Chemistry Fragrance Apprentice Review

I work for the Hair category in Unilever. I manage the Dove fragrance portfolio with my manager. I have to carry out fragrance evaluations daily. Write briefs for new projects. Take part in kick off meetings for new projects. Deal with external fragrance house companies.

I have learnt how differently the Hair fragrance team works in comparison to the Homecare team. I have developed new ways of evaluating fragrances with it being on hair swatches instead of laundry towels. I have also learnt different procedures on how to wash swatches and feedback to the team on fragrance evaluations.

I enjoy the fragrance side of the scheme and being able to build on my olfactive capability. I struggle a lot with the academic side of my apprenticeship scheme when in University. I find the chemistry degree extremely difficult and so don't enjoy that as much. The scheme as a whole I enjoy. I have met reat people and believe Unilever is a nice environment to work in

This is debatable. Some aspects of the scheme are run well. The team I am currently in at the minute is working with me well but I do wish I had more projects to manage like my last rotation. The co-ordinator for our programme is alwys a friendly face to go to if you have any queries but there are no regular check ins and so she doesn't really have a clue what any of us are doing.

The support is always there if you need it. It is a case of just contacting someone for help and if they can't help you, there will always be someone they can get you in contact with that can. We have plenty of resources both online and onsite that can help with any issues regarding the scheme, financial issues, mental health, etc. I think these can be really serious issues and Unilever as a great network to help employees with this.

If by training provider, you mean the University, the support varies. Our Chemistry support office is brilliant in helping with you with any queries, as are some lecturers. However, some lecturers are more difficult to approve for help and can be quite abrupt when approached which makes you not want to ask for help off them again.

For me, the Chemistry degree won't directly affect my day to day work. With working in the fragrance team, the role is more of a project managers role and not necessarily a lab based environment. Therefore, my degree will be very rarely used. However, I am hoping to get more closely involved with perfume in the future and I believe that the degree will help me in the future

Yes, there are plenty. The gym is a very popular option with multiple classes being held, before, during and after work. It seems to be a really good social circle. The fragrance team is invited to BSP (British Society of Perfumery) events every quarter which is really interesting and great to meet people in the same industry.

Yes

I would reccomend it due to the company being very prestigious and having multiple connections within the industry. However, I believe it is extremely hard to build yourself up within the company and the pay seems to be significantly lower to other companies. Therefore, I would recommend as a stepping stone, maybe a job for straight after university to gain some experience

Learn the ways of working within Unilever and the ethics behind their products. It is great to see that Unulever prizes themselves on working to help the environment with their products and helping educate poorer countries on hygiene. Also read around the programmes Unilever have in place like STEM events and Dove body confidence.