Unilever Career Day organized with AIESEC

Hey guys,

As an active member of AIESEC this is like the last major event I took part in and I just wanted to share some of my thoughts here about the event and everything. Well this is not the first time I have seen a promotional campaign done by Unilever within the universities to attract potential candidates to their annual management trainee recruitment program which usually takes place in the mid July. And this time around Unilever partnered with AIESEC in this massive recruitment drive which is beneficial for both the parties.

The event took place on Friday, June 24th 2011 in the New Arts Theatre [NAT] Hall ,University of Colombo from 9.00am to 4.00pm as a full day event and which is quite unusual just for a recruitment but in the agenda for the day there were few interesting sessions with intriguing topics, Panel discussions and Personal experience sharing as well. So this wasn't a typical "This is who we are" kind of a promotional campaign but more of a "Come and see who we are and take something back with you when you leave" promotional campaign which is quite good for the brand name Unilever as well.

The whole event was promoted with social media (mostly facebook) and off-line poster promos as well. Then again the registrations were online (http://www.unilever.aiesecsl.org/) which was quite effective. And when it came to the sessions starting with the Introduction to Unilever by Mr. Thalib Caffoor the energy and livelihood was there and this was a very strong brand promotion I would have ever seen and the effects of lighting were even used in favour and made me realise how many brands of Unilever I use in my day-today life which I hardly knew as well. Kudos goes to the speaker Mr. Thalib Caffoor, Director Finance. The panel discussion was followed by the presentation and it was hosted by non other than Ajanthan Sivathas, One year senior fellow graduate from University of Moratuwa who is currently in the MT program of Unilever and alongside him it was Sandamali Perera, Gayani De-Alwis and Asanga Ranasinghe. The topic was "What do Industry Expected form a young Graduates" and I should say that the delegation took the most of this discussion as questions were pouring off the limit even though a screening was done to ensure that no same questions will be asked twice or more. The panel made sure that they answered most of the question in the allowed time for the discussion and the unanswered ones would be answered during the next sessions to come on the relevance. The discussion was very informative and it was like awesome if you are planning on to apply for the MT program as well. The next session was the most awaited session on the day to be frank and it was about the Unilever Management Trainee Process by Chathurika Amarakoon and Inoka Dias. They thoroughly went through with all the 5 steps in the process which are namely

• Application
• Aptitude Test
• Assessment Centre
• Final Interview
• Welcome On board

All these steps were explained extensively during this session and we broke out for lunch. Reuniting after the lunch was the time to introduce the largest student run organisation of the world - AIESEC which was done by Niradh Perera, the elect Member Committee President for AIESEC in Sri Lanka and then after the ice was broken by Ashan Jenabdeen with a rain dance :P All were set to step into the next session which was on Personal Branding was done with referral to a conch shell was quite interesting Ramani Samarasundera and she spoke about how to be the unique person just by being yourself wherever you go and whatever you do which was seconded by a Management Trainee who expressed herself in the last session My life at Unilever-Management Trainees sharing Experience. All 4 of the Trainees weren't hesitant to mention about the though challenging situation of actually being selected to the MT program but in a very positive and an enthusiastic manner. It was quite evident that Unilevers' walk the talk and an interesting point was emphasised which is that out of the 4 MTs who were sharing their experiences 2 had local degrees and other 2 had degrees out of the country. This shows that anyone is compatible to apply and be successful at Unilever MT program :) The day came to an official end with the vote of thanks plus a give away of a gift back for the delegation plus the organisers and I loved the gift pack too :D

Then again we ended up the with the AIESEC style of finishing an event with quite a few AIESEC jives and Damn I realised then only how an Alumni would feel when we used to dance all those new dances. I was a bit away due to a personal reason from AIESEC and damn 2-3 new awfully sexy jives has come up on the stage :D I shouldn't be much away as all those so called persona matters are dissolved for good! And this event was like the PERFECT ending point for quite a few AIESECers who were present at that day but we know still the take over is gonna be glorious this year! :)

Few points of improvements as I saw the event.

• Registering delegates were still a trouble so use more resources (human and technology) at the registration stations
• When you are registering the delegation online make sure the website/link is 100% functional at all the times and acknowledge with an email if possible with the seating arrangement if it's important. (Just an idea of mine)
  
• Few complains about the food saying that it was spoiled and so on. Take care of that and that's all :)
  

And Better yet the event was so glamorous and it's a hot topic still :) Hearing more regrets on not being able to participate and so on. Organising committee has done a tremendous job and kudos should go to them without a doubt! It's too bad that I don't have any photos to show off here but when they are uploaded to social media I shall post a link here as well.

Thank you letting me be a part of this wonderful event and I'm signing off from this post.

When you see this blog next time it'll be a completely different one I promise :D
Keep AIESECing!!