Target ranked 14th out of 119 companies on BusinessWeek's Best Places to Launch a Career survey. Other retailers making the list included Amazon (33), Macy's (56), Walgreen's (79), Kohl's (94), Abercrombie & Fitch (98) and Sears (110). This was the first time Target participated in this survey, which recognized the company for providing jobs for recent college graduates.
According to BusinessWeek, Target recruited on 404 campuses in 2007-08, and made job offers on 355 of those. Target also had 1,773 internships in 2007. Of those, 63 percent of eligible 2007 interns received full-time job offers and 74 percent of interns with offers accepted. Overall, 19 percent of Target's entry-level hires last year were interns.
"We continuously strive to attract, retain and develop the best talent for our stores, distribution centers and headquarters locations," said Tim Curoe, vice president, talent acquisition at Target in a statement. "In today's challenging economic environment, graduates want to work for a strong company with a great passion for ongoing development and training - both of which they will find at Target. In addition, our strongly held commitment to community giving and sustainability further solidifies why many potential team members view Target as an employer of choice."
The Best Places to Launch a Career ranking is based on three separate surveys: a BusinessWeek survey of career-services directors at U.S. colleges; a survey of 40,000 U.S. college students conducted by Universum USA, a Philadelphia research company; and a BusinessWeek poll of the employers themselves.
Consumer goods vendors making the list included Anheuser Busch (19), General Mills (24), Nestle USA (45), Whirlpool (46), Kraft Foods (49) and Loreal USA (65). The top ten: Ernst & Young, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Goldman Sachs, KPMG, Marriot International, Google, Lockhead Martin, IBM, and J.P. Morgan.
Discussion Question: Is retail a good place to launch a career? How can retailers improve recruiting efforts? What can they do better to keep people in the field once they've recruited them?