Unilever Interview Questions & Answers

- Online Tests straight after you submit your application
- If your application is successful you're invited to a Phone Interview
- If you're successful after the phone interview invited to an Assessment Centre

Phone Interview:
- Mainly standard competency based questions. Really useful to read up on the FMCG industry, factors affecting it, what the big issues are at the moment, why do you want to do that job, what makes you a good manager, why would you be good for this programme, what makes you stand out, why finance ect. Really read up on the competition and what other competitors are doing, who they are and really why Unilever stands out from the rest. Also good to know lots of their products

"Why do you want to do finance and the CIMA rather than investment banking or consulting?"- Difficult as you needed evidence on how you decided those careers weren't for you. Just google competency questions to give you a better idea and make sure that you have to mind experiences that show off each competency. Also don't necessarily memorise your answers word for word as you can come off as rigid and they can tell you're reading from a script.

They can tell who wants the job and who is genuinely interested in the industry as it really shows on the commercial questions during the interview. Also they only take on a small amount of graduates each year so competition is extremely high. Plus they send their interns to the assessment centre with other applicants so they ultimately have the upper hand as they have been through the same process before, sometimes the same case studies, know a lot more about the company. Don't let them try and intimidate you or put you off with how confident they are about getting the job- they don't always.

Assessment centre in their offices.
- Usually roughly 6 per group but could be 4 or 8 depending on how many can attend.
day consists of:
- Group Task: standard group task. You're giving a point or company that you have to support for the task but you can change your point of view (they explain everything extremely well). Get your point across without dominating, give everyone a chance to speak, don't speak over people, don't stick to your point if everyone else thinks differently as it doesn't move the task along, don't be aggressive or shout.

- Case study: you do this on your own by yourself and there's nothing you can do to prepare for this as you'll be tested on how well you can read, analyse, write down, assess and draw conclusions from a vast piece of data which changes due to what function you've applied for. You may then have to present this info to someone else, just pick out the key points. Its easy to lose time reading the entire document.

- One on One Interview: this is the easiest part of the day and is a one on one interview with a senior manager or member of the first. This is just like the phone interview, and although they advise against it you really can use the same answers if you have to.

Whole day lasts around 8-9 hours with lunch and usually contact you the next day as to the result. I don't think they have an exact quota of how many to put through each assessment centre, but to be honest due to the small numbers they hire I think only 1 or 2 people get through on average per assessment.

My interview lasted for 1h 15mins on the phone. This time comprised mainly of six different sets of competency questions assessing e.g. team work, leadership, creativity and ability to deal with difficult situations and people. The woman on the phone was rather nice, however she had to push me a lot for more detail in some of my answers. I had prepared answers to expected topics, however the questions I got combined several of these competencies, making it difficult to come up with a good thorough answer on the spot. The remainder of the interview dealt with my knowledge of the company, especially their competitors and products.

Describe a situation where you have had to make a difficult decision quickly and where you have demonstrated ability convince others of your views and decisions.

Be confident, speak loud and clearly and be lively, try to smile whilst talking on the phone as if you were talking to a person in front of you. Your voice can make a big difference. Stop to think if you need time.

I did not get through to the assessment centre stage