“Is this really happening?”
That thought lingered in my mind during this whole process. I never imagined that it would REALLY happen, as it was said that out of 800-900 applicants per year, Unilever only accepts 30-40 interns for all departments.
It all started back in April 2015. I was doing an exchange program in Seoul, South Korea and it was two months before I returned back to Indonesia. I was just lying around in my bed until I started wondering, what will I do when I return back home? Every year, Binus University has a 3-month holiday from July until September and I don’t want to spend my time doing nothing.
So I browsed around the internet and looked for an activity that I could do to spend my upcoming holiday. I remembered googling various things such as volunteers, part-time jobs, freelance jobs, and also internship.
Unilever came across my mind but I felt that it was too difficult to do an internship there. I opened up their website (www.unilever.co.id/careers/] and they were opening the application period for ULIP 2015. I decided to just give it a try. The first phase was online application. There were a lot of columns to fill in and essays to write in. Aside from my education background, achievement, awards and other hard skills I possess, they also asked a lot about my leadership experiences, personal values and motivation, and also my goals and dreams. I spent around 45 minutes just to fill in the form! You have to be patient and focus during this phase.
After I submitted the online application form, nothing happened. I didn’t get any confirmation email or any news telling whether my application was rejected or not. I even forgot about it, until a month later, an email came in. I got accepted into the second phase, which was the aptitude online test.
The online test was mathematics, in a multiple choice format. We were given a time limit (I think it was 30 seconds?) to answer every question. My mind went blank during the test as I was really bad at Maths and was pressured by the time limit. After that test, I didn’t get any notification so I thought that that was the end of my journey.
But miracle came in a month later.
It was June 29th, the day of my return flight back to Indonesia. It was a 7-hour flight from Seoul to Jakarta, and during that time my phone was completely off. My family picked me up at the airport and suddenly my dad asked me whether I applied something to Unilever. He said someone from Unilever called him (because they couldn’t reach me) and asked whether I could come to their office the next day. I nervously searched for Wi-Fi and found an email from Unilever; saying that I was invited to their third and fourth phase of ULIP application: the Focus Group Discussion and Final Interview!
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!
(Ivana Monica, ULIP 2015)