RETAIL GRADUATE PROGRAMME
the opportunity to drive your career in your direction
Our programme is fast-paced, practical and develops you into a future leader in our Toyota store network. We
have multiple locations for graduates across the North and South Island.
What our programme looks like
During the programme, you will get to discover plenty about yourself- and us. We will help you work out your
strengths and gear up for future leadership positions within our network of Toyota stores.
In the 1st part of the year, the focus is on getting to understand the business and developing you as an individual. You will rotate through the main departments within a store, getting to know our customers, our products and our culture.
The 2nd part of the year will focus on preparing you for a specific area or role within a Toyota store and developing your leadership skills.
Are you one of us?
Toyota people thrive on having the freedom to make decisions and do extraordinary things. Here’s what we look
for:
- Enthusiasm and passion for working in a dynamic and exciting environment
- Successful achievement of (in last 24 months or will successfully achieve before the start of the programme) a Bachelor’s Degree from a NZQA approved New Zealand tertiary institute
- Your programme of study is relevant to the content of the Toyota Retail Graduate Programme e.g. including but not limited to: Commerce, Business, Management, Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
- You are energetic, self-confident, competitive, proactive, resilient, and have tons of initiative.
- Proven experience working with people, preferably in a customer-facing role or in the hospitality industry.
Application Guidelines:
To apply for the Toyota Retail Graduate Programme, you will need to submit a cover letter, a CV, your Academic
Transcript and the completed Application Form.
In your cover letter you need to demonstrate why you are the best graduate candidate for this programme. This will include helping us to understand your motivation for applying and the qualities you possess that will ensure your success throughout the two years on the programme.
Your CV will need to reflect any previous work experience, relevant skills, personal qualities and interests. We are interested in hearing about the experiences where you have developed and demonstrated the competencies we're after, including key achievements in your life to date.
Your Academic Transcript will enable us to gain an understanding of the range of papers you have studied while completing your degree.
It is highly advantageous that you have a full New Zealand drivers licence as you will have the opportunity to drive a range of Toyota vehicles.
Please note, you must be a NZ citizen or permanent resident to apply for this programme.
We hire students studying
Business and Commerce
Marketing & Sales
Available Positions
Toyota Dealer Graduate Programme
the opportunity to drive your career in your direction
Are you someone who can take the wheel here?
Our programme fast-paced, practical and equips you to take on a leadership role in our Toyota store network. We have four great locations for Dealer Graduates: Auckland, Tauranga, Wellington, and Christchurch.
What our programme looks like
During the programme you’ll get to discover plenty about yourself - and us. We'll help you work out your strengths and gear up for future leadership positions within our network of Toyota stores.
The programme covers three key areas:
Strategy
You’ll be making a difference to Toyota right from the start. Help develop a strategy to enhance the sales and customer operations of a store, then get the chance to put your recommendations into action at the store.
Customer focus
Get to know the customer side of the business. You’ll learn and get to improve on what makes Toyota the number one trusted brand in New Zealand. Your ideas count, so you’ll also get to develop recommendations to enhance customer relations at the store.
Business skills
Hone your business skills with one of the best brands in the world. You’ll work directly with our people to really understand Toyota and what it means to be a global business. Live our belief of ‘going the extra mile’ by helping customers love everything about Toyota, even more.
Are you one of us?
Toyota people thrive on having the freedom to make decisions and do extraordinary things. Here's what we look for:
- Interest, enthusiasm, and passion for working in an exciting and dynamic environment.
- Successful achievement of (in last 12 months or will successfully achieve before the start of the programme) a Bachelor’s Degree from an NZQA approved New Zealand tertiary institute
- Your programme of study is relevant to the content of the Toyota Dealer Graduate Programme e.g. including but not limited to Commerce, Business, Management, Entrepreneurship, Innovation.
- You are energetic, competitive, proactive, resilient and have tons of initiative
- Proven experience working with people, preferably in a sales or target driven industry
- Leadership experience and potential to develop and grow in this area
Application Guidelines
To apply for the Toyota Dealer Graduate Programme, you will need to submit a cover letter, a CV, your Academic Transcript and the completed Application Form.
