Industrial Placement Review

I had an absolutely fantastic time on placement, working for Aldi was a very challenging experience, but I learnt a lot about myself and my capabilities during my placement year and definitely developed my professional and business skills. I love the challenge of working autonomously, and Aldi provided me with that from the offset.

Because of the way the placement year is structured, you find yourself working with people at all levels of the business. The colleagues which are consistent throughout the placement are the other placement students in your region. I found that we all had very similar personalities, probably because Aldi look to recruit individuals with certain traits which may be transferable to managing. All IP's go through the process together, so it's useful to have people who can relate to you throughout the process. I also worked very closely with Area Managers throughout the process, who were very trusting of me with large projects and lots of responsibility, but also remembered that it's not easy transitioning from full time study to full time work. I had different experiences with colleagues in stores, it was very easy to build rapport and friendships with some members of store teams and other members would perhaps be less welcoming, as you'd expect in any area of life.

We were allocated with regional directors as mentors. My mentor was a store operations director who I met with on a monthly basis and just discussed how the placement was going in general as opposed to performance discussions, which was great! We also spent our first week shadowing an area manager, who remained a constant point of contact throughout the year to offer us guidance and support where needed, In store, I found support was a little bit harder to find. Placement students are expected to have a drive to progress which requires you to push to complete all necessary training. I really wanted to progress in my training, but didn't quite know how to go about doing that. However once I'd raised the issue with my mentor, I was given excellenct advice and support to rectify my problem. When I started project work, I worked very closely with area managers involved in projects, who were very dedicated to ensuring that my work was as quality as possible, and that I developed professional skills to enable me to do a great job; not just at Aldi, but as I go on through my career.

I was very busy whilst on placement. A usual working day for me would be 10 hours, however, as in most jobs, you are not expected to leave a task uncompleted before going home, and Aldi do not recruit individuals who would consider doing this. Some days, both in store and whilst on projects, I would work slightly longer than my typical 10 hours to complete a task. However, having a busy working week led to me really appreciating my 2 days off a week and making the most of them.

I was given a large amount of responsibility practically from the start of the placement. In store as we went through the management training, we would regularly be in charge of completing all banking at the end of the trading day, opening and closing the store, managing staff within the store. The projects that I was working on were not menial by any description, they often had great importance and affected the running of Aldi stores nationally!

The main skill I developed was work ethic. I was a hard working individual before undertaking the placement, but my ability to concentrate on the task at hand has greatly increased and will help me through a challenging final year of university. I also developed my presentation and project management skills whilst on placement, which I know will be invaluable skills in any field of employment I enter after university.

Although everyone had very busy schedules and large workloads, people would easily make time to help you if you were in need. Nobody let the pressure of their job turn into stress and everybody was friendly most of the time!

There was a basic structure in place for how our placement year was supposed to progress. However, there are constantly opportunities to get involved in different, exciting projects at a company growing as rapidly as Aldi. However, when these opportunities arose, they couldn't facilitate everyone. These opportunities benefited placement students including myself, who could seize these opportunities when they came up and work in areas that were beyond the basic structure of the placement. However, students who didn't get a chance to take advantage of any opportunities may have felt unfairly treated.

Senior directors and experienced area managers dedicated a large amount of time into my personal development over the course of the year. I was also enrolled on an advanced driving course which was very useful! However there were either no opportunities, or opportunities came too late to develop practical skills which would have been useful over the course of the year like using Excel, or management techniques.

Completing the Aldi placement gave me a great insight into the Area Manager role. This role is very demanding, but once you've adjusted to it, very rewarding! There are frequent opportunities for progression, which I witnessed over the course of the year I was working at Aldi, and also opportunities to go on an international secondment, which is very appealing to me!

During the store time of the placement, we were required to work shifts, naturally this meant that other placement students may not have the same days off as you, or be off work at the same time as you. This made it a little bit difficult to develop a social scene during the early stages of the placement. Once everyone had started project work, which is typically Monday-Friday with everybody finishing at the same time each day, it was easier to organise going for drinks or meeting up for dinner after work or on days off. At Christmas, colleagues in the store I was working at invited me to their christmas meal which was great fun. Aldi also organised a christmas meal specifically for placement students in the region.

The area I was working in was very affordable, there were places to get cheap food or drink as well as more upmarket places depending on what you're looking for.

There was a nightlife in the area that I worked, however, none of the Aldi regional offices are based in large cities, so the nightlife is very limited.

There were not many activities outside of work which we could get involved in. There was a rugby/Netball 7's tournament which our region was planning on submitting a team for, however the event was cancelled. We also had two conferences over the course of the year which were attended by Aldi placement students from all the UK regions.