September 29, 2008
Retailers Launch Careers
By Tom Ryan
Target ranked 14th out of 119 companies on BusinessWeek’s Best Places to Launch a Career survey. Other retailers making the list included Amazon (33), Macy’s (56), Walgreen’s (79), Kohl’s (94), Abercrombie & Fitch (98) and Sears (110). This was the first time Target participated in this survey, which recognized the company for providing jobs for recent college graduates.
According to BusinessWeek, Target recruited on 404 campuses in 2007-08, and made job offers on 355 of those. Target also had 1,773 internships in 2007. Of those, 63 percent of eligible 2007 interns received full-time job offers and 74 percent of interns with offers accepted. Overall, 19 percent of Target’s entry-level hires last year were interns.
“We continuously strive to attract, retain and develop the best talent for our stores, distribution centers and headquarters locations,” said Tim Curoe, vice president, talent acquisition at Target in a statement. “In today’s challenging economic environment, graduates want to work for a strong company with a great passion for ongoing development and training – both of which they will find at Target. In addition, our strongly held commitment to community giving and sustainability further solidifies why many potential team members view Target as an employer of choice.”
The Best Places to Launch a Career ranking is based on three separate surveys: a BusinessWeek survey of career-services directors at U.S. colleges; a survey of 40,000 U.S. college students conducted by Universum USA, a Philadelphia research company; and a BusinessWeek poll of the employers themselves.
Consumer goods vendors making the list included Anheuser Busch (19), General Mills (24), Nestle USA (45), Whirlpool (46), Kraft Foods (49) and Loreal USA (65). The top ten: Ernst & Young, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Goldman Sachs, KPMG, Marriot International, Google, Lockhead Martin, IBM, and J.P. Morgan.
Discussion Question: Is retail a good place to launch a career? How can retailers improve recruiting efforts? What can they do better to keep people in the field once they’ve recruited them?
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All too often retail is viewed as “the accidental career,” when in fact it is for many a terrific place to build a life and career. It’s not for everybody, and not every retailer would be a good place to stay for life, but it is a remarkable industry. Consider how retail can take someone with only moderate education and start them on the sales floor making around $20,000 annually and then watch how fast the ‘bright lights’ rise to the ranks of management and make salaries that now rival most other sectors. This rapid succession is only possible in retail.
Retailers need to do a better job of ‘telling/selling their story’. In Canada, retail is now the single largest employer. Target ‘gets it’ when it comes to recruiting. Their message to other retailers is that if you want to find good talent then get off your butts and go find it. Don’t wait for it to come to you!
Want to keep your staff? Run a professional store. Treat them as being important. Train them constantly. Provide vast amounts of feedback. Pay attention to your stars. And more. We’ve proven staff turnover rates can decrease dramatically. Retailers just need to step up their games if they want to retain their talent.
Supermarkets and retailers in general are often passed over by college grads in favor of other sectors. Retailers would do well to step up their recruiting and internship efforts at colleges (and high schools) to communicate career opportunities in the stores, pharmacy, IT, finance, merchandising, consumer affairs, human resources, and general management to name a few.
Often training opportunities for non-store management are lacking with the primary emphasis being on the stores. That should change with more interns like those at Target and elsewhere. Where else can you learn, first hand, the importance of the customer than at retail?
I started my career as an intern while attending college and was one of the lucky ones to be hired just after graduation. I know I never would have thought of a career in a supermarket if it had not been for that internship.
Retail as a career? WHY?
With so many choices out there today, why would anyone want to go into retailing with most companies if they could get a job any place else?
Long hours, low pay, average benefits, an industry that is always complaining about margins, stores that do not have enough staff and everywhere you go and everything you read is negative.
Yes, a Target may make the list but my vote would have been for Costco before Target.
I guess I am biased but retail is a great place for graduates to begin a career. Like most large companies, retailers offer opportunities across most any disciplines from Accounting to Marketing to Merchandising, IT, etc.
Today’s retailers offer experience in multi-channel including in-store, online, direct to customer, field and home office dynamics, both promotion and branding and much more.
