Walmart Touts Paths to High-Paying Careers

Walmart is aiming to draw more emerging talent into its retail ecosystem, announcing a new management-training program and additional opportunities for associates to grow into high-paying, in-demand roles.

The new management-training initiative, College2Career, will debut as a pilot program this summer and is designed for recent college graduates and those within 12 months of graduation, including current Walmart employees. Participants will receive "a comprehensive mix of classroom training, hands-on experience and one-on-one mentoring with company leaders as they learn the ins and outs of Walmart" from a store-management perspective, the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer stated in a news release. Upon completing the program, top performers will receive a job offer for the newly created role of emerging coach—a role that comes with a starting salary of at least $65,000, according to Walmart.

And "that’s just the beginning," the retailer stated. "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." Walmart said it has set its sights on moving emerging coaches into full store-manager roles within two years.

"Working at Walmart provides a path for everyone to unlock their potential, drive their purpose-driven career and enjoy the great benefits and wages that come with the job," the company stated. In April, Walmart announced an initiative to train supply-chain associates for in-demand truck driver positions, with program participants able to earn their commercial driver's license at the end of the program. Walmart truck drivers, the company noted, now can earn up to $110,000 in their first year on the job. 

College2Career and the Walmart Private Fleet Development Program are just the retailer's latest recent moves to fill its talent pool: In September, Walmart said it planned to hire 20,000 new supply-chain associates (for roles that pay an average of $20.37 an hour), and before the holidays, the company announced plans to hire 150,000 store associates, primarily for permanent, full-time roles.  

In this week's news release, Walmart also touted its recently introduced Home Office Pathway Experience program, which kicked off in March and is meant to bolster the talent pipeline for the company's Bentonville home base. The program "connects frontline associates currently pursuing a college degree with in-demand roles in areas such as cybersecurity or merchandising," the company stated. The eight-week experience, according to Walmart, "helps associates build their networks, develop new or enhance existing skill sets and better understand the company’s corporate support functions." Walmart added that its home-office internship program, which offers experiences for those with career interests in areas such as supply chain, finance, tech, merchandising and HR, is set to expand by almost 30% year over year.