Retail Management Placement Review

For the first 6 months, your day-to-day roles can range from working stock in the morning and helping to open up, to working on tills, ordering for the store and running a close shift. Once at head office for the final 6 months, you spend time between the warehouse and the upstairs office, you visit stores, visit other regions and work on projects with area managers and other placement students.

I have become more confident with using applications such as Excel, and ALDI also helps develop you as a manager. I feel that I can lead a team more effectively, have more confidence, and have developed my organisation skills. You also will present several times throughout this placement, this gives you great exposure to presenting at a corporate level and once again boosts your confidence for delivering future presentations.

Absolutely, you are entrusted with managing shifts, managing cash and the safe in store, ordering for the entire store, and once at head office, you manage a lot of your own time when on projects.

There was always someone available to go to for help and your mentor that you are given on the first day is always there to help when needed. Everyone in store and at head office is also super friendly and always keen to help.

Really positive and upbeat, everyone gets along and is really friendly. Even when days are tough, people are happy to keep joking and smiling to get through the shift, its a real collective effort and you feel that while working in stores.

I really enjoyed the placement, though there were early starts and some tough shifts as the work in stores can be physical, the teams I was part of, the experiences it has given me and the friends and connections I have made has made it such a brilliant placement.

Yes

Be prepared for early starts and late finishes, hard work, and tough targets - it does sound scary, however while there are tough aspects of the role, the opportunities for development and progression and the teams you will be part of makes it worthwhile. Take plenty of notes, ask questions, get to know people and be personable, make sure to be down to earth and grounded and try and get as much exposure to everything as you can. If you are interested in the grad scheme, taking responsibility for your training is a really good indicator to them of how dedicated and serious you are.