Some of the best experience comes from having some of the most robust customer databases in any industry which affords significant opportunities to advance analytical skills and innovative marketing leveraging the latest technologies.
The real time, day to day feedback on what is selling and what isn’t can be both challenging and invigorating as long as you can handle the pace and pressure of always trying to beat comp store sales.
Target seems to put bright young people in effective management positions. I recommended Target as a possible employer for my daughter so that’s the best endorsement I can offer.
In addition to all the other normal education, retail tends to give people a good reality check on how business really works. After studying how everything is supposed to work, students can get the shocks of their lives when they are thrust into “the real world of retailing.” I believe that if you can be successful in retail, it can translate to almost any other sales oriented profession. Being one on one with the end consumer is extremely valuable training that is best taught on the sales floor. All executives should be required to start there and have refresher stints on an ongoing basis instead of holing up in their offices and becoming isolated from the real world. Too many of today’s retail decisions seem to be made by people that put too much emphasis on what should work, or what the accountant would like to see, or what they want to sell rather than what the consumer wants to buy. A little more time spent on the sales floor and talking to the actual clerks and customers could help them make much better informed decisions.
When I was just getting out of design school, several people recommended I start in the advertising department of our local May Company subsidiary, Famous-Barr. I can see now that would have been great training, though I doubt I’d have lasted ten minutes.
In the same way, I can see retailing as the ultimate prep for any career in marketing or sales. In fact, if I were designing a marketing curriculum, I might require an internship with a big retailer just for the immersion in customer focus. And so they can see the real issues that store-level employees and managers grapple with every day, in real time, with no time-outs or do-overs, and potentially game-changing amounts of money on the line if they make the wrong call one too many times.
Then, maybe we’ll have developed a generation of managers who won’t be so quick to call those front-line people ‘monkeys’.
I would hesitate to recommend a career in retailing to a young person. I went through the management development programs at May Company and Associated Dry Goods in the 1980s, so I am grossly out of date on what is current, but just from people I speak with in the industry it seems some things have not changed, such as long hours with sacrificed weekends, a “never enough” mentality from the corporate parent, a lack of respect from one’s peers and family, and generally low pay and benefits.
My happiest time in retail was working for an extremely high-end specialty store division of Manhattan Industries (if anyone remembers them) where the management had a passion for the merchandise and an absolute devotion to the customer. As a salesperson I was trained relentlessly, always treated respectfully, and put on a commission…at 19 years old, by the way. I still utilize the skills I gained from that three-year stint, whereas I feel the years at May and ADG were essentially wasted.
The underlying truth is that retail is a great place to start your career so you know what it is you do NOT want to do for the rest of your life. Same with the restaurant industry. Both for all the reasons stated by my colleagues and probably many more.
Given all the positive comments above…who’s voting “no” in the survey??? Must be the manufacturers.
The key to getting Millenials into retail is to provide them a clear path to management responsibility. Also, recognize that the days of every functional position being filled by someone who started in a store and came up through operations are long gone. Functional specialists have a place.
Target did all this and more. I have mentioned in this space before that I have had three kids in the MN college system, some private and some at the U of M. Target is a constant presence on campus. Some of the other top ranked companies in this survey (General Mills for example) are also prevalent with things like sponsored class rooms and lecture halls. They work at attracting and developing new talent and it works for them.
Retail can be an excellent industry to launch a career. Of course I am biased, having started in Macy’s Executive Training Program back around the time of their ill-fated LBO.
The skills learned, at least in the Macy’s program, covered the gamut from merchandising, customer service and selling, management of people and managing by the numbers. Those are all skills that can be applied to any industry.
Retail, however, is tough. Long hours, high expectations and accountability are not for everyone. But like the song New York, New York, those who can be successful in retail have great foundation for success in a lot of industries. The key is being part of an employee- (and thus customer-) centric organization that invests in its people. The Macy’s of old did that and there are clearly others that share this philosophy today.
Retailing has never really been known as a good place to start a career. Good students tend to want to get into corporate offices rather than begin on the sales floor. When I was in college, retailers targeted the “C” students and really didn’t care what your major was. And they certainly did not want motivated students who would find a better job three months down the road.
