Marketing Intern Review

The office environment is good, sociable and upbeat. Some of the projects/tasks that I worked on were stimulating and enjoyable, however a lot of the time the work I did was fairly repetitive and boring. My biggest gripe with the placement was the frustratingly menial nature of the majority of my responsibilities, such as posting items or keeping a product cupboard organized. However, the more positive moments did provide a good learning experience, and working in a company like L'Oreal provides great insight into both Marketing and the FMCG industry.

Most of the people at L'Oreal are great. I was lucky to have a good manager who clearly valued my contributions and cared about my well-being. There is a highly congratulatory culture where people shout about and applaud good work/wins. The only negative on this aspect is you can feel somewhat undervalued when being handed such menial tasks.

During my time I had 2 managers. My first manager was too busy to really manage me, but I got lucky and moved position where my new manager was great. He looked to maximize our contact time and have regular catch-ups, in addition to going out of his way to provide guidance for my future career even outside of the company.

It would peak and trough on different days. Sometimes I was rushed off my feet barely having time for lunch, and other times I found myself looking for ways to kill time. I think my experience has been a little anomalous though as everyone else seems constantly busy.

Despite being an intern, a reshuffle in our team structure led to me in essence performing a grad role. As such, I got the opportunity to pretty much independently lead the execution of a large campaign for the brand. In general however I feel like more responsibility could be given.

I think that the exposure to the marketing industry received here will benefit me in my future marketing studies, being able to relate what I am learning to industry. I also developed organizational skills (though not what I had gained to get out of the placement) which will benefit me. There is also a lot of exposure to different marketing software.

The atmosphere was good. It is a mix of chatty people and those who plug in headphones and knuckle down. It isn't too formal though and everyone is pretty friendly.

Less well than I had expected. I.T. weren't ready for me so for my first few days I didn't even have a computer login and so couldn't do anything. My training/responsibilities were very ad-hoc and unstructured, contradictory to what I had been led to believe by research conducted prior to my starting.

There are some decent training opportunities, but again not as much as I had expected. The MYlearning online portal has a lot of content on it, but none of it is particularly beneficial. My manager was really responsible for my personal development through his good managerial skills and commitment to my personal development, but I think the rigid development structures in place could be slightly underdeveloped.

Not very. The work-life balance here is totally off. I left on time every day and was pretty much the only person to do so, with most people regularly staying very late. The job itself is not something I enjoyed - it failed the Monday test whereby on Sunday nights I found myself dreading Monday mornings. I think it has been a useful experience in hopefully aiding me in obtaining my desired future career, but it certainly won't be here.

There is an intern society with different reps for Social, Sports etc. However, once again it felt like the social scene among interns could be said to have 'flopped' - turnout to organized events was pretty poor. There are quite regular after-work drinks for people who are leaving the business but in my short time here I didn't know enough people for that to have an influence on my experience.

London's London. Everyone knows how expensive a place it is to live. I am fortunate enough to be a Londoner who could live at home and so was spared the cost of rent, but even day-to-day living costs are high and eat up your salary.

Hammersmith has some decent bars/pubs, but for a full-on night out you need to head more central, though it isn't too far a journey.

Not really - one or two volunteering events during my 6 months here but that was pretty much it.