MArketing Intern Review

I really enjoyed my placement at L'Oreal and found the day to day tasks interesting. There were of course times where it was really tough, but that is to be expected in any company.

I found interns are often taken for granted. The whole business model relies on having interns (almost every team in the whole building has at least one), but often the work of interns gets overshadowed by managers. For example, a lot of presentations are created through the work of interns, yet the credit will always go to those higher up who present it.

I was given a lot of support by my team, p[particularly at the start when I was still getting to grips with the job. As time went on I found more and more was expected from me, which was great to have that responsibility, but sometimes team members could forget that this was my first full time job and that I didn't have as much experience as them. My team changed a lot from the start to the end of my placement, meaning I was continuously having to build new relationships, which was slightly disruptive to my progression.

I always had something do to and was never bored. Some days I would have a huge workload of urgent requests, which could mean I had to stay until 7:30 (latest) but most days had a good balance which kept me happily occupied.

I was given more responsibility than I expected. This was really great experience but sometimes felt quite overwhelming if my manager wasn't supporting me through a project. Other times you would be given a project to manage but then your manager would micro manage it, making you feel overshadowed and that your responsibility was undermined.

I think the people skills I have learnt are the most valuable as they can be applied to any job in any industry. Working as part of a close knit team as well as with agencies and other departments in the company has been a great learning experience. I also developed my skills on powerpoint and excel as well as other software used in my role. As far as training. it was quite minimal as the skills needed were not that advanced.

The general atmosphere was collaborative and happy. The people in my area were always friendly and didn't take the business to seriously, it was more like sitting with friends than sitting in an office. As the dress code is smart casual I always felt quite relaxed, and there is a big coffee culture at L'Oreal so there's plenty of opportunity to network in our café. At times, when there were important meetings or events coming up there would quite a lot of tension in the office as people had tight deadlines to meet.

It was very well organised as L'Oreal has such a large internship programme, so every year they have a good structure of handovers from the old to the new intern and teams are used to the rotation. I believe HR assign you to a brand before you start, rather than the brand teams having an input form the assessment day. From speaking to other L'Oreal interns, I think this can sometimes lead to people being on a brand they are not as interested in , or with a team who they do not get on with that well. In my personal experience, I was placed on a different internship to the one I applied and signed a contract for. It was lucky that I actually really enjoyed the brand and position I as placed in, but had it been another candidate it could have been a different story.

There were a lot of compulsory training sessions that interns had to go on. Some of them were very useful, learning how to use software we were not familiar with, but some were very generic and didn't add much value. At L'Oreal I have found you tend to learn on the job rather than being trained. This learning can often come from 'trial and error', in that you learn the processes through doing something wrong or missing a deadline for sending something that you didn't know needed to be sent. Although this did mean I learnt from my mistakes, I think the company could have invested more in training us right from the start.

Future Employment prospects are very appealing at L'Oreal. The company offers endless opportunities and I think there is so much more to gain than just from an internship. It is a motivating environment to be in and I am really passionate about the industry. The competitive nature of the company means that there are always new challenges and trends to align with, meaning that every day is different. I would love the opportunity to work on a different brand to that of my internship and get to know the ins and outs of the other divisions.

Yes, there is an intern committee who arrange intern socials every couple of months. As most teams have an intern, you really get to know those that sit near you and everyone tens to have lunch in the office café, meaning there's plenty of time to get to know everyone. People are always keen to share their experiences of their internship so you can learn from each other too.

London is very expensive in general, but around Hammersmith there are a few good pubs that the L'Oreal teams go to after work which offer good deals. There are plenty of fast restaurants near the tube which people sometimes pop to for lunch, although the cost of this can add up each week. For most big social events we tended to go more central as Hammersmith is quite small. We had brad events where the company would take us for dinner to congratulate us on results, which was really nice and in lovely venues.

There is no nightlife in Hammersmith but it isn't far from Fulham or central, which is where most of the intern socials took place. It is really easy to travel around from the office, so this was never a problem as there are 4 tubs lines that go to our station!

There area few sports clubs but other than that not really.