Leadership Development Rotational Program, Merch & Product Assortment

About Us:

Target is one of the world’s most recognized brands and one of America’s leading retailers. And the only constant in retail? Change. Our business is constantly evolving, using big ideas to solve complex problems.  

The Leadership Development Rotational Program is a 2-year rotational program and development curriculum designed to provide a set of experiences to build enterprise empathy by learning in business functions outside the traditional career path, developing cross functional influence by driving meaningful outcomes, and deepening leadership experiences to accelerate the development of future leaders. Within this program, your experiences could span Merchandising, Finance, Digital and Stores.

The retail landscape is evolving and Target is an industry leader through the development of its team members. Within in the Leadership Development Rotational Program – Merchandise and Product Assortment track, you will gain skills to lead teams in developing and executing guest-centric end-to-end product strategies that are backed with external market/trend and financial considerations and knowledge. Your 2-year experience will involve:

• Year 1: Three 4-Month Rotations: Each rotation will align you to a pressing business challenge to solve. Rotations will push you to develop cross-functional influence, long-term strategy development and large team leadership skills.Rotations in this track could include but are limited
  • Planning; sharpen financial acumen to impact the P+L
  • Stores leadership; experience large team leadership and operational excellence
  • Buying; grow product and guest empathy
• Year 2: Team placement to apply learnings from your rotations. This placement could be as a:
  • Sr Buyer
  • Lead Business Partner Negations
• At the end of the program, our goal is to help accelerate your move to the next level of leadership roles at Target

 As a program member you will:

• Lead project work to strategically deliver value across multiple departments through teamwork, communication, problem solving and planning.
• Immerse yourself in rotational areas to learn the business function and gain a true enterprise perspective.
• Create omni-channel growth by planning profitable and locally relevant assortments using your grasp of guest and shopping behavior, assortment requirements and competitors. Demonstrate flexibility in reacting to business results and your ability to translate financial metrics and data into actionable strategies will be critical.
• Drive category results while managing progress toward sales and margin goals.
• Lead cross-functional teams to drive category results while managing progress toward sales and margin goals. You will interact with Associate Buyers, Senior Merchandise Specialists, the Pricing and Promotion Center of Excellence, Planning, Site Merchandising, the Item Center of Excellence and many other expert partners in support of your promotional planning work across channels.
• Lead partnerships with product designers and/or category managers and vendors to help guide product development as you source appropriately for your category.
• Develop negotiation on strategies and partnerships which support Target’s business initiatives and align with the integrity of the Target brand. You will identify, analyze and assess vendor profitability in regards to cost negotiations, leveraging, compliance, vendor income and supply chain impact.

Outside of your day-to-day, you will be immersed in a development curriculum with your cohort peers that would enable you to be a successful and inclusive leader at Target. Development highlights include: 

• Formal onboarding and training as a cohort
• Strong leadership engagement that allows you to receive sponsorship and mentorship
• Personalize your career experience that is suitable for your career aspirations