Last week I talked about how Reckitt Benckiser Pakistan had swiftly reacted to the recent flood hazards that has struck the country and what the organization and its employees are doing to play their role in society by aiding the community to survive and rebuild their lives.

This week however I shall be talking about how Reckitt Benckiser Pakistan as a business has adapted to this abrupt change in environment to ensure the business concern muddles through the heavy storms and difficult times.

Once the storms were pertinent, sales teams warned all employees, distributors and stakeholders beforehand and were advised for a swift evacuation from their respective cities.
RB stocks were kept at higher positions to avoid damages at all distributions and employees were geographically shifted to safe locations.

Since the markets were flooded, business was seemingly looking bad. But with the RB spirit instilled within the organization, sales teams sought out NGOs and other human–aid agencies to neutralize the sales lost due to floods; a vast array of consumer promotions and new product developments were introduced with smart trade plans to satisfice business potential.
When an acute shortage of petrol was being faced in my area, we got bicycles and CNG Rickshaws to do the selling. All that was needed then was the ever reliable RB team spirit to achieve great business value through individual strides congruent to the overall objectives.

Reckitt Benckiser is an organization that teaches its employees to never secede to difficult challenges, rather through unconventional and smart planning, Reckitt Benckiser relies on its fantastic fast-paced, adaptive culture to think creatively and act in accordance to the situation.
It is this never-die and can-do approach prevailing in the organization that defines Reckitt Benckiser as a unique organization in today’s business world.

It is often said that, as a Reckitt Benckiser Campus Brand Manager, I have the “best job on campus”.

Whilst my friends are slaving away in fast food restaurants and reading their scripts in uninspiring call centres I am creating events which are designed to help promote one of the FTSE’s top companies.

As an RB Campus Brand Manager it’s my job to promote the company so everyone on campus has heard of the RB brand!

In light of the World Cup and the excitement of the new season kicking off I have been thinking of events which combine a passion for football and RB materials.

I have come up with RB flip-flop penalties!

As you can imagine from the name the event is designed to challenge you and make you, quite literally, slip up. As always with RB if you triumph over the challenge you can get rewarded.  In this case if you manage to reach the back of the net you will be greatly rewarded with a pair of Havaiana flip flops.

But it’s not as easy as taking a normal penalty – as the England squad usually struggle with them – players will be challenged by wearing flip-flop themselves. Try not to fall over!

This is an event which is sure to have some memorable moments and something is telling me most of these will be embarrassing.

Did anyone see Aston Villa striker John Carew superbly miss his early penalty chance against Newcastle United?

This is just a taste of the events I will be running on campus at Aston University over the coming year. My fellow Campus Brand Managers are breaking world records, infiltrating clubs during Fresher’s week and giving students beauty makeovers!

However, I am not just designing events for students I am expanding and utilizing my marketing skills and putting them to the test.

A large part of my job is about using the social media platform Facebook to attract students to RBs very informative and well developed pages – from the careers website, to this blog, Linked In and also on Twitter. Feel free to check out what’s new on the RB Aston page!

But it’s not all about Facebook; there is also a serious side where each of us has KPIs (key performance indicators) to meet.

I really enjoy my job as I get to work on a marketing project which has great scope and potential. I’m working for a fantastic company which has a turnover of billions and I am starting my professional career whilst still at university making some great contacts along the way.

Did I mention they sent me abroad for a business conference!

I don’t mean to go on about how much I love my job but there is method to this madness. Somehow there is still a vacancy on one of the most exclusive and exciting roles available at Reckitt Benckiser, the Campus Brand Manager for Bath University!

For more details and information about the role you can either ask myself or have a read here.

The gloomy post graduation employability prospect for students and recent graduates is always a hot topic in the media and I am sure has left many of us worried. An update published by graduate recruitment organisation High Fliers highlighted that competition is toughest for graduate positions in consumer goods manufacturers (like Reckitt Benckiser) where this year employers received at least 70 applications per graduate position.

Just from reading these blogs you will understand that graduate schemes in RB and similar companies can offer us huge opportunities to develop ourselves, progress to management quickly and set a great learning platform for our future careers. So what can we as students do to increase our chances of attracting employers’ attention? How can we ensure our applications are on the top of the pile on HR managers’ desks? Simple we need to have more on our CVs than just glowing grades! A placement is a perfect example of what can give you an advantage in a competitive job market.

The biggest hurdle for students looking for a position after they graduate is lack of experience. It is a catch 22 situation – you need to get a job to gain experience, but you can not get the job without experience. Placements are a good way to get around this as you gain the experience you need, and employers are willing to hire students you they know have little of it.

But what are the benefits of placement for you and why do many employers prefer or even mandate applicants who have relevant work experience?

1. Work Experience

You gain work experience, a chance to use the skills you have learned at university and apply to them real projects. You also have the chance to add to this education as companies are often willing to train and help develop interns professionally.

2. Core Skills

You learn to develop core skills such as working to multiple high priority project deadlines in a pressured environment, influencing and negotiating, leading projects, business writing, managing expectations, presenting and as your internship goes on you will only improve.

3. Job Offer

Internships are often treated as a long interview during this time if you prove you are capable, determined and ambitious. The company will often make you a job offer to rejoin them once you graduate.

4. Trial Run

It is a chance to trial run the industry and the company and confirm first hand if it is the area/place you want to work in. Maybe you are not sure that a certain job is right for you, internships give you the chance to try a job for a short time so that you can make an informed decision about your career in the future.

