Financial Controller's Team Review

My placement at Unilever helped me grow both my hard and soft skills significantly. Through the support I received from colleagues and my manager I was able to significantly excel and grow over the year as well as being given significant opportunities to improve on existing processes as well as network with different business areas.

The work I undertook was valued by colleagues who will not only go on to use it in the future but will also continue to improve upon the work i started during my time at Unilever. People were interested in the work produced and throughout the Unilever Structure and I was able to deliver work to multiple parts of the business.

I was given support throughout my placement in the form of weekly meetings as well as both a half year and full year review. However, I am aware this is not consistent across all placement students. Therefore, if you do get a placement I recommend that you take the initiative throughout the year to ensure you receive support as well as any feedback you can act on during your placement.

My placement consisted mostly of project work and therefore my capacity varied throughout the placement. However, I was advised that if I was given too much work at any time I could always reach out and deadlines could be pushed back. This helped me stretch myself as much as possible over my placement.

The responsibility I was given increased over my placement. After Proving myself on initial tasks I was able to ask to be put on projects with increasing responsibility and impact. This allowed me to achieve a lot more during my year and develop a lot more experience for my career going forward.

With regards to hard skills, there were a few projects which utilised the corporate finance knowledge gained from my degree however, a lot of it was on the job accounting knowledge, some of which I had gained at university. The area of most development was my soft skills as my networking and communication skills developed massively over the past year.

The general atmosphere in the office is friendly but hardworking. People will always be willing to help you however be mindful of busier periods (month and quarter ends especially). This makes getting involved in projects easy and networking across functions very accessible. In addition, charity initiatives throughout the year helped boost this atmosphere.

Future prospects are very appealing especially the grad scheme as you are give 3 1 year placements to cover a large breadth of knowledge. If given the chance to return to my career at Unilever, I will be able to fast track my career using all of the skill development tools available to me.

The social scene was very good at the start of placement but as people got busier with work this began to die down. Then with the COVID crisis it was less sociable. However, there are plenty of opportunities to get involved in events throughout the company as well as after work events to join if you are interested.

After work drinks were occasional as well as nights out on Friday. With the Office being so close to London, it is easy to stay at other placement student's houses making social events like this easy no matter how far you are from the Unilever office's themselves. Often the nightlife is located in Wimbledon/ Clapham.

A '+1' activity, outside your usual scope of work exists for placement students which usually requires visiting the university you come from. This was a good opportunity to give something back to the students next year and inform them of the opportunities available. In addition to this I was able to visit other Unilever sites to discover different parts of the business.