A Few of Many Lessons Learned at Target

I am halfway through my second summer with Target and I cannot believe how fast time is going. I’m a senior, but I will be graduating in December, so I have just six short months to prepare for my next step with this great company. Originally, I found Target through a career fair at my university. Of course I had shopped at Target plenty of times, but I never knew about all of the career opportunities Target offers.

My first summer in the program I was placed in Human Resources, a field I wasn’t familiar with at the time. That was my first lesson here: trust your leaders. They had taken into account my strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, personality traits and more then decided that work center was a good place to start developing my leadership skills. About halfway through I developed a passion for HR. I had already dove into ETL-HR responsibilities and tasks and was starting to explore the different ways I could advance at Target. Would I want to work store-side? Should I try to advance to a district level? Could I pursue a job at corporate? The possibilities continue to grow. It became my goal to become a Recruiter. I set my sights on learning the Target brand inside out and figuring out how I can impact the business with smart team member choices and business planning.

This summer I am partnered with my store’s ETL Sales Floor, an extremely unique position. Coming back after a long break, I spent a couple weeks re-familiarizing myself with the business and, most importantly, the team. Working on the sales floor, my interest in store-side leadership has been sparked, and I am considering working towards becoming a Store Team Leader (the manager of a Target store) in the future. That being said, I often think about how my experiences can be applied to HR, and I am also interested in pursuing a position called Human Resources Business Partner. The great thing: I don’t have to choose. For now, I’m focusing on developing myself as a leader in my store. I still have some time left in my internship and opportunities I continue to work on with my mentors. For all I know, there is an even better opportunity for me that I haven’t even heard of yet. Another big lesson: the only thing that can hold you back at Target is not keeping an open mind.