- Many Costco employees stay with the company for long careers.
- A manager who’s been with the company for over 20 years shared his best tips for getting promoted.
- “We’re relocating to areas where they’re growing,” he told Business Insider.
Costco is a relatively unusual employer in the retail industry, with many of its employees starting out as entry-level employees and building decades-long careers with the company.
Most notably, CEO Ron Vakris’ first job 40 years ago was as a forklift driver.
So how do we move forward?
Business Insider spoke with a manager who joined the company more than 20 years ago, selling hot dogs in a warehouse food court to help pay for college.
He has since worked in multiple states, held a variety of positions, and shared his top tips for advancing in a warehouse career. BI confirmed his identity but is not publishing his name as he is not authorized to speak to the media.
“If you really want to get promoted and grow in the company, move to a region where the company is growing,” he said, highlighting Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas in particular. “It’s really hard to move people there.”
The company has just eight locations in those three states, less than half the number it has in New York, and is currently building new warehouses in Texas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Washington, and California, in addition to opening a new location in Louisiana in August.
The manager said he knows a colleague who joined the company four years ago and got the opportunity to relocate to Oklahoma after just one year.
“She’s already the assistant manager of the warehouse,” he said.
He added that her promotion appears to be due not just to her aptitude for the job but also her willingness to go “to places no one wants to live.”
“She ended up being promoted much faster than almost anyone I’ve ever heard of,” he said.
Costco has historically opened about two dozen new stores a year in the U.S., but executives have recently discussed opening new stores in closer locations to ease the strain of long lines and crowded parking lots at its popular warehouse stores.
As a company, Costco is particularly fond of internal hiring, with most of its management team made up of veteran employees from within the company, and it typically hires from existing warehouses to ensure new stores have enough experience and can operate successfully in the building.
“It’s very rare for a street warehouse to have a supervisor or manager,” the manager told BI.
