I just returned from two recruiting conferences in Orlando. Both were fantastic. The first was organized by Kennedy Information and was attended by about 500 human resource professionals, most of whom were corporate recruiters. While at the conference I had the pleasure of meeting several senior Wal-Mart recruiting professionals and learned not only just how big of an employer Wal-Mart is but also just how great a place it is to start a career.

We all know that Wal-Mart is big. In fact, really big. But I had no idea that it employed 1.3 million people just in the USA. That's about one out of every 250 people people. Yikes. In addition to those folks, they also employ about 600,000 more worldwide for a total of about 1.9 million. The company's sales are $345 billion per year.

Think their head count and revenue numbers are big? Fast forward to 2012 when Wal-Mart projects worldwide employment of 2.5 million and sales of $500 billion.

So how does this fit with college recruiting when all of their employees are stocking shelves or running cash registers. The answer is they aren't. In addition to the thousands of people working outside of the stores in logistics, information technology, finance, marketing, etc., about 75 percent of their store managers started as hourly employees. That's right. About 75 percent. So if you're in college and want a career in management, consider working for Wal-Mart part-time while you're in school as there's a good chance that upon graduation they'll have a management position waiting for you.