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Aldi is an award-winning retailer with a lucrative and competitive graduate scheme for its area manager positions.
Before beginning your application to the Graduate Area Manager Programme with Aldi, we recommend taking some time to read through this article to understand exactly what’s involved in each stage of the process.
The first Aldi store opened in Germany in 1913, as a small grocery shop. The company has since expanded across Europe and now has 750 stores.
Aldi’s UK company has 10 regions, with a head office, regional distribution centre and managing director for each one.
The company has become well respected for its products, winning the Grocer magazine’s Grocer of the Year award in 2018.
Aldi’s industrial placements and Graduate Area Manager Programme are also highly regarded, winning awards from The Times (number three in Top 100 Graduate Employers), Rate My Placement (Top 100 Undergraduate Employers 2018–19) and the National Undergraduate Employability Awards (Top 100 Undergraduate Employers 2019).
Aldi has several schemes suitable for undergraduates and graduates, including industrial placements and the Graduate Area Manager Programme.
Aldi points out that many of the company’s directors, including the current CEO, started as area managers.
In the first year, participants in Aldi’s graduate scheme rotate around different areas of the business to understand how the company works. This includes:
You will also receive mentoring from a senior member of staff, attend workshops by Aldi experts in areas such as HR, and have training in a regional office to learn about the financial side of the business.
The last two parts of the first year include an assessment of your technical skills and leadership skills, followed by holiday cover for your area manager.
You may be required to work weekends and evenings, particularly during your time in the retail part of the business. You may also be required to work 60 to 70 hours per week.
The Aldi graduate training programme benefits are significant, making it a lucrative option for new graduates.
Alongside this, you get five weeks’ holiday each year plus bank holidays, a pension scheme, private healthcare and access to Aldi’s Health Cash Plan, which gives discounts on things like gym membership.
Because the benefits are some of the highest in the sector – comparable with entry positions in investment banking – the Aldi graduate application process is challenging and the requirements are high.
Aldi offers industrial placements for undergraduate students about to finish the second year of their degree.
This is a year-long intensive training in either general management, corporate buying, logistics, ecommerce or IT.
If you are an undergraduate student, getting onto an industrial placement year with Aldi can be an excellent way to learn about the company and receive a good salary.
It will also put you in a good position to apply for a permanent role or graduate position with the organisation after your third year.
During your industrial placement year with Aldi, you’ll receive a £25,000 salary and four weeks’ holiday.
You’ll need to be predicted a 2:1 to qualify for the scheme, have a driving licence and the right to work in the UK. For the general management placement, you will need access to a car.
Applications for the placements are open from 1st June to 30th April, but places often go quickly, so apply early.
Aldi mentions that it wants placement students to be brave, passionate and curious, interested in proving their worth, and able to handle intensive training and responsibility.
The application process for Aldi’s industrial placements is the same as the process for the Graduate Area Manager Programme, with your final interview conducted by the managing director of your chosen area.
Aldi also has apprenticeship programmes suitable for individuals without any previous qualifications, or those with GCSEs in maths or English at grade C or above (or the equivalent).
There are three apprenticeship routes – Stores, Logistics and Drivers – and at the end of the three years, candidates can start a role as a permanent staff member.
Group Assessment
Provided that a candidate gets through the aforementioned Aldi video application, the candidate is asked to join the Aldi assessment center along with other candidates. The Aldi assessment day typically includes a short brief from the managing director, presentations from the candidates’ end, and a Q&A session with senior management of the Aldi brand. The Aldi assessment day starts functioning the moment a candidate steps inside the assessment center. Therefore candidates should comport themselves with dignity and dress appropriately.
Why do you want to work for Aldi?
In reality you do not care, and simply want to work in a retail store that pays decent money–which Aldi does. But as you can probably guess, this won’t make for a good interview answer to this question, or to the alternative they commonly use: “What appeals to you about working for Aldi?”
Do your research, and try to find something about Aldi that resonates with you. It can be the emphasis they place on teamwork, excellent training for new hires, employee benefits (for example covering health insurance), or simply their main motto “We exist to offer the best value for our customers.”
You want to work for a chain of supermarkets with such a lofty vision–at least you should say so in an interview. Deep down you know it is nothing original, and most store have similar core values, but you won’t reveals this public secret in an interview with Aldi :).
Another alternative is referring to more prosaic reasons. For example, if the store is just five minutes away from your apartment, it will be easy for you to commute to work. And hence you decided to apply.
What does an excellent customer service mean to you?
For almost every retailer excellent customer service is a top priority, and Aldi is no exception. You can define such a service in various ways. For example, you can say that when a customer feels welcome, respected and attended to, from the moment they enter the supermarket until they leave, we can certainly say that they had a great customer experience.
But you can talk also about other things, such as logical organization of the store and displaying of merchandise (so they can find whatever they need), services they can use (luggage lockers, toilets, information desk, ATM), and similar things.
More than anything else, you should ensure your interviewers that whatever Aldi recognizes as an excellent customer service, you are ready and eager to deliver it, to and each and every customer–once you understand it during the training.
Special Tip: We have a also a separate article, where you can find 7 sample answers to “What is your definition of an outstanding customer service” question. Check it out if you are not sure about your answer.