Justin [00:00:1] So I know we talked a little bit already about the assessment center, which you called Discovery Center. Can you tell me a little bit more about the Discovery Center as a whole, what goes on there? You know, what that experience is like for the graduate?
Rem [00:00:14] Sure. So our Discovery Centers were something that we implemented during the pandemic, and we had historically followed a traditional assessment center style format. And with the pandemic, obviously, a lot of things went from face-to-face type arrangements, which is what traditional assessment centers were, and had to pivot and become virtual. So in that transition to looking to move to a virtual world, we took the opportunity to really kind of analyze how we thought the assessment center approach was really serving us and serving the candidate. And what we decided was that the traditional assessment center is really one way. It's very much the organization putting the candidate under a microscope. In the current talent market, graduates have choice. The best graduates are getting three, four, five, sometimes more offers from organizations. Most graduates are applying for more than ten graduate programs. And so it's very much a candidates market now. And so what we decided we wanted to do was because we love Coles and what we think Coles is amazing is give candidates a bit of insight into that to help inform them to be able to make the best choice for them as far as where they want to take their career. So there are some elements of the Discovery Center that, you know, more of those traditional assessment style sections. So what that looks like for us is a group activity up front. There is typically some pre-read that is sent out a few days in advance of the Discovery Center and this year was around sustainability. That's a topic very near and dear to our hearts at Coles. We have an aspiration to become Australia's most sustainable supermarket. And so we wanted to share with grads some of the great work, our current strategy and kind of what that looks like in Coles at the moment at the moment. Let them get familiar with that. And then the group activity was asking them really how do they think that they, as an individual and in their chosen function, could support that sustainability strategy? So it doesn't matter if you're in finance or technology or people in culture, how might you support sustainability? That's the first section of the day. The second section of the day is an individual view component. So we have multiple rounds of 30-minute individual interviews. So quite short, quite sharp. And in those individual interviews, there are your general kind of getting to know your questions, like, do you want to work at Kohl's, etc.. But then there are some behavioral events, style, interview questions and a chance for candidates to ask questions at the end. All that sounds pretty standard so far. Where we do differ is when candidates aren't in their individual component and there's other candidates cycling through. They are with they're in a session, a virtual session with all current graduates from their chosen function. And no questions are off-limits. So they get to ask, what's your day to day like? What's your manager like? What work have you done on rotations? How is it working at the Store Support Center, for example? What are the perks of working at Coles like? Really? What's it actually like on the graduate program of the graduate team? Good. You know, do you get along with your colleagues? All of that kind of thing. And whilst we may have a representative from my team there, from the central graduate team to answer more kind of program design type questions, or maybe it's questions about salary and that kind of thing, which people are afraid to ask. It's also a great opportunity for prospective graduates to hear directly from our current graduates about what their experiences being, the type of work they do and really get a, a, what I would kind of describe as a realistic job preview of what they're signing up for and what we think makes Coles great. And pretty much universally, we've had a great feedback about that process.
Justin [00:04:31] Excellent. Also, there is so much for so much detail there. That's perfect.