Overview
The Unilever Future Leaders Programme (UFLP) is a three-year program offered by the well-known British company Unilever. It develops into various categories of jobs, such as customer development and marketing, and into multiple cities of the world. It is a unique opportunity for early-career professionals who recently graduated and wish to enhance their leadership skills.
Experience of a Graduate
Recently, DreamanDo’s team had the opportunity to interview Jules Ronne, an International Business Master’s graduate who is currently pursuing the second year of UFLP. His path within Unilever focuses on the marketing trade, which consists of a mix between customer development and pure marketing and develops in three rotations (one rotation per year).
As part of the program, Jules had the chance to move to different cities: the suburbs of Paris during the first year and Strasburg during the second year. As a matter of fact, the company offers a great variety of placements arranged in different locations, among which Unilever global headquarter in London and the regional headquarter in Rotterdam.
As for the tasks, Jules got the opportunity to work on various projects for several brands, among the over 400 that Unilever owns, like Lysoform, and to operate both individually and with teams. In Strasburg, for instance, he was working on his own as a Sale Specialist and managing the product supply of groups of clients (i.e., supermarkets). On another occasion, instead, he was working as Junior Product Manager within the marketing department and, therefore, together with the researching development team, legal team, trade team, and brand development team. As for the latter position, his tasks included mainly product development and media advertisement.
Even if Jules started this experience during the Covid-19 pandemic and, thus, was working remotely during the first whole year of the program, he really appreciated the feeling of being in a team, the welcoming and availability of Unilever employees, always willing to help and involve the new members, but also the autonomy and responsibility he gained from the first day in the company.
[…] the feeling of being in a team, the welcoming and availability of Unilever employees, always willing to help and involve the new members, but also the autonomy and responsibility he gained from the first day in the company.
The experience overall is very enriching: as a member of the UFLP, Jules had the opportunity to engage with a lot of different experts from different countries in the world, India and Brazil for example, to enlarge his knowledge and develop his personal skills as a Future Leader. He definitely suggests the program to other graduates!
Useful information on the application procedure
The applications for the program are open several times a year, three times for the positions in France for instance, and the recruitment process consists of four steps.
- Firstly, there is an online application form to complete, which can be found on the Unilever website.
- The second step involves a psychological test which consists of different online games constructed to define cognitive, emotional, and social traits.
- The third step is a digital interview, in which graduates are asked to solve a real-case Unilever scenario.
- And finally, the last step entails a virtual assessment centre with group interviews, one-to-one interview with the interviewer and the managers, and several team meetings.