Outside Hire - ETL Interview

D

Dakets

Joined
May 9, 2020
Messages
15
Hi there,

I imagine in general folks aren't fans of outside hires coming in for an ETL role, and I honestly don't blame them. I have a second round interview coming up with an STL (via Facetime, given the pandemic) in the greater NYC area for HR-ETL. I am currently an HR Manager at a different retail chain and have been for several years. Any tips? Advice? For the record, I worked my way up and I'm actually still working on a Bachelor's. I have about ten years of management between retail and food service. Thank you in advance!
 
Welcome! If you can stand your current job at all, are making a decent living and are not stressed out of your mind, you might be happier staying where you are. Moving to the pressure cooker that is Spot can be going out of the frying pan into the fire, especially for an external who is not just out of college, has retail experience and understands how a business should be run. Spot appears to value kool-aid drinking and total inexperience over knowledge and experience, since any level of the latter two are often considered baggage. Good luck!
 
I wouldn't advise straight out that you stay away from Target - it's not at all a bad place for employment and with all the doom saying that goes on in this board, like everything, there's benefits and disadvantages.

The Salary based pay is actually quite competitive in metro based areas, the downside to that is a longer work week.

You may have a better idea on how a certain process should be run. You're going to be HR - say you think scheduling people overnight would benefit the store. Sorry, can't do that. Cooperate making decisions that don't work at as store level isn't unique to Target though so you may be used to that stuff.

I would search the board for posts like yours and find similar responses, but it's all dependent on you and what you can tolerate.
 
Black Sheep 214 said:
Welcome! If you can stand your current job at all, are making a decent living and are not stressed out of your mind, you might be happier staying where you are. Moving to the pressure cooker that is Spot can be going out of the frying pan into the fire, especially for an external who is not just out of college, has retail experience and understands how a business should be run. Spot appears to value kool-aid drinking and total inexperience over knowledge and experience, since any level of the latter two are often considered baggage. Good luck!
Click to expand...
 
Spoken like a truth (to power): [...Black Sheep Bleated it right! Sage advice]
But... but (OP) only you know what your options are (or lack.....and what you think are viable options and what you are willing to trade-off for what you "do not know".
Your predicament may not be that different from those of others in similar situations (perhaps!)...So come in, if you
do -[ with eyes wide open and after that keep them wide shut ....the kool-aid thing that he was talking about !...You are Not in Jonestown- so worry not ... You won't lose your life ...just your moorings: Welcome to an Alternate reality If at all possible leave a footbridge behind you., before you enter the house of mirrors

Erma Bombeck: The Grass Is Always Greener over the Septic Tank..... and then again :
Kurt Vonnegut“There is no order in the world around us, we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead.” — “In nonsense is strength.: ( It is called "team" ....whatever happened to individual contributors who work well with others to make it happen.... Nah.. that is just a dream ... call it team! )
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be
( you have to do a lot of pretending...[ that you are blind, deaf and dumb, sorry challenged in those three ].
 
Do you have relevant work experience outside of Target?

My Target hired two people with just college degrees and made them ETLs because they did a summer internship before they graduated and they were terrible.

At my store is our TLs DO NOT want to be ETLs because it is a lot more grief for a little more money. Supposedly if you move up to an ETL you also have to switch stores but in my metro area they are a lot of Targets so that shouldn't be an issue.

Finally remember two things:

Interviews are a meeting of equals and salary/benefits are negotiable.

I especially stress the second point because if you don't have much work experience or haven't switched jobs in a long time.

Good luck.
 
Go into the interview prepared to answer questions about your goals. HR etls don't just exclusively stay in their offices. You will be expected to acquire and utilize at a minimum cursory knowledge of the whole store. You may open or close the store by yourself at times so you will need to learn cash office ops, trailer unload protocols, Fulfillment ops and more to be able to guide the rest of the team if your TLs are not there or are very green. Is it your goal to move up in an HR role to HRBP or regional OR follow the stateside track of various other ETL positions up to Store Manager and beyond? Your previous management experience will help you with storeside ops.
 
StyleMaven1 said:
Go into the interview prepared to answer questions about your goals. HR etls don't just exclusively stay in their offices. You will be expected to acquire and utilize at a minimum cursory knowledge of the whole store. You may open or close the store by yourself at times so you will need to learn cash office ops, trailer unload protocols, Fulfillment ops and more to be able to guide the rest of the team if your TLs are not there or are very green. Is it your goal to move up in an HR role to HRBP or regional OR follow the stateside track of various other ETL positions up to Store Manager and beyond? Your previous management experience will help you with storeside ops.
Click to expand...
after store manager, you can work at beyond ,beef. The leading plant based meat alternative.
 
Well this was more responses than I expected. To update: the second interview went quite well.

As for where I'm coming from, I'm already a Retail Assistant Store Manager for a company with similarly-sized floorplans and 250+ employees. I'm also used to being what you'd refer to as LOD (I believe) and packing out, running a register, whatever. Hours are also similar. So as far as it being "welcome to Retail" I'm probably well prepared. The most jarring thing so far is the jargon. It's VERY specific to Target, a lot of the terminology. Mostly acronyms.
 
