Applied online, completing numeracy and literacy as well as scenario based questions. Invited to a hurried 15 minute interview with the Area Manager nearly one month later. Interview was quite clearly very time pressurised for my interviewer - I didn’t think he was actually listening to my answers, just concentrating on the clock. Aldi is all about how quick you can be, after all. I asked him about his career route within ALDI after he was accepted to the Graduate Area Manager program, and he said he had been doing it just over a year, with no previous retail experience. If you have lots of experience, beware of how you present yourself to someone younger and more senior. Area Managers are recruiting for three stores, you are expected to work very very hard so although they advertise their hourly wage as supposedly high, your hours are capped at 25 if you are hourly, so this is in effect minimum wage, just presented differently. You are expected to be available 7 days a week 5am til midnight. Staff constantly appear stressed and over stretched. I clearly have dodged a bullet here - this is a company that is successful and growing, yes, but the bubble will burst and they must be making tough decisions and pushing their staff to the limit every day.