Marketing Associate Review

Doing a placement year at MSD was probably the best decision I have made! My job stayed interesting up until the moment my placement finished and left me wanting to do more, it was so varied and I really knew I was positively contributing to my team and to the wider company

Over the 13/14 months I was tasked with my own projects that my manager trusted me to handle. With the support of my team (through our numerous whatsapp groups chats) we managed to be nominated for industry awards for our work. But alongside all the amazing work we achieved- my team were also the best people ever and always were always supportive and gave me someone to confide in.

Over my time at MSD, my manager changed which at first made me nervous, but in reality it actually helped my experience. I was able to experience different management styles and have greater exposure within the company. During the transition periods I had to form some alternative support but the cross functional team were able to step up and provide support and guidance- although perhaps not in the traditional manager form

I would say that my work load was very up and down. Whenever my work load was on the lower end I was able to pick up projects from the internal networks I was involved in or from other teams that had reached capacity. Some of these ad hoc projects ended up being some of the most rewarding work I was involved in!

In my team, there were only 2 of us in marketing for our product, which made us one of the smallest teams in the company. This meant I was working and making decisions arguably above my level and experience. But at no point did i feel completely out of my depth as we were trying a lot of new things and experimenting together

As my job was marketing, it wasn’t completely related to my biochemistry degree. However, I felt during sales visits that when I spoke about the mode of action with Healthcare Professionals that they respected that I knew what I was talking about. My job also helped me developed a lot of soft skills such as presentation skills, organisational skills and project management

I think the only things that let down my placement was the office. It is a very big office for the amount of people present there day to day. Some times there would only be a few of us on my floor. MSD have acknowledged this and are currently working on fixing it

Before you start you know specifically where you’ll be working including which therapy area. During easter there is a visit day to meet your team before you start the placement. This visit is expensed and is a great opportunity to meet all of your year of students and find people to live with. Throughout the year there are early talent program networking events, presentations and visits to other MSD sites within the UK

Very early into our time at MSD we had our insights profiles made. This is a personality test that results in a position on a colour wheel and an in depth analysis of your behaviour towards work and interactions with people. Other training we had included AV training for filming and video/audio editing using the adobe suite in order to bring video production in house.

Although MSD don’t directly offer jobs for when you graduate, they can fast track you during your post graduate application if you made a positive impression during your placement year Making sure your network within the company is as big as possible is a good idea as people generally move jobs internally every 2-3 years

Quite a few of us lived in the same town and got along really well and have formed friendships for life!

Rent was a lot cheaper in hertfordshire than in london. It was also easy to get to the pub and to go out on walks etc The town we lived in was oyster zone which made getting into central very easy (and less than 30 mins travel time and straight to Victoria line)

The nightlife was practically non existent! But as i mentioned earlier its easy to get into London