I started with FW Woolworth but as soon as I saw greener grass I was gone. What could Woolworth’s have done to make me want to stay? First, how about a 40 hour week and not a 52 hour week with no overtime? The benefits were lame. I really didn’t care to carry 10 pounds of keys on my belt, unloading truck loads of pine trees, and closing up a store at 10 pm, only to return at 7am day after day. Then deal with all the trailer park personnel issues. I suppose if the pay was 50% more, I would have enjoyed it better. However when I saw my colleagues from college earning more and working less, I strove to do the same.
There is high turnover in retail basically because better opportunities eventually arrive. Retailers simply need to make sure they are competitive with pay, benefits and working conditions.
There is no doubt that retail is and will always be a very exciting career opportunity for many people. The hyper-dynamics are such that, yeah, it’s not for everyone, but for people that love change, excitement and the ‘hunt’ for new ideas and products, it’s one of the best adventures they could invest in.
From my 30+ years experience, I’ve found that you can spot a retailer a mile away: gregarious, excitable, encouraged by feedback and having the ability to let criticism roll off their backs. You can spot them anywhere, whether they’re misplaced or not, people can be naturals at this more than any other profession (maybe professional sports being close). You just have to constantly keep your eyes open.
Target is a great example in retail, starting with their work with major retail programs at prominent schools, like the University of Indiana and the program there led by Dr. Ray Burke. And as you track people’s retail careers through Target Corp., their history of success speaks for itself.
In any case, I would highly recommend a retail career for anyone…including one of my daughters. (She’s got the gene!)
The real question is, launch a career “in retailing” or launch a career overall? Starting at one of the department stores historically was a great way to launch a career in retailing. Even today, many of the retail leaders started at one of the major department stores. However, retail has not been seen as a launch pad for a general management career outside of retailing, while other companies (notably GE) have been seen as places from which someone could move into many industries.
In my opinion, retailers still lag behind many industries in establishing the discipline needed for general management careers outside retailing (I’m comparing my retail experience to my experience in manufacturing). As retailers become more disciplined and as some retailers have evolved into large, multi-national businesses, I think they have the opportunity to become strong training grounds for many management fields and careers.
For those that can handle or cope with the stresses of retail, I would say our industry is a great place to start a career. Finding those individuals that have a knack for retail can be difficult. For myself, I start the process as soon as the resume or application is handed in. I take body language and communication skills as a huge factor in the hiring decision.
Target does a good job of training new candidates and offers ongoing resources to further the employee’s carer. For those who love customer service, there is no better job, in my opinion.
Retail is a good starting point if you use the opportunity to learn a few things. Specifically: How to work with customers and the business of the business. To just work in retail in an untrained and uninformed capacity is not going to add to career goals in any meaningful way. However, with the right attitude and aptitude, a retail experience is a window to many things that relate to marketing, advertising, and all sorts of human interaction and team dynamic opportunities as professions.
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All too often retail is viewed as “the accidental career,” when in fact it is for many a terrific place to build a life and career. It’s not for everybody, and not every retailer would be a good place to stay for life, but it is a remarkable industry. Consider how retail can take someone with only moderate education and start them on the sales floor making around $20,000 annually and then watch how fast the ‘bright lights’ rise to the ranks of management and make salaries that now rival most other sectors. This rapid succession is only possible in retail.
Retailers need to do a better job of ‘telling/selling their story’. In Canada, retail is now the single largest employer. Target ‘gets it’ when it comes to recruiting. Their message to other retailers is that if you want to find good talent then get off your butts and go find it. Don’t wait for it to come to you!
Want to keep your staff? Run a professional store. Treat them as being important. Train them constantly. Provide vast amounts of feedback. Pay attention to your stars. And more. We’ve proven staff turnover rates can decrease dramatically. Retailers just need to step up their games if they want to retain their talent.
Supermarkets and retailers in general are often passed over by college grads in favor of other sectors. Retailers would do well to step up their recruiting and internship efforts at colleges (and high schools) to communicate career opportunities in the stores, pharmacy, IT, finance, merchandising, consumer affairs, human resources, and general management to name a few.