In your cover letter, you need to demonstrate why you are the best graduate candidate for this programme. This will include helping us to understand your motivation for applying and the qualities you possess that will ensure your success throughout the programme.
Your CV will need to reflect any previous work experience, relevant skills, personal qualities, and interests. We are interested in hearing about the experiences where you have developed and demonstrated the competencies we're after, including key achievements in your life to date.
Your Academic Transcript will enable us to gain an understanding of the range of papers you have studied while completing your degree.
It is highly advantageous that you have a full New Zealand drivers license as you will have the opportunity to drive a range of Toyota vehicles.
Please note, you must be an NZ citizen or permanent resident to apply for this programme.
Life at Toyota
Where anything is possible
Why do Toyota people love what they do?
There are no limits to where your career in Toyota could go, and we support you the whole way. At Toyota you’ll be empowered to get the job done. You'll find we back you to continuously get better at what you do, and to do extraordinary things every day. We are guided by the principles of respect for people and continuous improvement. Maybe that's why Toyota people stay longer.
This is what we believe:
Your voice counts
We know that every day is an opportunity to improve. On the production line is an actual button, called the Andon cord, which anyone can pull to stop everything when something important needs attention. This very same concept works in business too; that’s how much we trust you and empower you to take responsibility. We’re all for you improving how we do things – and bettering yourself in the process. We recognize and award trophies to any team member who’s great ideas and thinking to help us stay a winning team.
Express your creativity
We encourage our teams to set impossible goals and then work towards achieving them. For example, our engineers have a goal to create a car that makes the air cleaner as it drives. Imagine that!
Innovation comes from 1% inspiration...and 99% perspiration. To ensure your ideas are heard, we have forums such as renewal groups and monthly Kaizen meetings where you can share your ideas, get creative and tell us something new. Then you can create your own work groups to brainstorm and make your innovations and great ideas come to life.
Always keep learning
We know that a better tomorrow starts today. Team development is one of the most important things we do in every area of our business. Most of our appointments are internal promotions. And these are not just within departments. We work to train and advance all team members that want to grow. And within departments, there are clear paths to promotion, for example, as a Technician in the workshop there are four tiers that we will pay for you to train to advance to, all on the job. Staff is our biggest investment.
Be part of a diverse team, built on respect
We know how important it is to respect others. Our stores are locally owned and we all share a common vision built on mutual respect, great communication, and consideration. So you feel like you are part of a family team wherever you are and wherever you go in the Toyota network. We take pride in how long our best staff choose to stay with us, and how we, like New Zealand, are made up of hundreds of cultures and interests and points of view, all working together and all connected by respect.
Care for the community and environment
Toyota believes in making the kind of cars that last and that can be repaired easily and efficiently. This is the kind of sustainability that goes against disposable culture. We also spearhead environmental and community initiatives across education, natural environment and sports.We are really proud to be one of New Zealand's most trusted brands, and it is not by accident. It is because we work hard to try to make every community we are involved in a better place. And that is something that our employees tell us is important to them too - to be part of a company that is about leaving the world a better place than they found it.
Join forces. Conquer mountains
We know how important it is to work together. Everyone, from our teams working on a design, engineering, and production, through to Toyota New Zealand, Toyota Financial Services and across our Toyota network are working together. For us, it is engineering, liberating, and fun. Team really does mean: Together Everyone Achieves More. So much so that we have team bonuses where every person’s contribution to a win counts – and is rewarded.
Seize the initiative
Ultimately what we’re looking for is people who have ‘Toyotas’. Hard-working, resilient, decisive and dedicated we have high expectations for our team – and they live up to it. We ask our people to go the extra mile to deliver outstanding levels of customer service. And we ask you to show the same work ethic for every job, every project and every step in your journey with us.
Hear from our grads
Alex
Annie
Jacqui
Ben
One of our amazing grads...
Annie ward
When you talk to Annie from Rutherford & Bond Toyota, you can tell this 23-year-old knows what she’s talking about. Confident in her ideas and more than happy to deal with any curve balls as they come - two attributes that, from what she describes, Toyota’s Retail Graduate Programme has instilled in her.
