Pros
Great leadership: I had a string of good leaders who genuinely cared and tried their best to support me. Great people: I met good people in Unilever, whether it was in my cohort, within my team or from different functions. The people I met are probably the most meaningful takeaways from my experience! Independence: A double edged sword for better or for worse, I was given a lot of responsibility very fast and expected to hit the ground running. A great opportunity but also challenging for certain.
Cons
While the following is not necessarily a con, it does reflect one of the challenges I faced while at Unilever ~ Work has depth and breadth. While this can be be taken as a pro for sure, it gets tough to manage a portfolio with both a lot of operational and strategic tasks. Being proactive is a necessity to get the job done but because there is a layer of knowledge fragmentation when it comes to operational tasks, these can become a nuisance and a time sink unless maybe you ruthlessly push and prioritise. The presence of strategic tasks in my portfolio was a great opportunity to learn, think critically and make decisions that truly matter. I think I would have benefitted from greater mentorship to master the strategic skills needed here, with the onus being on both myself and the company to create that guidance.