Archived Requirements to be STL?

[Bronc]

Hi everyone, I am new to the site. I do not currently work for target but am interested in possibly pursuing a career in retail management.

I will be leaving the army shortly and looking for something new. I am wondering if I had the requirements to become a store team leader. I have no substantial retail experience. However I have my bachelors degree, and have four years of army leadership experience as an officer under my belt. I held three positions as an officer. A platoon leader, where I was responsible for 50+ soldiers, and more $5 million worth of equipment. I held an executive officer position where I was the second in command in a company that was approximately 150-160 soldiers. And I held a job working on the battalion staff which managed a battalion of 4 companies, and about 700 soldiers.

Clearly this doesn't correlate to retail management perfectly, but it is leadership experience. I was initially looking at these ETL positions, but from what I could gather it seems like a lot of ETL hires are straight out of college with little to no management experience, so I was wondering if I would be able to jump in as a store team leader in training or something.

Any input would be much appreciated!

 

[Barcode]

Nope, you'll have to do hard time in Retail before you get a store. You could easily get an ETL position though, but then again, so can anyone else who is fresh out of college. What's your Bachelors in? You could probably do something tailored more to your area of specialty provided its not too obscure.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Welcome!
Based on the op info, it is suggested to try other jobs like security, police & govt contractor stuff. The reason I am saying that, you could get top secret classified security with a govt contractor for being an officer easily & get paid the big bucks to go with it.

 

[Bronc]

Welcome!
Based on the op info, it is suggested to try other jobs like security, police & govt contractor stuff. The reason I am saying that, you could get top secret classified security with a govt contractor for being an officer easily & get paid the big bucks to go with it.

Thanks for the replies, both of yall!

I've looked into contracting and things of that nature, but I definitely do not want to work for the government any longer for a number of reasons, so I want to try something completely new.

It certainly doesn't have to be retail management, but that is one of the areas that has peaked my interest, and I like to ask questions and learn more about these options. I'm sure it varies a lot, but how many and what are the different ETL positions? Are they the same in all the stores? What would be an average amount of time before one can expect to be promoted to STL? (Obviously that one varies). From what I could tell all the ETLs have approximately the same salary, regardless of specific position, is this correct?

I certainly don't know for sure if this is what I want to do, but I wouldn't mind taking the pay cut from the army to ETL if it meant I was working in an area that promoted based on merit, as opposed to the army.

 

[StateofTarget]

Welcome!
Based on the op info, it is suggested to try other jobs like security, police & govt contractor stuff. The reason I am saying that, you could get top secret classified security with a govt contractor for being an officer easily & get paid the big bucks to go with it.

No kidding. Hear about the guy that leaked the PRISM information? His background? Dropped out of high school. Enlisted in the military. Got kicked out of the military in basic training because he didn't have what it took. Enrolled in college. Dropped out of college. His next step? Got hired by the CIA with access to top secret information, then leaked said information to our nations enemies.

I suppose whoever hired him must have figured he had some huge balls to walk in and apply for the CIA with that background.

 

[pzychopopgroove]

Welcome!
Based on the op info, it is suggested to try other jobs like security, police & govt contractor stuff. The reason I am saying that, you could get top secret classified security with a govt contractor for being an officer easily & get paid the big bucks to go with it.

No kidding. Hear about the guy that leaked the PRISM information? His background? Dropped out of high school. Enlisted in the military. Got kicked out of the military in basic training because he didn't have what it took. Enrolled in college. Dropped out of college. His next step? Got hired by the CIA with access to top secret information, then leaked said information to our nations enemies.

I suppose whoever hired him must have figured he had some huge balls to walk in and apply for the CIA with that background.

He'll be hung out to dry. I don't advocate this, but I will bet you that he won't ever face justice because there will be some secret mission to have him assassinated. Something this big, and I wouldn't be surprised if he just "disappears" off the world stage.

 

[nobiliscus]

Welcome!
Based on the op info, it is suggested to try other jobs like security, police & govt contractor stuff. The reason I am saying that, you could get top secret classified security with a govt contractor for being an officer easily & get paid the big bucks to go with it.

Thanks for the replies, both of yall!

I've looked into contracting and things of that nature, but I definitely do not want to work for the government any longer for a number of reasons, so I want to try something completely new.

