Walmart says there’s a path for everyone at the company – especially students.
On top of traditional part-time roles for high schoolers and college students, the company just announced a new pilot program called College2Career that gives young professionals a way to kickstart their professional lives by managing a Walmart store. Those positions could eventually lead to a lucrative career that earns graduates over $200,000 per year as an annual salary.
We aren't quite halfway through 2022, but Walmart’s hiring efforts are already making it a banner year. The company recently said it would hire more than 50,000 workers in a new business push, and it hiked wages for truckers to as much as $110,000 a year to address a driver shortage.
Program specifics
The new pilot program is for recent college graduates and current college students, including existing Walmart employees who graduated within the previous 12 months.
Those who sign up for the program will reportedly gain hands-on experience, classroom training, and one-on-one mentoring with company leaders – everything the company feels is necessary to learn the ins and outs of Walmart and qualify to be a salaried member of management at a local store.
When all is said and done at the end of the program, Walmart said the top performers in the program would be offered the newly created management job of “emerging coach,” complete with a starting wage of at least $65,000 a year. College students will be able to step into the role after they graduate, while recent grads will start immediately.
“That’s just the beginning,” the company said in announcing the program. "We see the emerging coach role as an additional pipeline to develop high-potential talent into future store managers, the latter role with an average wage of approximately $210,000 in 2021. With College2Career, we are aiming to move emerging coaches to store managers within two years."