Coles
Coles Graduate Programs & Internships
What it does: One of the ‘Big Two’ supermarket chains, accounting for about a third of the Australian grocery market
Staff stats: Over 130,000 team members spread across 2,200 supermarket and liquor stores, manufacturing locations, distribution centres and store support centres.
The good bits: Great starting salary, potential for fast progression, variety of work
Our Graduate Program
Whether you studied economics or eCommerce, compliance or computer science, marketing or business management, you can choose from 19 career streams. This is your chance to start making your mark as part of our SSC Graduate Program and relish the challenge of hands-on experience. Maybe you'll work with machine learning to forecast daily store demand. Perhaps you'll test Coles Group own brand products before they hit the shelves. Or you could help build the next system that processes and manages 18 million transactions a day. There's so much happening here – and it can happen to your career. Now, that’s food for thought!
Discover Coles
As we live and breathe our Strategy and Values, we’re committed to attracting and employing people that represent the communities we work in. At Coles, we support our team members regardless of age, disability, race, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, family responsibilities or cultural background to ensure they feel safe and included at work.
Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives
As part of our Better Together strategy, we’ve committed to a number of diversity and inclusion initiatives to be achieved by December 2023. The program includes five key focus areas – Belonging, Gender Equity, Accessibility, Pride (LGBTQI+), and Indigenous Engagement. Each focus area has ambitious goals that are supported at the executive and board levels and worked towards by all team members.
Recruitment Process
How to apply
It's simple to apply for the Coles Graduate Program! There are 4 stages to the recruitment process, and we will keep you informed at each stage.
Before submitting your application, please make sure you check that you meet our eligibility requirements:
- Australian or New Zealand citizens or permanent residents at the time of application can apply.
- If you hold a Temporary Graduate Visa (subclass 485) by October 31st 2024 that is valid until at least February 14th 2028, you are eligible to apply for the Technology stream.
- For our Store Support Centre (SSC) Graduate Program, you’ll have completed a Bachelor’s Degree before commencing the program.
If you have any questions during the process, please drop us a note at emergingtalent@coles.com.au and include in the subject line the Stream Function of the Graduate Program you are applying for.
Applications for our 2025 Store Support Centre (Corporate Office) Graduate Program have closed, however Expressions of Interest for 2026 Graduate Program will open shortly.
1. Apply Online
It's simple to apply for the Coles Graduate Program! There are 3 stages to the recruitment process, and we will keep you informed at each stage of the process.
If you have any questions during the process, please drop us a note and include in the subject line and the Function of the Graduate Program you are applying for.
If you’re interested in applying, please complete our online application form.
This helps us capture information about your background, experiences, and skills. We want to hear why you are the right fit for us! Make sure you check to see that you are eligible for the program before completing your application.
Completing an application form will take you approximately 30 minutes, and once our applications close, you can expect to hear an update on your application within 5 days.
Applications close Thursday 04th April.
2. Online Assessment
This stage of the recruitment process helps us understand more about who you are. Not just your skills but your preferred ways of working and how you approach certain situations. It also provides you with an opportunity to see what the types of situations you could expect to experience when joining the Coles Graduate Program.
This combined psychometric online assessment is an immersive experience that closely mirrors a typical working day by selecting one of the four response options. After completing this you will be introduced to the video section, for each question in the video interview, candidates watch a recorded video and then record their response. After completion of the assessment, you will be emailed an automated feedback report on your performance.
The online assessment is not timed, but should take about 45 minutes to complete, including the video interview.
3. Discovery Centre
The Discovery Centre gives us the chance to meet you and an opportunity for you to interact directly with us! You will participate in a range of activities during the session, but most importantly, we want to ensure you walk away from your time with us with an impactful experience where you gain some valuable insights and understanding of yourself, and of Coles. Our Discovery Centre will be a 3-hour session and look to provide you with an update following your attendance in the following week.
Discovery Centre's will occur week commencing Monday 06th May.
Remuneration & Career Growth
Rewards & Benefits
Not only is Coles Group a great place to work, you’ll have access to a range of exclusive benefits and programs that support, reward and inspire team members.
- Discounts & benefits: As a Coles Group team member, you’ll receive discounts across all of our internal brands – Coles, Coles Liquor and Coles Online. We also offer generous product and service discounts courtesy of our partners. These discounts cover a range of categories from phones and computers, getaways, sports and entertainment, health and fitness, vehicles and many more!
- Hybrid working: We champion hybrid working, allowing you the flexibility to work either from home or at our SSC. The technology we have embedded into our ways of working enables us to work remotely, effectively.
- Team member share plan: Our annual team member share plan offer allows you to make regular salary sacrifice deductions to purchase Coles Group shares.
Career Growth
Our grads undergo a combination of on-the-job learning, exposure to senior leaders, mentoring and an active support network to develop their skills and expedite their careers. The SSC Graduate Program is only the beginning of your career with Coles, with a guaranteed role at the end of the program.
You are supported through:
- Continuous learning and development opportunities
- Working on real deliverables with clear ownership and accountability.
- Leading and delivering an Innovation Project, culminating in a presentation to a senior leadership team. The top team also has the opportunity to present to their Executive team and Board.
- An accelerator coach, a senior leader dedicated to you for the entirety of the grad program, to help you kickstart your career.
- Connecting with senior leaders from across the business, providing you the opportunity to build your personal brand and learn about their own career journey.
- A buddy, either a more senior grad or team member, to help you settle in from the beginning.
Graduate Reviews
- Coles is extremely flexible and caters well to the cohort in the office.
- There are many development and growth opportunities available to graduates to continuously improve and enhance their career.
- Line managers and leaders are always willing to give you time to upskill and grow.
- The flexibility of the role is a definite highlight, allowing me to not only thrive in my role but also put myself first.
- The culture here is great and people are willing to help me when I ask.
- Being such a large organisation can be daunting and learning how it operates to be able to complete your role can be frustrating at times.
- The systems are a little outdated.
- It's such a large business it can feel not very personable.
- Of course, this is heavily influenced by the individuals that make up a respective intake of graduates, but there is great opportunity and breadth of graduates from different departments to be exposed to and build meaningful connections with.
- Can be very fast paced and complicated to navigate such a large organisation.
Jobs & Opportunities
- Australia wide
Graduate Success Stories
Eliza Donaldson
Marketing Graduate at Coles
Bachelor of Commerce at The University of Western Australia (UWA)
Matthew Gennaccaro
Technology Graduate at Coles
Graduate Certificate of Programming and Development at RMIT University
A Day In The Life Of
Melanie Woon
Technology Graduate at Coles
Bachelor of Information Technology (Business Information Systems) at Monash University