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My name is Scott Purdum and I'm a Procurement Manager for our packaging at Unilever,
based in Rotterdam. I graduated in 2009 and I did the Logistics sandwich course at Aston University.
I think there are two main things I could take forward with me. One of them was the
insistence almost
on doing a sandwich course. The placement experience gave me such a head start
when I got into the workplace.
You know - it's a year where... you can make mistakes, you can learn, you can really develop
and try new things out, so that when you come into a
full-time role or a graduate program, you've already got some experience
behind you which I think helps a great deal.
The other thing as well is that the logistics course was a real representation
of what Unilever does within the supply chain, so the content
of the course was very much aligned to all of the roles I've done in Unilever.
If we take my current role in procurement, one of the modules I
studied was strategic procurement
and actually some of the models that I was exposed to within the course,
we're actually using in real life - obviously we've taken our own
interpretation and we use those within our category
but yeah - very much so - all the things I learned there were very useful.
Directly after my placement year, I went straight into a summer placement
with Unilever, which is another route you can get in to the business
and gain some experience.
But what I did see is the opportunity that the company gave you and also the
graduate schemes so I was really inspired after that experience to come onto the
graduate programme.
There's a lot of things about Unilever that I found inspiring and interesting.
You know, starting from sustainability and responsibility
for not only our own people but the world's people. You know, there's some
great stuff like the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, which really
stood out to me.
The graduate programme itself is very structured -
it's intense but it's focused on your development and the amount of
support that you get is fantastic.
You can have a career which exposes you to many different areas of the business,
different functions.
You know, joining in supply chain, you can move through manufacturing, procurement,
distribution service, but you could also go into sales,
you can go into marketing after that - there's nothing that stops you, you know?
There aren't any boundaries really, between those different silos.
My first role - I was working on one of our large UK sales accounts, managing Ben & Jerrys promotions
which was fantastic. You know, I didn't sample quite as much
as I would have liked but it was a great opportunity.
I then went to lead a team in our Norwich factory which produces the historic Colman's brand.
I then went to Leeds, to work in our global
supply chain capability - an R&D centre -
yeah, that was one of the places I enjoyed the most because I was helping to develop
new technologies for our aerosol business
and then finally I had a six-month placement in Schaffhausen, which is our European hub
called the USCC, which is a great role working in the beverage
planning, looking at our overall network, so a more strategic role.
So working for Unilever is highly rewarding
in many senses, and it's about developing yourself, it's about those
leadership roles where you can have a direct influence on coaching,
leading and developing others, and allowing other people to
achieve their full potential - that's one of the things that I find the most satisfying in any
role that I've undertaken.