It certainly doesn't have to be retail management, but that is one of the areas that has peaked my interest, and I like to ask questions and learn more about these options. I'm sure it varies a lot, but how many and what are the different ETL positions? Are they the same in all the stores? What would be an average amount of time before one can expect to be promoted to STL? (Obviously that one varies). From what I could tell all the ETLs have approximately the same salary, regardless of specific position, is this correct?

I certainly don't know for sure if this is what I want to do, but I wouldn't mind taking the pay cut from the army to ETL if it meant I was working in an area that promoted based on merit, as opposed to the army.

Depending on store volume, there could be anywhere between 5 and 10+ ETLs at a store. In a store with an average volume with around $35m in sales and green scores, the store could have an -

ETL - Guest Experience (Leads front end, store brand, food ave, starbucks, price accuracy, redcard conversion)

ETL - Softlines (Owner of everything on carpet, all apparel and accessories and infant hardlines)
NOTE: In lower volume stores Softlines and Guest Experience is combined into a single ETL role

ETL - Human Resources (Owns store culture, hiring process, employee relations, labor compliance, leadership succession plans, etc.)

ETL - Hardlines - (Owns the tiled parts of the salesfloor including domestics, health and beauty, electronics, toys, seasonal set, consumables, etc.)

ETL - Logistics (Owns entire logistics process including truck execution, backroom process, auto-fill routines, etc.)

ETL - Asset Protection (Owns safety/security throughout store. Leads team that monitors and apprehends both internal and external theft)

Higher-volume stores can split these positions and their responsibilities into other ETL roles including Operations (Instocks, price accuracy, signing, etc.), Food (all consumables), etc.

If you are a top-performing ETL within your store, the shortest amount of time it could take for you to move further in your career would be 18 months. At this point you would move further into the district's underlying succession plan - for an STL role you would have to go through another ETL role rotation (either meeting another 18 months or improving your workcenter scores) before being placed in an STL role. Your next move could also be into a district role, further in your workcenter's pyramid (A business partner, campus recruiter, Investigation Center etc.).

Target definitely promotes based on merit, but because of the nature of retail management I wouldn't suggest shooting to immediately be placed into an STL role. The STL role is 100% leadership based, and STLs must rely specifically on their prior Target leadership experience to make informed decisions.

 

[pzychopopgroove]

If you had leadership experience in the military why would you want to work retail? Go somewhere that you'll actually be appreciated, and not in some soul sucking dead end retail job.

 

[daninnj]

I would have had the same opinion as ppg until two days ago when I saw my former ETL-Merch change his job on Facebook. My Merch came to our store in '09 and left in late '11, early '12 maybe? where he was transferred to a new store to be their STL. I was by chance reading my news feed (I'm thankfully over Facebook so I don't read it as religiously as I used to) and saw something to the effect of "I'm gonna miss my Target family." I clicked his name and it turns out he's now a senior exec at Apple probably making bigger bucks than an STL with an actual work/life balance.

Running a store might look like peanuts from a TM's perspective, but there is a lot of dirty work and managing that goes behind the scenes and you do gain a lot of expeirence that can carry beyond retail.

In the OP's case, maybe he just wants a new experience. I don't expect him to be an STL from now until he's 65. Not a lot of people stay with their job anymore; they want new experiences. Hell I get paid very well, pretty much pick my hours, and work in my field but I'm not gonna want to do this job all my life (or maybe not even within the next two years).

 

[mrknownothing]

Welcome to The Break Room!

External hires for STL are few and far between - they generally have a great deal of experience in whole-store/franchise management.

 

[Varking]

Hey Bronc! At my store, our previous STL and current STL were fresh out of the military, no retail experience hires. Just apply and interview. Good luck!

 

[naterstx]

First, welcome my Army brethren.

Second, your odds of being hired on as a STL are exponentially small. You made it to what? 1LT? The civilian world isn't completely aware of how the military works, but they aren't completely ignorant either. The folks you were leading in the military, generally speaking, wanted to be there, they wanted to succeed, they wanted to make a career of it, etc. In retail, it's the complete opposite. Furthermore, leading a platoon is small peanuts compared to leading even a UVL store (Ultra Low Volume), they have easily 50% more employees and those numbers increase quickly with volume.

Now that being said, by all means apply for it, maybe the district you apply in has a DTL (District Team Lead), or GVP (Group VP) that is fond of military, or maybe you just rock your interviews. Life, much like baseball, is a failure sport. You're going to be wrong more often than you're right, but it's still worth the effort. Best of luck to you either way and thank you for serving.