Victoria Armour is a 2nd year MBA student from Moncton, New Brunswick. After graduating from Acadia University with a double major in Marketing and Accounting and working at a marketing agency for a year, Victoria decided to enroll in the CRMBA program to explore other fields and new opportunities. Recently, Victoria completed her 8-month corporate residency with TJX Companies and spoke of her experience.
“TJX is the largest off-price retailer in Canada through the Winners, HomeSense and Marshall’s banners. For my corporate residency, I worked as an Allocation Analyst at their home office in Mississauga, ON. Working on the Winners Menswear team, my job consisted of allocating product to stores.
The best skill I attained while working at TJX was critical thinking. I was taught that even though you can analyze data endlessly, the numbers don’t tell the whole story. I also got to participate in a paid 5-week training program which included learning their systems, analyzing reports, understanding the business model, conducting in-store visits and competitor shopping challenges and spending a day gaining retail work experience.
I had a great experience with TJX. The company really gave me a lot of independence and trust to make decisions. Sometimes, organizations will hire co-op students and not really give them a purposeful role, but TJX put me in the same job role as their other full-time Analysts. TJX was a really welcoming place to work with a unique corporate culture. They hosted events like Christmas in July, had ice cream trucks and BBQ’s in the summer, and offered yoga over lunch and flex hours. You truly felt valued as an employee at any level of the organization.”