How to get a job at L’Oréal

I studied economics and neuroscience in Macalester College, St Paul, USA, before completing a masters in business management and marketing at Imperial College London. I chose to study at an American college initially because I could explore different options.

How I started at L’Oréal…

In my spare time I watched beauty influencers’ videos and felt I had to exist in that world, somehow. As a creative person I knew I would love working in marketing, creating campaigns and beautiful images. I’m a massive consumer of these products but it was a talk from a marketeer from L’Oréal Germany about launching a new product with L'Oréal , when I was at Imperial, that proved the catalyst for applying for this graduate scheme. She was so excited and happy and it made me feel the culture of the company was a good fit for me. It is the number one beauty company, so it was a no-brainer really.

… and how it’s going

I’m at the very end of my grad scheme now. You do three rotations during the 18 months you are on it, changing every six months to work on a different brand, function or path – each is a different world. In the future I will look for something online, e-commerce and creative – those three words should be in my job description! Someday I’d like to go and work for Maybelline in New York, or L’Oreal in Paris, or Urban Decay or NYX Professional Makeup in Los Angeles; there are so many opportunities.

Working here has given me insights into marketing. There are different teams doing different aspects of everything – and I didn’t know about this multifaceted, multidimensional side of the job, which is so exciting.

Key skills and traits

Creativity is important, since you are really envisioning something from scratch and bringing that to life. You’re thinking about the customer journey, from seeing an advertisement online, to clicking through to the landing page on say, Amazon.com, and shopping. But although you’re being creative, everything we do at L’Oréal is driven by data and you have to drive the insight into actionable and tangible elements. That understanding comes from measurable data, so you have to be analytical.

Being collaborative is another trait you’ll need, though the scale of the collaboration involved depends on the size of the team that you are in. So for instance, I might sit across consumer products brands, L’Oréal Paris, Maybelline, Essie, NYX Professional and Garnier, and I would talk and work with all of them – from the merchandising team and the social brand managers, to the account managers. You need to pull that knowledge in to be able to create something, so you also need to be super-organised.

Career highlights so far

There have been so many! ‘TikTok made me buy it’ remains special to me. It was my first campaign at that scale and was nationwide across Boots, Superdrug, Amazon, Beautybay and TikTok – it was such a massive event and I really had to upskill to understand and action it. For the first month or so after I joined that team I was between line managers, which looking back was a blessing in disguise because I worked directly with more senior people. So while I was supported 100%, I also had to be more autonomous. I got to present to the zone teams for a while, which at my level was very exciting. I was experiencing a lot of things for the first time and that was special.

Beyond the marketing

We’re not focused on only the money-making side of the business and one of my favourite aspects of the company is they recognise the importance of the people working here. There’s so much emphasis on caring and even the most senior people will find time for you. We also have mental health conversations and if you are having a busy week and you get a surprise invitation to a talk that allows you to think about something else for a while it can be so nice. In addition we have citizen days, when we go into the community – we might be painting fences or teaching kids at schools, for example.

I’ve just joined one of the many employee resource groups that we have: ‘Out at L’Oréal’, aimed at LGBTQ+ members and allies. They work around supporting Pride events and sponsorship.

We do get little treats too, which can be super fun and make you feel connected to the company: new launches, such as a Lancôme pop-up in the café where you can go and get shade-matched, for example, or being able to try a new Prada fragrance before it goes to the market.

Top tips for applicants

The premise of the grad scheme is that we’re not looking for marketing experts but people who are genuinely interested in working here. You get a lot of responsibility from the start, a world away from any impression you might have that you’ll be making coffee and doing boring tasks. Do your research beyond the careers website. L’Oréal is looking for passionate people, but it’s not enough just to say, ‘I love L’Oreal Paris’ or ‘I love your brands’; you need to dive deeper. Reach out to people on LinkedIn, for example, and even if you send ten messages and only get one reply that can give you a greater insight.

Be open and share your experience. During one of my interviews I mentioned to a senior product manager from Lancôme that I’d researched a toxic chemical that I knew L'Oréal had banned from its products. It was irrelevant to marketing but I made a connection because that person was so interested.

Finally, I’ve seen friends apply to dozens of places and though that might have worked for them I didn’t find it a productive strategy for me, because you can’t focus your energy on the one thing that you love while you are spreading yourself too thin. That was the strategy I followed. I knew L'Oréal was the place for me.