The Home Depot Business Analyst Interview Questions + Guide in 2024

The Home Depot is the world’s largest home improvement retailer, offering millions of DIY enthusiasts, professionals, and homeowners a vast selection of products and services. The company is renowned for its robust and dynamic work environment that fosters creativity, collaboration, and continuous learning.

As a Business Analyst at The Home Depot, you’ll be responsible for driving impactful projects that enhance customer experiences and business processes. Business Analysts at The Home Depot engage in project management, data analysis, process improvement, and strategic planning. They play a critical role in decision-making by providing actionable insights and thorough evaluations.

This guide is here to help you navigate the interview process at The Home Depot. We’ll provide insights about the interview structure, common The Home Depot business analyst interview questions, and essential tips to prepare you for success. Let’s get started!

The interview process usually depends on the role and seniority; however, you can expect the following on a The Home Depot business analyst interview:

Recruiter/Hiring Manager Call Screening

If your CV is among the shortlisted few, a recruiter from The Home Depot Talent Acquisition Team will contact you and verify key details like your experiences and skill level. Behavioral questions may also be part of the screening process.

In some cases, the hiring manager may stay present during the screening round to answer your queries about the role and the company itself. They may also indulge in surface-level technical and behavioral discussions.

The whole recruiter call should take about 30 minutes.

Technical Virtual Interview

Successfully navigating the recruiter round will invite you to the technical screening round. Technical screening for the Business Analyst role is usually conducted through virtual means, including video conference and screen sharing. Questions in this one-hour interview stage may revolve around large datasets, ETL processes, SQL queries, and analytics tasks.

Depending on the seniority of the position, case studies and similar real-scenario problems may also be assigned. You’ll also likely be assessed on proficiency with tools like Tableau, Google Big Query, SQL, and perhaps even some elements of statistical modeling.

Onsite Interview Rounds

Followed by a second recruiter call outlining the next stage, you’ll be invited to attend the onsite interview loop. Multiple interview rounds will be conducted during your day at The Home Depot office, varying with the role. Your technical prowess, including project management and data visualization capabilities, will be evaluated against the finalized candidates throughout these interviews.

If you were assigned take-home exercises, a presentation round may also await you during the onsite interview for the Business Analyst role at The Home Depot.

Typically, interviews at Home Depot vary by role and team, but commonly, Business Analyst interviews follow a fairly standardized process across these question topics.

1. What would you do if friend requests are down 10% on Facebook?

A Facebook product manager informs you that friend requests have decreased by 10%. How would you approach investigating and addressing this issue?

2. How would you set up an A/B test for changes in a sign-up funnel?

A team wants to A/B test various changes in a sign-up funnel, such as changing a button from red to blue and/or moving it from the top to the bottom of the page. How would you design this test?

3. What metrics would you use to determine the value of each marketing channel?

Given all the different marketing channels and their respective costs at Mode, a company that sells B2B analytics dashboards, what metrics would you use to evaluate the value of each channel?

4. How would you measure the success of a banner ad strategy for an online media company?

An online media company wants to experiment with adding web banners into the middle of its reading content to monetize effectively. How would you measure the success of this banner ad strategy?

5. How would you investigate a drop in posts per user on Facebook?

The posting tool on Facebook Composer dropped from 3% posts per user last month to 2.5% posts per user today. How would you investigate this issue? What additional steps would you take if the drop is specifically in photo posts?

6. Create a function recurring_char to find the first recurring character in a string.

Given a string, write a function recurring_char to find its first recurring character. Return None if there is no recurring character. Treat upper and lower case letters as distinct characters. Assume the input string includes no spaces.

7. Write a query to get the average order value by gender.

Given three tables representing customer transactions and customer attributes, write a query to get the average order value by gender. Round your answer to two decimal places. Only consider users who have ever placed an order.

8. Identify first-time and repeat purchases by product category.

Analyze a user’s purchases to identify which purchases represent the first time they have bought a product from its category and which represent repeat purchases. Output a table that includes every purchase with a boolean column indicating if the category was previously purchased.

9. Parse the most frequent words used in poems.

Given a list of strings called sentences, return a dictionary of the frequency of words used in the poem. Process all words as entirely lowercase and ignore punctuation marks. The keys should be the number of times the word is used, with values being lists of words with that frequency.

10. Write a SQL query to select the 2nd highest salary in the engineering department.

Write a SQL query to select the 2nd highest salary in the engineering department. If more than one person shares the highest salary, select the next highest salary.

11. How does random forest generate the forest and why use it over logistic regression?

Explain how a random forest creates multiple decision trees and combines their results. Discuss the advantages of random forest, such as handling non-linear data and reducing overfitting, compared to logistic regression.

12. How would you justify using a neural network model and explain its predictions to non-technical stakeholders?

Describe the business problem and the benefits of using a neural network. Explain the complexity and accuracy improvements. Use visual aids and analogies to make the predictions understandable to non-technical stakeholders.

13. How would you interpret coefficients of logistic regression for categorical and boolean variables?

Explain how to interpret logistic regression coefficients for categorical variables using dummy coding and for boolean variables as binary indicators. Discuss the impact of these coefficients on the odds of the outcome.

14. Which model would perform better for predicting Airbnb booking prices: linear regression or random forest regression?

Compare the strengths and weaknesses of linear regression and random forest regression. Discuss factors like data complexity, feature interactions, and model interpretability to determine which model would likely perform better.

15. What are the assumptions of linear regression?

List and explain the key assumptions of linear regression, including linearity, independence, homoscedasticity, normality of errors, and no multicollinearity. Discuss the importance of each assumption for the validity of the model.

16. What are time series models, and why are they needed over simpler regression models?

Explain what time series models are and discuss why they are necessary compared to less complicated regression models.

17. How would you determine if the difference between this month and the previous month is significant in a time series dataset?

Given a time series dataset grouped monthly for the past five years, describe the steps you would take to determine if the difference between this month and the previous month is significant.

To help you succeed in your The Home Depot business analyst interviews, consider these tips based on interview experiences:

1. Know Your Tools: Familiarize yourself with tools and software listed in the job description, including Tableau, Python, Google Big Query, SQL, and project management methodologies.

2. Understand The Retail Environment: Since The Home Depot is a retail giant, understanding retail metrics, merchandising processes, and scheduling is crucial.

3. Be Detail-Oriented: The role emphasizes strong analytical skills, communication, and project management. Prepare accordingly to showcase these competencies during your interview.

What is the average salary for a Business Analyst at The Home Depot?

What qualifications are needed for a Senior Business Analyst position at The Home Depot?

Preferred qualifications include a bachelor’s degree in a related field, at least 3 years of project management or consulting experience, and proficiency in statistical methods and data analysis tools such as SQL, Tableau, and Google Big Query. A background in retail or merchandising is also beneficial.

What are the day-to-day responsibilities of a Business Analyst at The Home Depot?

Daily responsibilities include managing and executing projects, gathering and analyzing business requirements, developing dashboards and reports, and collaborating with cross-functional teams. Business Analysts also perform data analysis to provide actionable insights and support strategic decision-making.

The Home Depot offers a dynamic, inclusive work environment that values innovation and leadership.

If you want more insights about the company, check out our main Home Depot Interview Guide, where we have covered many interview questions that could be asked. We’ve also created interview guides for other roles, such as software engineer and data analyst, where you can learn more about Home Depot’s interview process for different positions.

You can also check out all our company interview guides for better preparation, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

Good luck with your interview!