5. Recommendations

Recommendations from people in the industry, and even from the company that you are applying to will add weight to your application.

6. Better CV

Your work experience will lead to an impressive CV and give you many excellent examples to draw on for graduate job applications and interviews.

7. Networking

They are a great way to meet people in your field. An internship allows you to meet people who you can learn from and gain contacts within the field you are trying to get into.

So in short employers want people who have had this type of exposure.

Start to craft your career early and plan for the future. I can honestly say that my year in industry and my summer placement are among the best things I have ever done, and I know that it will give me the edge when applying for graduate jobs.

If you would like to know more about RB placements and summer internships please click here.

Pakistan is currently facing the worst ever torrential rains and floods in its history. Some 14 million people have been affected in the nation’s worst deluge in 80 years, with more than a thousand feared dead and huge loss to property. In this hour of need, people from all across the country and beyond are coming forward to extend their support and rehabilitate the victims through cash and kind.

As part of the annual Independence Day Celebrations at RB Pakistan, we collaborated with Pakistan Red Crescent Society & Pehla Qadam (“First Step”) to provide relief goods and essential food items to survivors in the most affected areas.

The activity had a two- fold objective, which was to provide maximum support to the flood victims and to engage RB employees through the altruistic deed. What was calculated to be a 2 hour activity, in true RB fashion, we managed to wrap up in less than an hour with 50 boxes filled, taped and stacked, ready to be sent over to the PRCS.

We managed to collectively contribute towards the rehabilitation process for the numerous displaced in the current natural calamity. The day was a tremendous success, showcasing true RB team spirit and re-igniting the humanitarian spirit in all of us.

First and foremost, if you’re wondering who I am, I work for part of Euro RSCG – the advertising agency who help create, amongst other things, TV ads for the Powerbrands. Except my team does something a little bit different. Instead of advertising to consumers, we work with RB to help communicate their corporate brand to a very specific group of people –prospective employees.  Over the four years we’ve worked together, we’ve been involved in a number of different projects from the global careers site to the poweRBrands game.

One of the things I’ve learnt is that it’s very fast moving and not afraid to make a decision quickly. I recall reviewing some competitor analysis once with a team of people from RB. One of the example ads was for L’Oreal and it’s main ‘sell’ focused around the seven years of R&D they had invested in a new product.
“That would never happen here” one of them exclaimed “that product would have been researched, developed and launched inside 6 months.”
I think that sums it up quite nicely. While it can be quite nerve racking from a strategic point of view – you do see things happen here.

One of the most important parts of our work involves understanding what makes the working culture of a business unique. Linked to that we need to identify the benefits that culture offers to you as a potential applicant.

Which brings me nicely to the reason I’m writing this blog.
Opportunity has been identified as the essence of the RB brand when talking about what it’s like to work there and what it can offer you. So I wanted to explain what I think opportunity means at RB.

It was immediately apparent to me that there is something quite unique about RB.
When you start to uncover some of the recent history of the company it jumps out at you. The speed of growth. The amount of revenue that comes from new products. The large scale acquisitions – from BHI to, most recently, SSL (Durex and Cillit Bang anyone?). But once you look below the surface, you quickly realise that it’s the RB culture that enables it to thrive.

“Delivering is everything at RB’ a client once said to me”. Now I know that’s true of everywhere to some extent, but it’s even more true at RB where there’s a real emphasis on outperformance. Objectives and goals are incredibly ambitious, and people are stretched as part of their daily life. This is true for both employees and suppliers – which has led to some quite frantic times if I’m honest! And there’s no hiding if a project’s going awry.
Ownership is non negotiable and I get the feeling that you’re only as good as your last project – and its commercial impact.
This culture might sound challenging – and it is. But it also offers tremendous opportunities throughout the business.
I’ve not seen an ounce of fat on RB – which means people are often empowered to perform roles with a huge array of different responsibilities. To illustrate this point I was speaking recently with one of the US media team. In his role he’s responsible for buying all of the online advertising inventory across North America, encompassing search, display and video amongst others. A role that would be conducted by a whole team of specialists at P&G or Unilever!

And you don’t have to look far to find more examples of this kind of story  too. One of our contacts (who I won’t mention to spare their blushes) is working in about their third country, having already launched a brand in a new market and is now in their fourth or fifth different role within the business. What’s more, this kind of exposure and progression is the norm, rather than the exception to the rule.

Perhaps the best example for me comes from a recent Corporate Communications workshop I attended in Lisbon. As part of their UK graduate attraction strategy, RB have recruited campus brand managers to help promote the brand at their target universities.
One of the first recruits was given the chance to attend the workshop and present his ideas to a room full of HR and communications professionals. He’s currently in his first year at university. He’s not even working for the company yet, but what an experience!
So for me, RB is about giving you as much opportunity as you can handle. It can be a case of ‘sink or swim’, but the opportunity is to achieve far more than you would in a comparable organisation. All you need is the desire to take advantage of it.

I think the last part of that statement is very important. I don’t think RB is for everyone. You only have to glance through some of the employer whistle blowing sites such as Vault or Glassdoor to find that out.
Right next to a disgruntled ex-employee lamenting the lack of support or weighty expectations, is an intern who has just finished leading a global project and wonders what all the commotion is about.
So, the opportunity is to achieve more. But it’s not for just anyone. Which makes our job that little bit easier.