I have been in retail for years. In that time, I have seen countless TMs/TLs/ETLs/STLs leave the company. I have made it a point for years to always ask them where it is they are leaving to because that's always been something I am curious about.
In regards to ETL's, the numbers are not good....
I would say about 50% of ETLs, when leaving, have told me they were going to retail management at other retailers.
I would say another 30% have told me they were going to non-retail sales jobs where they can (potentially) make big bucks. This is probably just my area, but a lot of them have gone to oil/gas/pharmacy companies business sales jobs, where you have to have a degree in anything, and can easily pull in $100,000+ a year if you can handle the high stress and cut throat environment.
I would say about 5% have told me they are either going back to school as students (for higher degrees) or went on to actually be teachers at public schools.
About another 5% went on to very nice human resources jobs at major non-retail corporations. (These ETLs were *always and without exception* ETL-HR's)
I would say another 5% went on to just pure crap jobs compared to ETL that made me wonder WTF they were thinking. (one I can remember went to work a jamba juice for minimum wage, another I can remember went to be a ticket taker at the zoo)
I would say the final 5% actually went on to jobs that actually used their degree. (as sad as that is) *Most* of the time, these were the very few ETL's who actually had degrees that were employable and probably never should have been at Target to begin with. (Chemistry, law, biology, IT, etc.)
So, this is pretty much the break down that I have seen throughout my years at Target. Why did the vast majority of them end up going to other retail jobs or to sales jobs? My theory is that once you are out of college for a while, experience counts for more than the degree.... and the sad thing is, all ETL jobs, except ETL-HR, don't give you any experience that can really apply anywhere other than retail/sales jobs. (Yea, sure, management, but the problem with that is that outside of retail, you don't get hired into to management on your first day... you have to have a degree in the field and work your way up to management over years)
Notice the big exception here? ETL-HR's is where to be if you want to get out of retail/sales.... damn near *every* ETL-HR I have seen leave the company has almost *always* gotten a sweet corporate job at a non-retail company. I have seen ETL-HR's leave for Microsoft, Boeing, Electronic Arts, and many other big name companies HR departments. My theory for why this is? HR is the only ETL job that actually gets you experience that non-retail/sales companies care about.... every company has an HR department.... and it is usually pretty damn hard to find people with HR experience. So it is easy to land an HR job that requires "X" number of years experience.... experience that most people don't ever get.
This is why I always tell people on here who might become ETLs to try to get ETL-HR if they ever want to leave retail. It's the best way to go.... Literally, ETL-HRs are the only ones I have seen consistently be able to "escape" retail.