Often training opportunities for non-store management are lacking with the primary emphasis being on the stores. That should change with more interns like those at Target and elsewhere. Where else can you learn, first hand, the importance of the customer than at retail?
I started my career as an intern while attending college and was one of the lucky ones to be hired just after graduation. I know I never would have thought of a career in a supermarket if it had not been for that internship.
Retail as a career? WHY?
With so many choices out there today, why would anyone want to go into retailing with most companies if they could get a job any place else?
Long hours, low pay, average benefits, an industry that is always complaining about margins, stores that do not have enough staff and everywhere you go and everything you read is negative.
Yes, a Target may make the list but my vote would have been for Costco before Target.
I guess I am biased but retail is a great place for graduates to begin a career. Like most large companies, retailers offer opportunities across most any disciplines from Accounting to Marketing to Merchandising, IT, etc.
Today’s retailers offer experience in multi-channel including in-store, online, direct to customer, field and home office dynamics, both promotion and branding and much more.
Some of the best experience comes from having some of the most robust customer databases in any industry which affords significant opportunities to advance analytical skills and innovative marketing leveraging the latest technologies.
The real time, day to day feedback on what is selling and what isn’t can be both challenging and invigorating as long as you can handle the pace and pressure of always trying to beat comp store sales.
Target seems to put bright young people in effective management positions. I recommended Target as a possible employer for my daughter so that’s the best endorsement I can offer.
In addition to all the other normal education, retail tends to give people a good reality check on how business really works. After studying how everything is supposed to work, students can get the shocks of their lives when they are thrust into “the real world of retailing.” I believe that if you can be successful in retail, it can translate to almost any other sales oriented profession. Being one on one with the end consumer is extremely valuable training that is best taught on the sales floor. All executives should be required to start there and have refresher stints on an ongoing basis instead of holing up in their offices and becoming isolated from the real world. Too many of today’s retail decisions seem to be made by people that put too much emphasis on what should work, or what the accountant would like to see, or what they want to sell rather than what the consumer wants to buy. A little more time spent on the sales floor and talking to the actual clerks and customers could help them make much better informed decisions.
When I was just getting out of design school, several people recommended I start in the advertising department of our local May Company subsidiary, Famous-Barr. I can see now that would have been great training, though I doubt I’d have lasted ten minutes.
In the same way, I can see retailing as the ultimate prep for any career in marketing or sales. In fact, if I were designing a marketing curriculum, I might require an internship with a big retailer just for the immersion in customer focus. And so they can see the real issues that store-level employees and managers grapple with every day, in real time, with no time-outs or do-overs, and potentially game-changing amounts of money on the line if they make the wrong call one too many times.
Then, maybe we’ll have developed a generation of managers who won’t be so quick to call those front-line people ‘monkeys’.
I would hesitate to recommend a career in retailing to a young person. I went through the management development programs at May Company and Associated Dry Goods in the 1980s, so I am grossly out of date on what is current, but just from people I speak with in the industry it seems some things have not changed, such as long hours with sacrificed weekends, a “never enough” mentality from the corporate parent, a lack of respect from one’s peers and family, and generally low pay and benefits.
My happiest time in retail was working for an extremely high-end specialty store division of Manhattan Industries (if anyone remembers them) where the management had a passion for the merchandise and an absolute devotion to the customer. As a salesperson I was trained relentlessly, always treated respectfully, and put on a commission…at 19 years old, by the way. I still utilize the skills I gained from that three-year stint, whereas I feel the years at May and ADG were essentially wasted.
The underlying truth is that retail is a great place to start your career so you know what it is you do NOT want to do for the rest of your life. Same with the restaurant industry. Both for all the reasons stated by my colleagues and probably many more.
Given all the positive comments above…who’s voting “no” in the survey??? Must be the manufacturers.
The key to getting Millenials into retail is to provide them a clear path to management responsibility. Also, recognize that the days of every functional position being filled by someone who started in a store and came up through operations are long gone. Functional specialists have a place.
