Marketing Intern Review

I greatly enjoyed my placement from start to finish due to a range of factors - the work environment is extremely welcoming and friendly and I have been surrounded by colleagues who are always wanting to help develop my skills. There is also a great work/life balance with many intern socials and divisional socials too.

I felt that my work was always appreciated and received praise when I completed projects well. I was also given opportunities to present my work to others outside of my team which was encouraged by my manager and this made me feel like my work was both appreciated and useful to others. As well as this, I was always given constructive feedback to ensure I was always improving in my role.

I had weekly 1 to 1's with my manager that were an hour long where I could discuss any questions I had that related to projects I was working on. I also used this time to discuss skills that I wanted to develop and was able to book onto a wide range of training courses through MyLearning. Throughout my time here I have attended trainings on presenting, excel, and analysing data - all of which my manager and team were supportive of and gave me opportunities to put my training into practice.

This comes in waves - at the start of my placement I felt well eased in and had time to settle before I was given big deadlines. As I worked in marketing, there were busier times e.g. before product launches and when planning marketing campaigns, but there were also times when I was less busy, for instance after products had launched or when the marketing campaigns were up and running. This being said, there is always something to be done and there was not a day where I was bored or had nothing to do!

At the start of my placement I was given my own smaller projects and had more guidance from my manager on things, which is what I expected. As I gained more experience and a greater skill set in my role, I was given more and more responsibility. By the end of my placement I was managing the group of 5 sales representatives for my brand - being their point of contact for any questions relating to products, marketing, samples and testers.

There is an abundance of opportunities at L'Oreal to attend training courses internally, via MyLearning which is our website where you can search for training courses to go on. I also attended multiple external training days with agencies that we work with at their offices in and around London. I feel that these were all very beneficial to me for a range of reasons but particularly because there is so much freedom to design your training exactly how you want to and choose what training courses suit you.

Friendly, a good balance between formal and informal. Whilst I was on my placement, hot desking was introduced meaning no one has a set desk which has encouraged more people to mix with teams other than their own.

Very well organised. From before I started the placement, I knew what brand I was working on and who my manager was. The inductions in the first few weeks were well planned and the intern socials were organised before we started so that we could meet our colleagues. In the middle of my placement, the process to follow to apply for Talent Track and the Grad Scheme were all outlined to us so we had plenty of time to prepare.

The MyLearning platform is the most significant tool I made use of when getting extra training, where you can choose what training you would like and book onto a session. These are put on by external trainers so L'Oreal invest a lot in these sessions which shows their commitment to personal development in my opinion.

I am planning on applying for Talent Track and the support from my team and those who I work with has made me feel like I am appreciated and they would work with me again. However, there is an element of competitiveness and a feeling that you have to work hard to get a job offer at the end of your placement, but this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Yes - there is an intern committee who organise intern socials, the intern Christmas party and the end of year social, but in general all interns mingle with each other anyway since we all work together, so to me it is a very natural friendship everyone has.

I chose to live a 10 minute walk from the office for convenience, since I moved to London specifically for my placement year. It is very expensive and rent takes up half of my monthly wage but the area has restaurants, shops, and a very accessible tube station so for the convenience I think its worth it.

The office is only a 5 minute walk from the river so after work in summer we often go for drinks as a team in the evenings. There are also restaurants and a few bars near by, but not enough if you were looking for a full night out.

There is an intern netball and football team and in summer we play rounders once a week. I haven't really looked for any activities outside of work apart from the gym - which there are 3 of in Hammersmith of ranging prices so something for everyone.