Inventory Management and. To run a global retail. A place for you at Gap Inc. Whether you’re a college student seeking an internship. An Inside Look at Gap’s Rotational Management Program. Axis virtual camera software. Can you provide information about your interview and hiring. Some sort of retail experience. It was 1990, and was under the watch of Mickey 'Prince of Merchandising' Drexler. He was leading the company into its golden era, when the company's khakis and denim would come to define American style. A salesman at the Gap on Los Angeles' Melrose Avenue caught Drexler's eye -, who could put together clothes with exceptional creativity. A real talent. Barket soon moved to San Francisco, where he worked on visual merchandising for Gap Inc.' S, rising to senior creative director of marketing at Old Navy. 'The company was constantly growing,' Barket says. 'You would change jobs every year or get a new responsibility. The growth was just so huge.' And people like Barket were branding Gap as a destination company for the best and brightest. In 1998, the same year that famously wore a men's white Gap button-down to the Academy Awards, the company formalized its already robust training program. The nine-month Retail Management Program was designed to groom recent college graduates in inventory management, merchandising and production - and ultimately to fill open positions at the company. The program, still ongoing, is often referred to as 'the Harvard of retail.' • 'You rotate to understand how all the jobs work, as opposed to just seeing one side of the business,' says, who graduated from the program in 2007. 'It gives you so much credibility.' After completing the program, participants are considered prepared for open positions at Gap Inc., and most continue to work there for at least a few years. But the rule, rather than the exception, is that they eventually jump ship to use their Gap skills elsewhere. Many of Gap's superstar trainees didn't initially pursue a career in fashion. There's, who thought he wanted to be an attorney. ('07 graduate of the program), who majored in public policy and economics at Stanford. ('06), who studied literature and premed. ('00), who studied politics at Princeton. Retail wasn't what these trainees had in common - it was ambition. But could Gap recruiters be hiring people who are simply too ambitious? In hiring only 'A players,' is Gap unable to satisfy their lofty aspirations? 'Gap is hiring some of the craziest, most talented people, but they reach a point where they're ready for more,' says Castillo, the founder of Chubbies Shorts. 'It's such a huge company that people start feeling like a small fish in a huge pond,' says Bremer, who founded vintage jewelry e-tailer after two years at Gap. ![]() 'It starts to feel repetitive, and people get antsy.' Whether this talent drain is unique to Gap - or an affliction of all large legacy brands - is hard to answer. Only benefits from the contributions of its RMP participants, a great many of whom build long careers with the company or return to Gap Inc. After pursuing entrepreneurial ventures or roles outside of the company,' the company said in an e-mailed statement. The workplace has changed, too. 'People are just less loyal than they were before,' says Girard, who recently left Gap to travel the world and diversify his experience. 'I'm the only person I know in my entire life who stayed at the company more than seven years.' ![]() And it might be that the initial rush that recent graduates feel is unsustainable when they approach middle management. 'I fell in love with the Gap recruiting process,' Castillo says. 'I thought, 'If working here is an ounce of this sort of thing, I'm totally in.' ' But after three years, Castillo felt he'd outgrown the company. 'We would throw ideas around that no one was listening to, and that's part of the frustration.' Says he enjoyed his five years at Gap. Yet he says that by the time he left in 2011, he was ready to do something with 'more ownership.' Retail Management Definition'Fisher's model was, 'Do what you love,' and I wanted to run a business,' George says, referring to Gap co-founder. George is now a senior vice president and general manager at: 'The chance to really influence the total company was a real draw to me.' Says e-tailer Bremer: 'I think everyone had different goals, but out of the 20 people I was there with, only two are left at Gap. And I don't think anyone's gone back.' After three years, Lee left to create fashion e-tailer Modern Citizen. Joule, who was at Gap before Drexler left in 2002, is now president.
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