How I End Up Being a Marketing Intern at Unilever Indonesia

So the next day I went to their building in Gatot Subroto. From the attendance list, I saw that almost all of them came from either UI, ITB, or abroad universities in Singapore or the USA. I already felt small at that time. [Someone even commented that it was unusual to see a Binus student there hahaha]

That day, the FGD and interview were only for those who applied for the Marketing department. For the FGD, me and 5 other students were put inside a room. We were given a study case, and after 20 minutes, each of us had to present our own analysis and solution (in English). We were also instructed to agree or disagree with our friend's opinion [and thus having a small debate]. The representatives from Unilever’s HR team and marketing team were there to see and observe our performance.

After the nerve-wrecking FGD, here came the final interview process. When I walked into the room, there were already 6 people waiting from me: 1 people from the HR team, and 5 people from the marketing team. Each one of them was the Brand Manager for Lifebuoy, Royco, Dove and other Unilever brands.  The interview was also done in full English, and it lasted for around 20 minutes. I was asked a lot about the marketing world, about myself, about my organizational experiences, etc. I think that it is really important to have our own “personal branding” that could distinguish us from the other applicants. For this phase, you need to read a lot about Unilever (what they are doing, what their values are,etc]; about marketing; and also dig deeper about ourselves. Unilever puts great concern about our character and personalities so just be yourself during the interview!

2 weeks later, I got a call from Unilever stating that I was accepted to this ULIP program! I would be an intern for Rexona and was given a project to do during my internship. Being an intern at Unilever really made me learn a lot of things. At that time, Rexona was having a big re-launch called Rexona Motionsense (you definitely must have seen it either on TV, stores, billboard ads and online ads). I was really grateful that I could see and experience how the marketing team for Rexona prepared and worked for this big relaunch. I also had the chance to attend Rexona’s press conference back in October and it was amazing!

For my intern project, I was given a full responsibility for the in-store project of this Rexona Motionsense re-launch. The Rexona Team was so helpful and didn’t hold back to give me any advice and guidance that I needed. After 3 months of hard work, my project was finally running in the stores around Java and Medan! I was so proud and happy to see it in real life :D

The last phase of being an intern at Unilever was presenting our project in front of the managers. In short, we need to be responsible for our project, present what the results are and answer all the questions they gave us. Then they will give us feedback about our performances so we could develop ourselves into a better person!

Overall, this internship experience was an eye-opening experience for me.  Thank you Unilever for giving me this amazing opportunity :) 

 

(Ivana Monica, ULIP 2015)