Commercial Intern Review

Very good level of responsibility given to the interns. Wide exposure to both the sales and marketing functions. Enjoyed doing a variety of different tasks from business planning to daily sales tracking.

L'Oreal do really care about their staff and in particular their interns. Indeed a large number of graduates have completed an internship with L'Oreal prior to starting as a grad. L'Oreal do their best to make you feel valued through a variety of social events, regular performance reviews and support with your career path.

My manager was very supportive. Despite being a field based employee and therefore not in the office every day she was always available to provide guidance when it was needed. I feel she got the balance between giving me plenty of independence as well as support perfect.

Work load would vary depending on upcoming launches etc but I had a mixture of long term projects and short term ad hoc work so I always had something to do.

I was given a very good level of responsibility during my placement. The best thing about doing a 12 month placement is that during the course of this internship the level of responsibility I had increased.

I received formal external training on Kantar and Nielsen tools, as well as informal internal trainings on Excel and many other tools. I will definitely use the skills I have developed in Excel very frequently at university. Other skills i felt I developed in my role included: time management, entrepreneurship and communication skills.

The office atmosphere was brilliant. It is a really young office where everyone is not only motivated and high performing but also very supportive and great fun.

The overall placement was organised very well. The performance management process was explained to us at the very start (setting objectives that we would then be judged against) and we were supported in choosing appropriate objetcives. Performance reviews were always constructive and HR were approachable and professional.

This is a huge positive for L'Oreal. I got the impression that the company really did want to invest heavily in terms of time spent training and developing the interns. As a boy joining a makeup team, I had a lot to learn not least about the products. I was given a huge amount of support to get myself up to speed including a 2 day training course. Not once did a member of staff say they were too busy to help irrespective of their level. This is an experience shared by many of the interns I was on placement with.

L'Oreal is a company which provides exceptional employment prospects, the senior management contains several young directors and GMs. It is also clear that L'Oreal will promote people based on ability and performance rather than age.

There were a great group of interns on placement year, I made some close friends who i socialised often with outside of work. This made the year even more fun.

West London is an expensive part of town so the cost of living and socialising is relatively high.

In Hammersmith itself the nightlife is good there are plenty of pubs/bars to get a quick drink after work.

There was a L'Oreal football team I got involved with which was a real highlight of my year. We went on tour to Poland to play in a tournament against teams from other L'Oreal offices which was a fantastic experience. There also L'Oreal office drinks on the last Thursday of every month in Hammersmith which were great fun.