Assistant Brand Manager Review

Very good experience, better than what I expected from a placement year, with a lot of responsibility but equally enough support from my manager

there isn't much difference in the workload of a permanent assistant brand manager and an intern on this position, so naturally my work was valued in the same way as everyone else's (who started at a similar time as me)

I have weekly 1 to 1 meeting with my manager where we discuss my projects and progress on both what I/m doing (specific projects) and how I'm doing it (improving my skills).

It depends, some days are more relaxed than others. Others I need to stay until 8pm to finish a report. As a general rule, it is possible to have a 9 to 5 working schedule, but it requires good time management.

I had my own big project, a brand extension NPD, which required working closely with all functions, as well as other smaller projects and taska, varing form smaller NPD to business performance tracking.

I have a much better understanding of brand builing, marketing and the fmcg industry. In addition to that, I have aquired practical skills (e.g how to give a presentation with impact, how to lead a meeting, project management) that will help me in my professional development further on.

Marketing and R&D have a shared office, which means roughly 20 people, so it is quite busy on a daily basis.

The induction program for new starters wasn't perfect but it got significantly better since I have been here.

Significantly. We had quest speakers from Aston and Warwick university coming on site, I went to an international training on brand building with new ABMs from other countries in the Muller group, a 2-day presentaion skills workshop and the list can go on. On this topic, Muller has just been shortlisted at the Marketing Society excellence awards for Building Marketing Capabilities - symbol for how much they invest in their people.

I was offered a permanent possition and now I will be working part-time during my final year and then returning as a permanent ABM after graduation.

Most of the marketing people live in Shrewsbury, which is a quite small but beautiful town in Shropshire. I was expecting the social life to be practically unexistenet, but I was pleasantly surprised. There are quite a few young people in the area, most of which work at companies nearby like Muller. It's not as crazy as student life but you always have something to do in the weekends.

Quite cheap, these were the perks of living in a smaller town.

There are a few local clubs and bars open late, but to be fair for a proper night out clubbing the best option was still Birmingham or Manchester (both 1 hour away from where I lived).

It's a great area if you are an active person; Wales is just a few minutes away and there are lots of nice walks in the area too. I joined a climbing and a running club and there are some others activities available too. Obviously not as many activities as in a big city, but it's not as bad as you would expect.