Oral Care Marketing Assistant Review

Working at Colgate Palmolive provided me with an excellent insight into the world of marketing within a busniess environment. Before I started my placement I was unsure which route to take in my final year and which career direction I wanted to take. Working at Colgate Palmolive, has given me the knowledge and confidence to take a step towards a marketing career and I feel I better understand where I would like to be heading after university. The placement gave me a great insight into all areas of the business helping me to decide my future career.

I feel I was valued a great deal by my collegues and was regularly given important tasks to complete independantly. This helped increase my confindence. I was included in all marketing strategies and plans of future development and opinions and ideas were always encouraged.

Whilst at Colgate Palmolive I had 2 supervisors. Both were extremely helpful in helping me to settle into the team and constantly provided support whenever neccessary. I was encouranged to ask questions and both supervisors really pushed me to develop my abilites and skills.

I feel that on a daily basis I was extremely busy. On occasion I felt I had too much work to do and therefore had to speak to my supervisor to ensure the the high prority tasks were completed. I looked at this as a postitive though as the team were giving me increased responsibilites as I pregressed through the placement year with the intention to develop my skills and prepare me for the business world.

During my placement I feel I was given a lot of responsibility. I worked very closely with the brand managers on new product launches liasing with PR, Media and 3rd party agencies on a daily basis. Throughout the year I also managed several projects working both with brand managers and other placement students. My supervisor was always available if I needed any guidance or support.

I feel I have learnt a great deal whilst working at Colgate Palmolive. The IT skills I have developed will help me not only with my university work but will also help me in my career by allowing me to complete tasks more effectivly and effciently. The training I recieved whilst on my placement will help me significantly as several of the programmes are used across the majority of multinational organisations. I think this is extremely important as it is not something I would have been able to learn at university. I feel that the skills I have developed whilst on placement will help me gain better degree as I am more focused on my approach to work and have an increased determination to suceed.

The atmosphere in the office was almost always happy and vibrant. Working in the marketing department meant that there were lots of people with different personalities. Everybody in the office had good relationships and were always willing to help each other. Although the team had a lot of fun and laughs whilst working, there was the common understanding that we were there to work and meet targets and objectives. There was a very good balance between work and fun.

I think the organisation of the placement was quite good. Colgate Palmolive had developed a student brief to allow all 6 placement students to work together and develop their skills as a group.

Whilst completing my placement year Colgate Palmolive sent me on a number of traiing courses to help develop my skills and ablilities. Some of them were compulsory being an emplyee of Colgate, however some of them my supervisor had suggested to help me build my skills. She was very keen for me to get as much out of the placement as I could.

I think that the prospect of future employment with Colgate Palmolive is failry positive. I think it would depend if there is a job opening at the time. I feel that if I was to apply I would stand a good chance of getting a job.

There were 5 other placement students at Colgate Palmolive. Several of us worked fairly closely with each other on a regular basis and so we developed good relationships. As a group I feel we all got along very well and often socialised outside of office hours. All 6 student also did a tandem bike ride for charity.

I think that the cost of living was fairly high, however I expected this as Colgate is based in Surrey and accomodation is often more expensive in the south. The cost of socialising was reasonable as we often went out on student nights in town.

The nightlife in Guildford was really good as the university of Surrey was close by. We often went out on student nights and so the atmosphere was great.

There were a few activities to get involved in outside of work, however they were sport related.