Summer Sales Executive Review

I had a very enjoy placement at Unilever and met a interesting and new people. It is a great opportunity to trial the industry and get a feel for the company as well as your chosen job role. Beyond your day-to-day work, there are opportunities to meet with senior leaders and plenty of wider networking opportunities to find out more about other areas of the business.

I felt that my team and manager valued my opinions and work, making use of my input. The culture is supportive and welcoming and therefore felt confident enough to share my thoughts and ideas. Any ideas that I did have, my line manager would always encourage me to pursue them and I was given real responsibility, which in turn allowed me to feel a valued member of the team.

I had a meeting with my line manager twice a week, as well as team meetings weekly with other members of my team. I would use this opportunity to seek guidance from colleagues and share any concerns I may have had. Other colleagues on the grad scheme were incredibly supportive and I felt I could go to them with any ''silly'' questions I had.

As the internship runs over the summer months, the office does tend to be quiet, however, most days I had a nice balance of things to be doing. On slower days, I would take the opportunity to discover different areas of the business, such as Marketing and Communications, as well as network with fellow employees.

As a summer intern, I felt that I was given a significant amount of responsibility and entrusted with a number of projects. On one of these projects, I was reporting to a senior director. The one negative to undertaking a summer placement is that you don't always get to see the project through to the end.

I developed wide range of skills throughout the internship, as well as developing overall as a person. I grew massively in confidence, as well as developing analytical skills, networking skills and general professionalism. The skills that I learnt are transferable to any future career path I undertake and truly think I have learnt skills for life.

Being based in the global head office, naturally the office is fast paced and exciting, and I would often see the senior leadership team, including the CEO, walking around. A system of hot desking and the open floor plan create a welcoming and open culture, and host desking allows you to meet new colleagues all the time. The office is always very buzzy and overall the atmosphere was friendly and exciting.

It is a well organised programme, however, I did feel that there could have been better communication in the run up to the internship, as I only found out my location approximately 6 weeks before I began. The positives are that goals are set with your line manager during the first week, so you know what you need to be working towards. Also there is a review half way through and at the end of the programme.

There was some personal training during the internship, such as Excel training and Linkedin training, which was useful, however I would have like to have had more. This could have included Microsoft Office and Skype training, as I felt that I learnt a lot of this as I went along. Also, specific Sales training would have been beneficial to me in the lead up to the internship.

From the internship, there is the opportunity to be fast tracked onto the graduate programme; however, you must still attend an assessment centre. I think this is an unfair system as I believe I demonstrated my working ability over the 12 weeks to then be assessed again in the assessment centre by people that had not seen the work that you had done over the internship. This is one negative of the programme.

There was a good social scene amongst fellow interns. We would have lunch together most days, either in the canteen or going to a local restaurant nearby. We would socialise in the evenings together also. Many of the interns lived together so became close friends. Within in my work team, there was also some socialising. We would have lunch together or go for drinks for special occasions such as birthdays.

Being based in London, the cost of living and socialising was high. The cost of rent in London is extremely high and there is no additional salary for interns based in London. Over half of my salary went straight on rent, however, I did choose to live in a more expensive area of the city (Fulham). Also the cost of travel is expensive, I was spending around £200 per month on travel. Furthermore, eating out and drinking is also very expensive.

There are a huge number of pubs, clubs and bars nearby. Being based in the 'City", it is a buzzy area and lots of bars offer happy hour deals after work. There are lots of really cool bars with roof terraces close by, where we would go for drinks after work to watch the sunset. It is very easy to get to different areas of London to experience different kinds of nightlife, such as Shoreditch and East London.

There are endless opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work. Activities included; sports teams, gym classes, yoga, self defence, bands, choirs and lunch time running clubs. There is also the opportunity to get involved in community outreach programmes. I volunteered with a local food bank one evening per week with some of my colleagues and also volunteered for ''Dove Day'', where I went into a local school to speak to pupils and teachers about body confidence and self esteem