Placement Student Review

Most of it was a bit of a slog. Sometimes it would be okay that certain jobs were boring/ tougher because of the rotational nature of the program. There were interesting areas of the business, such as property and supply chain, but because it is a rotational placement I was only able to spend 2 weeks in each of these departments. Certain departments simply had no idea that I was going to be working with them, so when I turned up on day 1 of that rotation, they would be shocked to see me and try to find things for me to do - which is poor. Working in store you have to be well grounded and not be a typical pretentious university kid. I was fine with that, and got along with some of the guys in store really well.

This varied depending on what department I was working with at the time. You spend 4 months working in store, so by the end of that time I felt valued by the team and had some great colleagues. Once I moved to the regional offices and warehouse, though, there was much less of this as I was constantly chopping and changing departments. Generally speaking, I felt like a burden to the manager of the department looking after me at any time (especially in warehouse departments). That said, I did meet some great people there that I was friendly with and made me much more welcome than others.

As I said above, generally the department managers treated me like a bit of a burden. But the Regional Training Consultants who were ultimately responsible for me were great and always there if I needed help/ often coming to ask me if everything was okay.

Something that entirely depends on the department at a given time. In store you are flat out all day. Something that I generally liked but did feel the pressure a bit when I was the manager closing down the store for the night. In some office departments I would spend days sitting around, watching other people's screens, and drinking tea because there was nothing that they could give me to do. When they did give me things to do it was usually incredibly dull tasks too...

Being the manager in charge of running a store is a lot of responsibility for a young person to have, so that was a very useful and rewarding experience. However, after the store rotation I was never offered the same level of responsibility again. Most of the time after that was spent shadowing/ learning about other people's jobs rather than being allowed to get stuck in myself.

I do believe that managing a team of staff (some much older than me) at a young age was an experience that will benefit me in the future when leading a team. Besides that, I learnt a hell of a lot about myself through this placement, which is something that I value also.

Generally, Lidl is a company that prides itself on its 'productivity'. In reality, this means that staff have just enough time to do their jobs with no room to spare i.e. no time to train me anyone new! So, generally, 'pressured' is how I'd describe the work atmosphere with Lidl.

Varied a lot. Some departments weren't expecting me which is demoralising and embarrassing for the placement student. Others had training plans in place in advance so the office could share the training load. Also, after speaking to students in other regions, I believe that this is something that varued a lot between regions.

Most departments didn't have the time to spare to train me up properly. Others simply lacked an interest in doing so (warehouse).

It only takes a quick look at my comments above to work that out!

We had 3 or 4 national meet-ups throughout the year as well as a 2 week head office experience with the other placement students from around the country. These were good social, but most of the time was spent at the regional warehouse/ in store where the social wasn't with other placement students.

Unless you're based in London, the salary is enough to cover all expenses and much more.

Decent decent. Christmas party with store colleagues was a good laugh too.

The work social scene was nothing like what I hear people doing in London or the like. They did have socials maybe once a month in some departments, while others had zero. I was lucky I had other friends in the area outside of work.