Digital Marketing Apprentice Review

I’m a digital marketing degree apprentice and work in the global marketing team for love beauty and planet. I work on the skin care team and work primarily on innovation. Day to day really varies and normally involves starting going through my emails. I will then likely have a couple of meetings in a day with either our local marketing teams or with our function teams.

I’ve learnt many new and also developed plenty of skills throughout my apprenticeship including both soft and hard skills. My marketing skills have been developed mainly through my learning at London South Bank University but also have been stretched further by applying different theories to real life work. At work I’ve also hugely developed my communication skills as I work with such a diverse group of people from all over the world.

I love my apprenticeship and enjoy both parts of the programme. I enjoy working at Unilever in such a big diverse company with purpose rooted at the heart of the organisation and culture. I also enjoy spending one day at university and being able to get face to face teaching with lectures.

The programme is well organised and balanced between university and work. Admittedly some weekends and evenings need to be set aside for university work, especially when deadlines are due, but it’s always manageable. I do think there can be greater synergies between work and university to fully maximise learning and usefulness but appreciate this can also be difficult to achieve.

Working for a global company means there are many support lines, trainings, apps and general other resources available to help and support me during my apprenticeship. I also have loads of support from my line manger and also wider team who are always on hand to offer up advice at any time.

I receive a lot of support from London south bank university, most notably from my course director Katrin Franke who is exceptional at her job. She is always on hand and super responsive to any questions or queries. There is also wider support available to students through various forums and teams.

I feel my degree thoroughly helps me to perform better in my role and sometimes helps me to stand out amongst other employees. Marketing as an industry is actually largely full of people with limited marketing specific qualifications. The theory I learn in class helps to understand the why and deeper reasoning of why we do things and make certain decisions.

Pre covid there was a lot of extra curricular activities and lots of networking events. Especially with external agencies and companies coming in to do talks. During covid many of these activities pivoted to online and currently there is a mix of activities. As apprentices we also go for drinks monthly.

Yes

I would recommend Unilever as it’s a great multinational company with a great purpose orientated culture. It has a strong leadership team and great leaders/managers throughout the company to help you learn and grow. The size of the business also means you can help make a significant change to whatever you work on.

My biggest advice is to firstly think if Unilever would be somewhere you could see yourself working. I would recommend to read about the compass strategy and think about your own personal purpose. I would also look into the brands we own and what some of the senior leaders are saying within the business.