Research and Development Industrial Placement Student Review

Item: Research and Development Industrial Placement Student at Unilever
Rating: 3.9
Author: Anonymous

at Unilever

Placement (10 Months+)

Consumer Products/FMCG

Wirral

Review Submitted: May 2023

Overall Rating

3.9 /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!

3/5 - Overview of Role

3.5/5 - Skills Development

4.5/5 - Support and Guidance

4.3/5 - Company Culture

4/5 - 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.

Work as part of the R&D Unilever Professional team. My daily work is varied - had the chance to experience lots of different projects whether that be in packaging, formulation, appraisal, digital commerce. Some days I will be in the lab but mainly work in the office or from home.

Were you given much responsibility during your placement / internship?

I had the opportunity to try many different things during placement. Some of these activities didn't have much responsibility (e.g. filling out spreadsheets) but some projects I helped to lead and had real outcomes from my work. Overall given more responsibility later on in my placement

Please rate how meaningful the work you were doing was

3/5

Skills Development

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

Developed presentational skills, workplace confidence, business acumen, whilst also developing my scientific knowledge

How would you rate the training provided during your experience?

3/5

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

3/5

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?

I received really great support from my line manager and she helped guide me at certain points. Had weekly check in calls with her which were really useful. Always made sure I was on track and didn't feel uncomfortable with my work load.

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

5/5

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

4/5

Company Culture

What was the company culture and general atmosphere like?

Very friendly atmosphere within my team. Around the actual building wasn't as friendly. Always someone to help you out though. If I messaged people for help normally they would message back. However, in terms of the wider company, on a 'Your call' there was a comment saying that Unilever waste money on placement students and it got a lot of likes from people within the company - maybe not inclusive.

How would you rate the inclusiveness of the culture?

4/5

How would you rate the social opportunities?

4/5

How would you rate the diversity initiatives?

4/5

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

5/5

Overall Experience

To what extent did you enjoy your placement / internship?

I really enjoyed my placement at Unilever. Think this may be dependent on your team and projects you work on. In my case I really liked my team and line manager and got myself in many different projects