Target reviews

My disappointment isn't with the Target internship program, but rather with the company's culture (I should preface my negative remarks by saying that this is purely my intern perspective, and not that of a full time employee). They made no bones about it to the interns: if you don't conform to the culture, you're not coming back after the summer. For all of Target's jazz about diversity, they sure love to label people and pigeon-hole them into categories. NEVER let anyone see you doing anything by yourself, or you'll run the risk of being labeled a 'loner'. If you're a frank and honest person, you'll be labeled as a 'poor communicator' and coached to be more passive aggressive (which is completely backwards if you're not from Minnesota). If you're not constantly setting up networking meetings with random people that have nothing to do with your project, you'll be labeled as 'too independent' and 'non-collaborative.' You won't have enough time for your project to fit it into 40 hours AND do all of the networking stuff - if you mention this, you'll be labeled as having 'poor time management' so you'll have to work from home (unpaid) and hope nobody finds out. Someone who is bubbly and bouncy and spends their time networking all day will fit in better than a laid-back results-oriented analytical person. It may make for a fun headquarters, but how is this productive for such a HQ-dominated retail company? I find Target's corporate culture to be surprisingly inefficient, backwards, and hypocritical. An atmosphere of diversity is not a place where you make a point of ostracizing employees for having differing personalities - who don't fit the 'brand'. I personally have been able to get through the internship pretty well, but I have no intention of taking them up on an offer if there is one.

Most workers have always lived in Minnesota and never worked anywhere besides Target, so there is immediate suspicion of any outside ideas, and the need to "achieve consensus" (i.e., offend no one) is paramount. Diversity is emphasized but only in skin color, sex and sexual orientation; diversity of thought, communication styles, or personality is heavily discouraged. If you have worked outside Minnesota, you can come out of meetings thinking "Am I crazy, or am I the only one here that isn't crazy?" If you are Minnesota Nice and are fun at happy hours, you will be sent on the rocket ship to advancement no matter the quality of your work or your expertise. But if you are introverted and don't put on the show, or ever push back or challenge your manager, you are branded as Not A Team Player and your career plateaus. Open offices mean introverts (and extroverts who just need to concentrate to actually get stuff done) have to disappear to a quiet room or work from home off-hours. The work culture emphasizes "the Target personality" over deep proficiency at the job. This means that being a high-performing individual contributor is subtly discouraged, because you will have very limited career progression opportunities. This also means that midlevel management is largely made of Target generalists who are out of their depth in subject matter expertise.