Alexandra Sweeney

Country of origin: United Kingdom

Placement: L'Oreal

I felt that a placement year would substantially increase my graduate opportunities, giving me transferrable skills that would really appeal to future employers. I’ve gained experiences that not many other students graduating this year will have experienced which will give me an advantage when applying for graduate schemes. I also wanted to challenge myself and get a real taste of what marketing actually is.

My role at L’Oreal was predominantly marketing but due to the nature of marketing at L’Oreal this meant I was often project managing and working across the sales function due to working on a small brand. I worked on a brand called essie, which is very new in the UK market. It is a nail varnish brand and I was working in the B2B section, selling the nail varnish to nail salons as opposed to drug stores such as Boots or Superdrug. I worked on merchandising, sales tools, pricing, digital and PR.

My placement experience was incredible, in every sense of the word! It was very fast paced and no two days were ever the same. People often say this but this was really the case. I was be given real responsibility for budgets, projects and new product launches. This was fantastic and although it was pretty tough in the first month, the amount of responsibility enabled me to find my feet quickly and to really make a difference to my team and brand.

There are so many things I loved about my placement, being in London, working the FMCG industry, my team: they were all called Emma! I’d be lying if I didn’t say that one of the coolest things was testing the products: nail varnish and shampoo! On a more serious note, the fact that I wasn’t just treated, as an intern but a vital part of a team and larger part of the organisation made me feel valued. I liked the fact that the work and projects I completed made a difference to the brand. If I thought of an idea, I was given the responsibility to see it through.

I found that the careers team were very helpful in the overall process of getting a placement. Rory was able to look over my CV to help me pinpoint areas that needed improvement and areas that were already strong. Louise looked over one or two of my covering letters to ensure that I was doing myself justice from the start of my applications. I was fortunate that I didn’t have any problems on my placement. The visit from Rory before Christmas was good as it meant that I could mention positive aspects about my placement and if there was an issue it would have been a good opportunity to discuss this.

Following on from graduating from LUMS, I want to still work in the FMCG sector although I am keen to try a different area such as food instead of beauty. My placement gave me a very good foundation as to how consumer goods work in terms of the supply chain, selling, merchandising and pricing in a B2B set up. I learned to be much more of a multi-tasker. For instance, my to-do list would never be completed in one day, I would have to juggle different things and different times in order to keep all the plates spinning to get all my different projects completed on time. I’ve become a lot more organised and feel more confident. I am able to just pick up the phone and speak to people and get things done quicker and more efficiently.