Formulation Student Review

Item: Formulation Student at Unilever
Rating: 3.6
Author: Anonymous

at Unilever

Placement (10 Months+)

Chemistry, Consumer Products/FMCG

Leeds, UK

Review Submitted: June 2026

Overall Rating

3.6 /5

The Overall Rating is the average of all the ratings given in each category. We take those individual ratings and combine them into one final score!

5/5 - Overview of Role

4.5/5 - Skills Development

3.5/5 - Support and Guidance

2/5 - Company Culture

5/5 - Overall Experience

3/5 - Future Career Prospects

Overview of Role

Please give an overview of your role and what this involves on a day-to-day basis.

As a formulation student my day to day is very variable, tasks include:
- planning experiments
- carrying out experiments
- writing up experiments through a lab report network system
- presenting data to other teams involved (technology, format, brand, and consumer insights teams)
- the job is very discussion based to try and understand data found through experiments and to understand which decisions the data impacts

Were you given much responsibility during your placement / internship?

i was given a significant amount of responsibility leading my own technology workstream and being the primary contact for everything to do with this technology. I was in charge of building the network around this technology and driving key decisions and meetings.
This responsibility has contributed greatly to my personal and professional development, especially when considering my confidence, leadership skills and scientific skills.

Please rate how meaningful the work you were doing was

5/5

Skills Development

Have you learnt any new skills, or developed your existing skills?

I have learnt or developed the following skills:
- scientific rigor - experimental design and understanding data through analysis of fundamental first principles
- leadership - building an effective network around me, presenting confidently, knowing how to execute decisions without relying on others, knowing when to escalate issues, knowing when to strategically say no and providing sufficient justification for why, stakeholder engagement
- business awareness - linking scient to industry, understanding and comparing business restrictions with scientific restrictions, understanding cost and scalability
- collaboration and teamworking
- analytical thinking and problem solving

How would you rate the training provided during your experience?

5/5

How would you rate your development of industry-specific skills during the experience?

5/5

How would you rate your development of personal / soft skills during the experience?

4/5

Please rate how these skills have helped you in your career development

4/5

Support and Guidance

How much support and guidance did you receive during your placement / internship?

lots of support available. I had multiple teams and a network of different people surrounding me. I had an assigned buddy that was my first point of contact for any issues during the whole year. I also had a very supportive line manager that helped with and understood any personal or professional issues.
The workstream that i lead sat within a technology platform. The leader of this platform also provided scientific guidance and helped build the foundation for how i approach experimental design.

How would you rate the support and guidance from your line manager?

2/5

How would you rate the support and guidance from the wider team?

5/5

Company Culture

What was the company culture and general atmosphere like?

Company culture was okay. Everyone is very warm and welcoming however an issue at the site i was working at was the lack of ethnic diversity. Although the team were very understanding about the importance of inclusion, they often did not understand the differences in lived experiences between different ethnicities within the UK. This has manifested in a lack of inclusive food options in the canteen or events where alcohol is the main reason to go - this isn't very inclusive of other peoples beleifs and was often overlooked

How would you rate the inclusiveness of the culture?

3/5

How would you rate the social opportunities?

1/5

How would you rate the diversity initiatives?

2/5

How would you rate the charity, sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives?

2/5

Overall Experience

To what extent did you enjoy your placement / internship?

if i had to rate my enjoyment on a scale of 1 to 10 i would rate it a 9. I thoroughly enjoyed the projects i worked on and the people that i worked with. The only shortfall was the workload of juggling my dissertation, lectures and my placement :)

Please rate your level of enjoyment on your placement / internship

5/5

Please rate how your experience met your expectations

5/5

Recommendations & Advice

Would you recommend Unilever to a friend?

Yes

What advice would you give to others applying to Unilever

- Understand that your time is short and will fly by, make the most of it by speaking to people you wouldn't usually (eg the leadership team), this can give you great insights into how other people work.
- there are no silly questions, people love to help
- no one is expecting you to be great at the job as soon as you start, manage your workload effectively and dont take on too much all at once - pace yourself and the outputs will be of a higher quality
- try to work with unilevers behaviours in mind, they are a great framework for feeling productive and purpose driven
Advice for prospective applicants:
- make use of yor career team - cv and cover letter reviews, mock interviews, practice assessment centers, practice online tests will be available
- tailor each application, do your research