#GradStories Gary O'Toole, Talent Acquisition Intern, Lidl Ireland & Northern Ireland

What does a typical day look like for you?

I’m in charge of recruitment for Lidl Northern Ireland. Usually in my email I would have job posting requests. They would send on requests for me to upload jobs on to our software. This will go up on Indeed or Northern Ireland job finders. I leave it up for a few days, I come back to it, shortlist the candidates. From these candidates we decide who to interview. I then call the hiring manager; he gets back to me with the successful candidate, and we offer them the job.

Organisational skills. I found that after my second day I needed a diary. I needed to be writing down the different dates and times of interviews that were being held. I would organise my emails with the different interview dates and times for different stores.

Technological skills are also important. You need to know how to use Excel and how to work Teams. I had never worked from home, so I didn’t know how to use Microsoft Teams before I started this internship.

How did you find out about this internship?

I found out about the internship from LinkedIn but I was working at Lidl previously for two and a half years. I was a student worker while I was doing a degree in business. In the second year of my course, I started working as a customer assistant with Lidl so I was aware of the career opportunities within Lidl. I enjoyed my time working with Lidl.

I then completed a master’s in human resource management. They then let me know about the open role and now I am working in the Dublin head office.

What advice would you have for students?

Keep your options open. I would investigate my different options. I really like working with people but I didn’t know that HR was such a broad field with so many departments within HR.

With talent acquisition you really need to learn to be organised working in this role.

What do you love about the internship?

What I enjoy about the internship is that you get to see the whole recruitment process from the very start to the finish. You get to see from when you post a job, to calling people for interviews and you get to see who was successful. It’s exciting to get to see the potential career they could have with Lidl.

How have you adjusted to working from home?

We work from home two days a week. I enjoy working from home, but I prefer to be in the office and work with my colleagues in person.