i'm writing this as someone who came back to the workforce after a 2-year gap and went through Home Depot's behavioral rounds. the behavioral piece was actually what i felt most prepared for, weirdly enough. sharing what i learned.
home depot has a set of leadership behaviors that map pretty closely to what they're assessing in every behavioral round. i didn't know these going in, but i pieced it together from the questions they asked.
what they repeatedly asked about: taking initiative without being asked. they want examples of you identifying a problem and running with it without someone telling you to. ownership is a real thing there. dealing with rapid change or shifting priorities. they're a 50-year-old company that's gone full omnichannel in 5 years. they want people who don't freeze when priorities shift. times you pushed back on leadership or had to deliver bad news. they asked this in two different ways across my two behavioral panelists, which told me they care about it. cross-team collaboration with groups who have different incentives. again, retail-specific context: store ops teams and tech teams don't always agree. customer impact. they love it when you can tie your work back to the customer experience, even if your role was infra or backend.
format: two interviewers, one hour, maybe 3-4 questions each. they tag-team a bit but mostly alternate. both were taking notes the whole time. STAR format felt expected and appreciated. i did notice when i went off-format and rambled they'd redirect me back with a 'so what was the outcome.'
returning-worker note: they never made my gap feel like a problem. one interviewer asked about it neutrally and i gave a 30-second honest answer. that was the end of it. your mileage may vary but Home Depot did not feel like a place where a gap automatically disqualifies you.
overall the behavioral component felt thorough but fair.