Target did all this and more. I have mentioned in this space before that I have had three kids in the MN college system, some private and some at the U of M. Target is a constant presence on campus. Some of the other top ranked companies in this survey (General Mills for example) are also prevalent with things like sponsored class rooms and lecture halls. They work at attracting and developing new talent and it works for them.
Retail can be an excellent industry to launch a career. Of course I am biased, having started in Macy’s Executive Training Program back around the time of their ill-fated LBO.
The skills learned, at least in the Macy’s program, covered the gamut from merchandising, customer service and selling, management of people and managing by the numbers. Those are all skills that can be applied to any industry.
Retail, however, is tough. Long hours, high expectations and accountability are not for everyone. But like the song New York, New York, those who can be successful in retail have great foundation for success in a lot of industries. The key is being part of an employee- (and thus customer-) centric organization that invests in its people. The Macy’s of old did that and there are clearly others that share this philosophy today.
Retailing has never really been known as a good place to start a career. Good students tend to want to get into corporate offices rather than begin on the sales floor. When I was in college, retailers targeted the “C” students and really didn’t care what your major was. And they certainly did not want motivated students who would find a better job three months down the road.
I started with FW Woolworth but as soon as I saw greener grass I was gone. What could Woolworth’s have done to make me want to stay? First, how about a 40 hour week and not a 52 hour week with no overtime? The benefits were lame. I really didn’t care to carry 10 pounds of keys on my belt, unloading truck loads of pine trees, and closing up a store at 10 pm, only to return at 7am day after day. Then deal with all the trailer park personnel issues. I suppose if the pay was 50% more, I would have enjoyed it better. However when I saw my colleagues from college earning more and working less, I strove to do the same.
There is high turnover in retail basically because better opportunities eventually arrive. Retailers simply need to make sure they are competitive with pay, benefits and working conditions.
There is no doubt that retail is and will always be a very exciting career opportunity for many people. The hyper-dynamics are such that, yeah, it’s not for everyone, but for people that love change, excitement and the ‘hunt’ for new ideas and products, it’s one of the best adventures they could invest in.
From my 30+ years experience, I’ve found that you can spot a retailer a mile away: gregarious, excitable, encouraged by feedback and having the ability to let criticism roll off their backs. You can spot them anywhere, whether they’re misplaced or not, people can be naturals at this more than any other profession (maybe professional sports being close). You just have to constantly keep your eyes open.
Target is a great example in retail, starting with their work with major retail programs at prominent schools, like the University of Indiana and the program there led by Dr. Ray Burke. And as you track people’s retail careers through Target Corp., their history of success speaks for itself.
In any case, I would highly recommend a retail career for anyone…including one of my daughters. (She’s got the gene!)
The real question is, launch a career “in retailing” or launch a career overall? Starting at one of the department stores historically was a great way to launch a career in retailing. Even today, many of the retail leaders started at one of the major department stores. However, retail has not been seen as a launch pad for a general management career outside of retailing, while other companies (notably GE) have been seen as places from which someone could move into many industries.
In my opinion, retailers still lag behind many industries in establishing the discipline needed for general management careers outside retailing (I’m comparing my retail experience to my experience in manufacturing). As retailers become more disciplined and as some retailers have evolved into large, multi-national businesses, I think they have the opportunity to become strong training grounds for many management fields and careers.
For those that can handle or cope with the stresses of retail, I would say our industry is a great place to start a career. Finding those individuals that have a knack for retail can be difficult. For myself, I start the process as soon as the resume or application is handed in. I take body language and communication skills as a huge factor in the hiring decision.
Target does a good job of training new candidates and offers ongoing resources to further the employee’s carer. For those who love customer service, there is no better job, in my opinion.
Retail is a good starting point if you use the opportunity to learn a few things. Specifically: How to work with customers and the business of the business. To just work in retail in an untrained and uninformed capacity is not going to add to career goals in any meaningful way. However, with the right attitude and aptitude, a retail experience is a window to many things that relate to marketing, advertising, and all sorts of human interaction and team dynamic opportunities as professions.