student Store members will be announced by Jan. 24 after the Student Store completes competitive interviews for prospective juniors.

Out of the 42 juniors applying, only 18-24 will be accepted.

“We don’t shy away from people who haven’t had previous experience with design or advertising because it’s a learning process and we’re all still learning new things and there’s a lot of trial and error,” senior and current Student Store designer Kasey Nelson said.

The Student Store has six departments within it: design, promotion, finance, website, sales and management. Members hold a new position each semester, but positions are fluid and students help each other out. The amount of work they put in is up to them, according to Nelson.

Prospective applicants must take the year-long marketing principles elective class, which is centered on the basics of product development. Besides that, previous experience with design or advertising is not required — though many of the juniors applying have experience from journalism or digital design classes.

“I try to be as hands-off as possible because I want them to be very hands-on,” Marketing Management teacher Mercedes Rassmusen said. “I want it to be their ideas, them doing the financing, the pricing, the cleaning, the designing, the visual display. I want it [the store] to be something that they’re proud of.”

As for the interview process, seniors have fun asking questions and interacting with the juniors that will eventually take over the store. The panel likes to have interviewees perform silly tasks to keep them on their toes.

“We ask questions like, ‘Why do you want to be on Student Store?’ and ‘What do you have to offer?’ but we also make them do some weird things,” Nelson said. “We make them dance during the interview, or we’ll ask them their favorite song and then we’ll make them sing it.”

Rassmusen looks forward to next year’s Student Store, as she knows that the selected juniors will strive to continue the legacy past groups have left for them.

“When I walk into the classroom, it’s a class that I feel good in,” Nelson said. “It’s so much fun when you’re putting out good stuff.”