Leah Barlet
Senior Analyst, People Development & Learning
Taco Bell
Milestones
My road in life took a while to figure out.
I wanted to manage a hotel when I grew up so I got a job at Disneyland to start out.
I realized the hours were long and holidays were the busiest time of the year.
I chose a Business Administration major because I still wanted a business-focused career.
I got a job as a Financial Analyst when I graduated, but did not like that I worked alone.
I took a big leap and applied for positions in HR and started as a Recruiting Assistant.
A year and a half later, I transferred to the Training Team and I've been there ever since!
Keep following my journey
Education
High School
Esperanza High School
Esperanza High School
Career
Senior Analyst, People Development & Learning
I design, develop, and implement training for food and service initiatives.
Career Roadmap
My work combines:
My work combines:
Business
Design
Working with Others
Day to Day
I spend about half of my day at my desk and half of my day in meetings with my cross-functional partners and project teams. While at my desk, I spend about half of my time doing work designing, developing, or revising training materials and I spend the other half of the time collaborating with my team through brainstorming, working sessions, or just impromptu discussions. Other times, I spend parts of the day in restaurants observing and talking with Team Members.
Advice for Getting Started
Here's the first step for college students
If you're in college and want to do my job, I'd recommend pursuing a degree in Business with a minor in a Design field. My job is an awesome combination of understanding the core operations of the Taco Bell business and utilizing creativity and out of the box thinking to develop engaging and effective training. I have to be able to keep up with Finance, Marketing, and Operations partners and use training strategies to help them solve problems.
Recommended Education
My career is related to what I studied. I'd recommend the path I took:
Hurdles
The Noise I Shed
From Society in General:
"Straight out of college, I had a very high starting salary as a Financial Analyst. When I left that job to become a Recruiting Assistant, I had to take a pay cut and some people in my life did not agree with or understand this decision."
