Industrial Placement Review

I absolutely loved my whole year with Aldi. It was the most challenging and most rewarding thing I have ever done, and to have got through the entire year is a great accomplishment. If you throw yourself in, and really get stuck in with all the different challenges you will have a great year.

Because of the responsibility that you are given from the off, you have to earn the respect of your colleagues. If you show you are willing to work hard and listen to what they have to say, then they will respect you as they are used to people coming into roles like this.

You are assigned a mentor Area Manager on your first day, and it's really important to make a good bond with them as they will be your first port of call when it comes to support. You will also train and possibly work in their stores during your store time so you will see them often and have plenty of time to catch up.

Extremely busy. 10 hour days are the norm, and you will occasionally have to do longer than that depending on the circumstances. However you are usually kept very busy during your entire shifts, so it is very rare that you will be clock watching and just waiting for your shift to end.

This is the thing that Aldi is possibly most famous for. From your first two weeks shadowing your mentor, you will be assisting in running an area of three stores. And then after that you are given keys to a multi-million pound store, and expected to run shifts of several employees. Often this means you are the most experienced member of staff in the store.

In terms of time management and how to conduct yourself in a business environment, massive amounts. I don't know how much the skills such as people management will come in handy in my degree but I hope these skills will come in really handy in my later life.

The atmosphere is very professional and corporate in head office. Every time you meet someone it is expected that you shake their hand. Also the way you dress is very corporate. You should wear quite standard clothes when wearing your suit. In stores the atmosphere is much more relaxed, and a lot of people have a good laugh whilst working.

I found the placement to be well structured but not necessarily brilliantly organised. You could occasionally not know exactly where you would be, and the plan changed several times across the year. I also got placed somewhere not that close to wear I was planning on living so ended up moving house to a flat closer to my stores.

You are supposed to go on several courses, but unfortunately we didn't get to go on many. However in terms of time the company spend on your development it is massive. Especially for a company that values efficiency, it is very significant that you will be trained by the store manager and the area manager.

I ended the placement with a job offer to come back as an area manager if I get a 2:1. So it is definitely possible to be allowed to come back, but the company is quite secretive about general prospects. When you come back, it is a great benefit to have spend that much time in head office.

When you're out in stores, you generally don't see much of your colleagues. However during your head office time you spend most days with you colleagues so you have a good few months to really get to know them. This will be a great benefit if you all go back to the same region.

Because we are based in quite rural areas the cost of living where I was wasn't high. The only large cost would be petrol as you have to drive to your stores and your regional office.

Because my stores happened to be in quite a quiet place, without many students the night life wasn't great. And because of how hard you work and the varied hours you quite often don't have time to go and see friends.

Again, because you are so busy it is hard to find time to do things other than work. There are occasional work things that you can go to, but generally it can be hard to keep up with hobbies as your rota can change so much week to week.