Industrial Placement Review

I enjoyed my placement year with Aldi very much. Throughout my year I gained invaluable experience and exposure to the retail industry through a mixture of time spent within store/s, time spent with Area Managers and time training in the Head office. During my placement year, I also faced numerous challenges and were pushed out of my comfort zone, however, all of those experiences have helped me develop and improve on various transferable skills of mine.

I felt extremely valued by all of my colleagues whether it was during Store time, out with various Area Managers or training in the Head Office. Everyone that I have met was all very helpful and welcoming. During store time your colleagues become like family to you. You and your colleagues will face all the challenges of running a very high sale store together and the sense of accomplishment that you will feel at the end of the day together is truly what bonded me with my team. When I was out with Area Managers I did not feel like just a "placement student". Instead, I felt valued where my input and work were truly appreciated by my Mentor. Finally, during my time in the Head Office, I felt welcomed by everyone regardless of the department and they were all more than happy to help me with any issues that I may have faced.

The support given at Aldi by your mentor/supervisors are second to none. You will be given full structured training which covers every aspect of running a supermarket, the roles of an Area Manager and all the functions and roles of each department within Aldi. During my training, I received regular feedback and reviews which I found to be extremely beneficial for my personal development.

To put it simply, you will be extremely busy. From my experience, Store time will be the most difficult but also one of the most rewarding aspects of this placement. During store time you will act as an Assistant Store Manager and you will take on all of the roles, responsibilities and duties of one. Store time can be very demanding both physically and mentally with long hours of work and a lot of physical hard work. However, the benefits of going through store time are that you will develop a lot of transferable skills and truly develop and build your own character. During your time out with Area Managers, you will essentially shadow their role and undertake various tasks/projects that fall under their responsibility. I personally found this to be the most enjoyable aspect of my placement year. Finally, when you are in the Head office you will still be kept extremely busy with various training and projects and this was all very interesting as you will gain a holistic view of a multi-billion retail company.

You will be given a lot of real responsibilities. As mentioned in previous questions, during store time you are the acting Assistant Store Manager. You will be responsible for the running of the store and all the staff, ensuring products are all available to customers, placing store orders, managing the store safe and various administrative duties. You will also be given the responsibility to make your own decisions while running a shift and ultimately your decisions will have a huge impact on the efficiency and productivity of your store. When you are out with Area Managers you can expect to have the same level of responsibility that an Area Manager would have. Lastly, during office training, you will be given real projects which upon completion will have real impacts on the business as a whole.

All the skills that I have learned from this placement year are truly transferable to various aspects of my life, whether it is professional or academic. From my placement year I have improved my leadership and communication skills. Gained a true insight into the supermarket retail industry. All the while developing my own maturity and self management abilities such as time management and abilitity to prioritise and organise tasks correctly.

The general atmosphere in the Head office is that it is a very professional environment. However, despite the culture, I found that people in the office were all very calm and relaxed and we can always have a chat and joke as long as it did not affect your work. Overall I really enjoyed my time in the office working with various teams and departments as the general atmosphere has always been very welcoming and relaxed.

Overall the placement was organised extremely well. I was given a proper induction by my regional Aldi Academy Area Manager and then attended a regional induction. I found the induction process to be extremely beneficial for myself in terms of settling into the placement. I was given my yearlong structured training plan during my induction and the plan included every aspect of my placement year and all key dates and contacts so I personally found the placement to be extremely well organised.

Aldi truly does focus on investing and training their staff. The structured training program that Aldi offers is a testament to their investment towards their employees. Furthermore, this placement is also extremely well paid.

Extremely Appealing. The Industrial Placement program is designed to give students an insight into Aldi and all the possible roles within Aldi. There are numerous career options for people wanting to work in Stores/Head Office, alternatively, their Graduate scheme to become an Area Manager is also extremely attractive.

As there was only myself and another placement student in my Region and we were in different Cities it was difficult to have any form of night out socials however during our time in Head office together we were able to always have lunch together and socialise with colleagues in the office.

Stayed at Home so this is not applicable.

Stayed at home so Nightlife in my city was still great.

From my personal experience there were not a lot of activities that I was able to involve outside of work apart from a Christmas night out and a leaving dinner for a colleague.