Interested in a career with Diageo? Looking for some useful tops for trying to secure a great role with the company?

Johnnie Walker Blue Label, Brand Manager, Zaira Rocchi, and her colleague Global Travel & National Account Manager for ANZ & Pacific Islands, Erin McRitchie, share their experiences of what it's like to be working for Diageo in Australia. 

For the past year, Zaira was working on Baileys as the Assistant Brand Manager. She was recently promoted to a Brand Manager role on Johnnie Walker Blue Label. Her colleague Erin says: "About two and a half months ago I moved into the role that I'm in at the moment. Before that, I was in our on-premise team as National Account Manager, looking after our hospitality groups here in New South Wales."

Working with incredible brands and people

When looking at what encouraged both of them to join Diageo, Erin shares: "A few of the things that made me want to join at the time was obviously our incredible brands, and I was really looking for a workplace that I was going to enjoy coming in to work every day for. I've been so lucky to work with some incredible people over the last eight years. I've made incredible friendships, and I've really been challenged in a number of different roles during my time at Diageo. I've been so fortunate to be able to move through a number of different career paths and different functions, and it's really kept me engaged over the time that I've been here."

Zaira highlights the excllent 'family feel' to Diageo's work culture. "You automatically make really close relationships, so you get that immediate connection when you walk in the door. And I think obviously the powerhouse brands. One night I was sitting at home watching TV and saw a Baileys ad come on and I, I literally said to myself, I'm going to work for that brand one day."

Preparing well for the job interview

Erin and Zaira share their on advice for women looking to do internal interviews, with Zaira stating: "When I was prepping for my internal interview, there were a couple of things that I did to prepare myself and these have worked really well for me in the past. One was doing your research about the role that you're applying for, so I made sure that I read up on the information. Being in brand marketing, what's the next brand that I'm looking to apply for? What's the MVP strategy? What are the activities in market? What's their market share? Just educating myself as much as I could on that information so that when I went into the interview, I could use that as examples when I was in the interview process."

Ask as many questions as possible 

The second thing, Zaira says, is to be personable. "Don't assume just because it's an internal interview that they know anything about you, treat it like it's an external interview. Go in there, be super professional, but also take the time at the beginning to set up a bit about who you are. So what are your hobbies outside of work? What's your favorite dish? What's your family background? So just get them to know you a little bit more outside of work before you dive straight into your professional background. And I think that's what I have found has helped step me aside from the rest of the candidates."

When Erin was applying for her most recent role, she tried to find out as much as she possibly could about the role. "And that was everything down to the team, the customers. I guess I work in a different part of the business, so all the commercial background. I put time in with as many people as possible to understand and ask as many questions as I possibly could to get as best an understanding about the role. Before I went into the interview process. That was everyone from the direct stakeholders that I would be working with day to day through to my H.R. counterpart. The last thing is, I had had global travel on my PPD for a really long time before this role actually became available. So it was really transparent to my current line manager that this was an area that I was interested in, and it made sense for me to go after it full force when it came available."

Lots of room to learn and grow 

Looking to join Diageo? Zaira says not to think twice about applying! "Just give it a shot," she says. "Because once you're in Diageo, you'll not want to leave. And I think the things we were talking about before, about what we love about working for Diageo, the family-like culture, the people, the opportunities to grow that will absolutely be given to you. And one of the things I love the most is that it's such a supportive environment where typically the leadership team will really foster a place where your career development is supported. And no matter where you're at in your career, there is definitely that room to learn and grow."

Join Diageo via a fabulous career

Diageo has a wealth of great career opportunities, so look to join their inclusive work culture. 

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