After a gap year, and a second stint at Victoria University in Wellington to receive her Honours degree, Annie applied for the Toyota Retail Graduate Programme. Her background in marketing and international business drew her to the larger company - and Toyota’s values sealed the deal.
That being said, the programme was not what she expected. This is due to her less than common path through the course. For you see, Annie has a knack for digital marketing and social media - one that she had informed her manager about at the start of her journey. “It was advertised as a business graduate programme… I knew I’d be trying all the departments” explained Annie. Typically the programme is set to rotate evenly through all the departments, however for Annie, she experienced the whole system in under a month. Annie’s manager had taken her enthusiasm on board and created a role specifically for her - one where she could pursue her passion while still making positive contributions to the company. On her own unique path through the programme, Annie took control of Rutherford & Bond’s digital marketing efforts, managing their social accounts and running campaigns such as a follow up to Toyota’s ‘Small Business Driver’ Highlander competition. One of the highlights of her role so far, Annie created a series of videos showcasing the region's winners, getting to know how this prize has made a real difference for them.
Working in a role that had not existed before, Annie had to learn to think on her feet. There’s an overwhelming amount of details to learn in any new position.
Annie explained “I bought a notebook on my first day. To keep all this information and to fact check myself.” These notes were needed for Annie, as no two days were the same. “What you’re doing is going to be very diverse. If you like to know exactly what you're doing and have a set routine, you may struggle - you need to be adaptable”.
That’s not to say the graduate programme is just about you learning. Annie pointed out one of the things she didn’t expect is how much the dealerships wanted to learn from her, “they’d often ask me questions, they really valued my perspective”. She further elaborated “they’ve [Rutherford & Bond] never had someone doing marketing for them before. They were very open about saying ‘they don’t know what they don’t know.’ I helped them develop a strong social media presence and changed their communications drastically”. After all this change, Annie got a huge boost to her confidence - for the first time ever, Rutherford & Bond was featured in the top five Toyota dealerships for website activity. “I waited three months before talking about my ideas. I wish I didn't wait. I wish I just took my ideas, developed them and just ran that brief past the manager”, Annie later reflected.
What gave her the confidence to finally speak out? It’s largely the culture at Toyota. Annie explains
She adds “it’s okay to make mistakes - you have this idea that you want to do so much right, but you don’t know everything so naturally you’re going to make mistakes. Learning from them is what makes you better.”
One of our amazing grads...
Ben Trevelyan
An interest in cars isn’t mandatory, but for Miles Toyota graduate Ben, it’s what drew him to the role. It’s also what’s led him to fall in love with his position in used vehicle sales. Ben explains “You get a real satisfaction about finding a vehicle that suits their [the customers] needs”. He elaborates that this satisfaction is made even better after getting to know the customers and hearing their personal stories. “They put their trust in you.”
That’s not to say all his work has satisfying conclusions. “You’ve got to learn to manage customer expectations,” says Ben “you can’t over promise and under deliver. You’ve got to be able to think on your feet and meet customer expectations - you don’t always get it right.”
The learning he’s gained has been a huge source of value throughout his experience. “You’ve just got to be a sponge” he exclaims. It’s a high paced environment, with a lot of pressure, however, Ben has been surrounded by an experienced crew. “The team just gets stuck in and helps out where needed. “That’s not to say the only aid comes from those around him,
“You’re here to learn first and foremost,” says Ben, “never be afraid to ask questions”. The world of sales is fast paced, so you need to be able to adapt on your feet. Fortunately, if you do make mistakes, you’re surrounded by a team who’s there for you. “It’s a high-pressure environment and we’re a team of five, we’ll always have a laugh about it after” Ben elaborates.
Working in this culture has been beneficial for Ben. “It’s really helped me build up my confidence in front of customers. Dealing with their expectations and the trust they place in you. You’ve got to put your best foot forward. It’s helped me develop my timekeeping, punctuality and having to conduct follow ups,” explains Ben, “the communication and follow ups - these are life skills.”
Nxtstep is New Zealand's largest, most engaging and informative youth careers platform.
© 2022 NXTSTEP