Placement Student Review

The placement scheme offers you the chance to see a wide aspect of departments in a business which allowed me to experience as much as I could and learn how many parts of the business work.

My colleagues would always give me the time to give me training and when I was competent, colleagues would respect me and follow my decisions made. Colleagues were always interested to hear about the placement and what I would be completing on it.

The placement management team offer you fantastic support from Head Office to your regional training manager. They were always there to answer any questions, provide you with resources and creating training opportunities to develop your skills to my maximum potential. Managers in different departments always welcomed me in and would give me structured training to develop my skills, they would give me as much responsibility they felt I could take with their support always there.

Lidl is a fast paced company that is growing rapidly in the food retail market so there is always new challenges and new things to learn. Sometimes work would be very busy but the support would always be there to help push the team through together to the final goal.

I had responsibility from my first few weeks in every department. I was able to supervise a team of 10 employees in the warehouse at a very busy time. I managed a Lidl store, being in charge of staff duties, holding the safe and closing down the store. I was given the responsibility of ordering milk, bread and chiller items each day during my time at stock management.

I have learnt so many practical skills during my time which has given me the confidence to use my knowledge from studies in the real world. Managing people has been a real challenge but having this skill now will help me in my final year and throughout the rest of my career. Lidls placement and graduate schemes have great credibility on the graduate market and have won awards so having this on my CV will be great for further career opportunities.

People were generally always positive due to the success of the company, busy times could lead to staff morale being down but the great team spirit in Lidl meant the atmosphere was mostly positive.

This placement has had so much input to it from managers and directors and over the years has continually developed. There is a very clear and structured plan for placement students but still allows students to be flexible by choosing their own modules. Students complete and 9 week basic training period to get an overall insight of each department then I got to chose 4 modules each 8 weeks long to spend in these different departments.

I felt I always had a clear training plan provided so was able to follow this to develop my skills as much as possible. Managers of each department would always be happy to train and let me ask any questions. The majority of it was on the job training so I was able to learn as I went along.

Having this insight into many departments has made me realise where I want to go into the company and with so many graduate opportunities opening up I am sure there is high prospects for me going back.

All the placement students met up at the start of the placement for our induction and to create a network amongst us. We had a couple more meetings through the year and spent 2 weeks at head office together. The placement finished with a final meeting with the placement students and management team.

Lived with a friend so rent wasn't too costly. Near London so other costs were quite high.

Right near to London so plenty of options there.

Not many outside of work activities.