Dakets said:
Well this was more responses than I expected. To update: the second interview went quite well.

As for where I'm coming from, I'm already a Retail Assistant Store Manager for a company with similarly-sized floorplans and 250+ employees. I'm also used to being what you'd refer to as LOD (I believe) and packing out, running a register, whatever. Hours are also similar. So as far as it being "welcome to Retail" I'm probably well prepared. The most jarring thing so far is the jargon. It's VERY specific to Target, a lot of the terminology. Mostly acronyms.
Click to expand...
Target LOVES a good acronym 😂. And hidden meanings, like a scavenger hunt. Our owned Project 62 brand? We were founded in 1962. Newest All In Motion? Logo is from Dayton's, old parent company.
 
Dakets said:
Well this was more responses than I expected. To update: the second interview went quite well.

As for where I'm coming from, I'm already a Retail Assistant Store Manager for a company with similarly-sized floorplans and 250+ employees. I'm also used to being what you'd refer to as LOD (I believe) and packing out, running a register, whatever. Hours are also similar. So as far as it being "welcome to Retail" I'm probably well prepared. The most jarring thing so far is the jargon. It's VERY specific to Target, a lot of the terminology. Mostly acronyms.
Click to expand...

Well, my long-term advice? If you are not already salaried in your current role as an ASM (HR) then go for this ETL-HR role since it is salaried. Pursue your PHR while at Target, and flip it into a normal HR role in a better environment. You will be able to find a normal M-F 40 hours HR job once you have 1 year of experience as a salaried HR and your PHR. Target has been cutting salaried HR positions for years (replacing them with hourly HR) and will probably continue to struggle to keep this much money invested in expensive salaried store leadership in the next 3-5 years.

If you already are a salaried HR leader in your current company with the experience, get your PHR if you haven't already and look for something better than Target. There are reasons they are hiring externally for ETLs and pay what they pay.
 
Going much in the vein of what @Rock Lobster said, you're going to encounter a few things.

1. Your pay will be decent in a large metro area.
2. You will probably not do HR in the sense you think. HR at Target is essentially kind of managing a schedule that's mostly computer generated, and wiping asses. I say wiping asses not to be rude, but because that's truly what a lot of the work is. You'll spend a good portion of time dealing with menial issues that probably should be handled before they get to HR but aren't. Imagine being a high school principal. That's kind of what I equate ground level big box retail to.
3. You will be expected to help out. It isn't a 9-5 office job.
4. If you think you are a team advocate, this is not the job for you. Your job is to protect the company, not the team. And you will encounter morally difficult decisions in your time.

As Rock said, there's a reason why they're looking externally in the middle of a pandemic, the prospects for the role are a bit...shaky...right now.

None of this is discourage you, but just trying to give you a real outlook on what you may be walking into. I would suggest before taking the job, asking if you can spend 2 shifts shadowing a current HR.
 
So, to respond to the recent notes:

* I am an HR at a company that is very similar. Half of my day is spent doing non-HR functions like running the floor, directing associates to move displays and fill shelves, monitoring the Front End cashiers, etc.

* Most of my scheduling is also computer-generated. I have 265 associates, so naturally a lot of it is done by algorithm. I just modify and approve them.

* The company I work for is unionized. If you think a non-union workspace has a lot of ass-wiping, I would love to show you a unionized one.

So far I still don't feel particularly discouraged. I'm coming from a job that almost sounds exactly like the one I'd be taking, the only major difference being I wouldn't have to deal with a union. I'm not anti-union, but in the case of a corporate representative like HR it would most likely be easier.
 
I would also like to mention that I'd be leaving my current company on very good terms and they have a pretty solid history on "taking people back" if they leave properly and decide it wasn't for them, wherever they went.

Essentially this is the same job for better pay and every other weekend off (I currently work EVERY Saturday, and about half of the Sundays) and no union to argue with. I know retail sucks, but honestly it still seems like a win.
 
Last edited:
Dakets said:
So, to respond to the recent notes:

* I am an HR at a company that is very similar. Half of my day is spent doing non-HR functions like running the floor, directing associates to move displays and fill shelves, monitoring the Front End cashiers, etc.

* Most of my scheduling is also computer-generated. I have 265 associates, so naturally a lot of it is done by algorithm. I just modify and approve them.

* The company I work for is unionized. If you think a non-union workspace has a lot of ass-wiping, I would love to show you a unionized one.

So far I still don't feel particularly discouraged. I'm coming from a job that almost sounds exactly like the one I'd be taking, the only major difference being I wouldn't have to deal with a union. I'm not anti-union, but in the case of a corporate representative like HR it would most likely be easier.
Click to expand...

I was a union steward and negotiator, can confirm there is much ass wiping.
 
I already don't. My store is only closed on Christmas - it's a grocery chain. In any event, thank you all! The process has concluded as of today, and I'm happy with the result. Have a good Memorial Day Weekend!
 

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