Student Blog

This is a guest blogger post by current student Brityn Vreeland currently studying BA (Hons) Marketing Communications.

This past year I was fortunate enough to spend 12 months working for L’Oréal Paris and the L’Oréal UKI headquarters in London. During my second year of University, I was looking for placements pretty early on, with L’Oréal being my ‘dream placement’. Within the first few weeks of second year, I started meeting with my Placement Coordinator Jackie Darke, who helped me fine-tune my CV and cover letter. Once I submitted my application, the process moved very quickly and I was asked to participate in several activities that eventually led to an invite to an assessment centre less than four weeks after I submitted my application.

At the assessment centre, I was expecting a formal corporate environment that required perfection, which was not the case. The building was full of smiles and passionate people who truly care about the business and each other. Around three days after the assessment centre, I received an offer to be the Digital Marketing Intern for L’Oreal Paris.

Three words I would use to describe my job would be fast-moving, innovative, and exciting. My favourite thing about working for L’Oréal is that the business moves so quickly that you never have the ‘typical day of work’. It always keeps you on your toes. Lucky for me, I was able to work across all L’Oréal Paris categories, which allowed me to build relationships with various teams including categories such as hair care and hair colour, PR, social, etc. This allowed me to have a holistic view of how the business works and how we can collaborate as a team.

My proudest accomplishment was acting as the UK project manager for the launch of the new L’Oréal Paris website. Between working on SEO, UX design, content creation, stakeholder management, and understanding how programming works it taught me an enormous amount of not only how to manage a high priority project but also introduced me to the technical side of digital. I was lucky to have a very trusting manager who allowed me to have independence over the project and manage 10+ stakeholders across five countries for the duration of the 8-month project.

For anyone looking for a placement or applying now, my top tip would be to choose a job that you will enjoy. Think about your passions and what inspires you. The interviewer will be able to tell if the job excites you because ultimately passion, hard work, and enthusiasm are what make great work!

Overall, my experience in the past 12 months has given me a real passion for digital marketing. My key takeaways from the year would be;