Placement Year London Review

Overall I enjoyed my placement at L’Oréal. However, I feel I would’ve enjoyed it more if I’d had a nicer manager and closer-knit team. I felt a bit isolated at times.

It’s rare that people told me I was appreciated or my work was valued. Sometimes I would do work for others to present (totally expected this as an intern) but then I’d get no credit. It’s not difficult to make someone feel valued! You’re expected to do a lot for little to no acknowledgement.

The level of support and guidance depends on how much you go and ask for it. I received a lot of great advice and support from people (mostly outside of my team). I had to be far more proactive about getting the support I needed because my manager often didn’t have the answers as she had no expertise in the function I was working in.

My workload was pretty substantial, but not large enough that I’d have to work over-time. Your workload depends on your role, for example, some other interns were working until midnight to get their work done which is ridiculous baring in mind our pay. I did feel overwhelmed with my workload at times.

I was given a lot of responsibility in terms of creating important resources and reports for the division. You’re accountable for any errors you make so you have to have good attention to detail. Again, this depends on your role/brand/division. I feel interns are given too much responsibility too early on, to the point where it can create an unprofessional impression of L’Oréal to customers because interns are thrown in to the deep end straight away with little preparation/knowledge.

Given my degree subject, I will definitely be able to apply what I’ve learnt this year to my final year of study. I’ve also really developed my excel and data analytics skills that will benefit me going forward in my academic and professional ventures.

Pretty dead atmosphere in my office, people weren’t that chatty unless I instigated conversations with them. Often awkward because no one said anything for an hour or so. There’s only so much you can do to try and build a better team atmosphere when you get little to no effort back.

My role was constantly changing because they seemed to be using me as a guinea pig to test new reporting styles. Once I got used to doing one task, they’d get rid of it and try something else! Also, my actual role was very different to the role I’d applied for, so it was not set up how I was led to believe.

L’Oreal was great for personal development and training. I was able to complete lots of courses during my time there that benefitted me professional and personally. They invest a lot in your personal development, it’s up to you if you’re proactive to use the resources available to you!

Not very. You’re given the impression very early on that the graduate scheme is only for a very specific type of person, completely ruling out the likelihood of a diverse cohort of grads applying. I constantly felt that I didn’t fit the ‘L’Oréal Ideal’ that HR drillEd into us, this made me feel too inadequate to apply. I also feel it is ridiculous hiring 120 interns a year and only hiring the tiniest fraction of us as grads. They seem to recruit as many interns as possible and then hire as little grads as possible. This reinforced the idea that they hire so many interns because of the financial benefits.

Great social scene amongst the interns, 99% of the time this was through our own doing though. Little is done by the company to arrange this.

Living in London at an intern was actually a bit better financially than I thought. I was still able to save money whilst socialising and paying rent. It depends where you live and what your lifestyle choices are.

Almost no nightlife at all in Hammersmith. A few nice pubs and bars but you have to get on the tube or walk to Fulham to find some clubs.

Not that many, I think my team did about two activities outside of work during the year. Some interns did loads with their teams though so it depends who you work with.