Lessons I learned from: Being a grad at P&G

It blows my mind that I left University, and someone handed me one of the UK’s biggest and most loved brands. I got a call from my Boss a few weeks before I started and she said “we’ve been really excited for you to start, you’re going to take on Fairy Non Bio” I think she was expecting me to be thrilled, but honestly, I’d never heard of it. I thought it sounded cool enough though, and it wasn’t as though I had researched my new career at all. I had no idea what marketing was, that P&G were quite big or that I was embarking on a pretty cool opportunity. 

Some lessons I learned as a grad, based in Weybridge I might add, were not as beneficial for the wider population. But I find now a lot of my mentees will ask what it was like to be a grad at P&G so here’s my top ones:

1. Your friends are everything. 

It felt like an extension of University to be at P&G. I in fact was probably less stressed than I was in my final year at Oxford- and someone was PAYING for it. Unreal. My cohort was a group of like minded, fast thinking high achievers and I loved them. What came naturally to me, in terms of making friends with the people I enjoyed spending time with, actually came with a significant career benefit too - the people in higher “year groups” were mentors, teachers, captains, and all round incredible people that were willing to put time into helping me learn marketing, and also how to navigate the organisation. 

One superwoman springs to mind as an example, she is still one of my best friends, and she is still there - absolutely smashing her role and her life - but she also used to spend an hour a week helping me “manage upwards” and with the pressure my brand was facing. That hour a week was life saving for me, not only personally but for my career - and the time was given freely. I like to think the level of generosity she showed is now being passed on to the people I mentor, but I don’t claim to be anywhere near as impactful as she is! Whether it was talking through a share report, helping me manage a difficult conversation, or indeed coaching me on how to break up with my University boyfriend, it baffled me that someone so amazing was willing to give their time. 

2. Competition is real. 

Naive doesn’t even begin to cover how I would define 21 year old Becca Williams. I really thought as long as I got my head down and did my job then it would all work out for the best. Wrong. Whilst my friends were fierce, the competition was fiercer, manager pot luck (which exists everywhere, of course) meant that a couple of shifts to the left or the right could affect your rating for the year, or even your next role. In a corporate world you are always being compared, and the internal sales process is as important as the one you make for your brand - I definitely learned this about a year too late. I used to get to my desk for just after 7am every morning, which was great, I had the place to myself and I got a ton done- I lived miles away so it really helped with the traffic too. My colleague (the same demographic as myself) got in at half 9:30 and left at just after 6, I left at 4. I was, to all intents and purposes working more hours, but it was me that was called out for “being a part timer”. I had no idea that face time was going to make an impact, and that because she worked traditional hours and “stayed late” she was going to get the recognition. 

3. Your agency probably hate you. 

I loved going to agencies. I worked with some of the biggest and best agencies in the world as a grad at P&G and I found all the ideas, imagery and glamorous offices an absolute delight. It wasn’t until 8 months in and I was asking them to change something that someone shared this article with me, with real life feedback that clients had given that I suddenly realised that maybe it was because I was the client that I felt like everything was great. The audacity of some of my comments as this 21 year old to a room full of agency types who had been doing the job for 20 years must have made them hate me. One thing that I do think P&G do incredibly well, is that the most junior person in the room gives feedback first, and so on, until the most senior- it means that you can’t be influenced by what your boss has said and also that you build a “fresh eyes” perspective on the creative. It’s something I try to mirror now with my own team, making sure that every employee gets their point heard. 

4. Buying your train journey in two parts means you can use your railcard on the journey home and save ￡1.25 a day.

5. It’s never going to get better than the bottom. 

All too often now, I hear my Marketing Director friends tell me how much they miss actually doing marketing. It sounds nuts, but I will never be closer to my brand than I was as a Junior ABM grad at P&G. I knew Fairy non-bio like no one else ever would, I could tell you everything from the ingredients in a liquitab, to the latest share in ASDA. I used to think that was so silly, and it would be great at the top - but really, if you love a job; there’s a lot to be said for learning from the bottom up. 

6. The pub is where stuff actually happens. 

I don’t think two words are more antithetical than “networking event”. No one actually networks at a specifically designed event, the senior management group together and have a chat about life, and the youngsters work out where the free bar is before they move on. The real networking was all happening at the Hand and Spear (the pub next to the station in Weybridge). Brand alliances were forged, ideas were had and some questionable relationships were even made. In my opinion there wasn’t a drinking culture, or anything negative to it at all, it was all about getting to know people and getting to know how you could help each other. There has been nothing in any of my other jobs that has indicated to the contrary, but the higher up you get, the less OK it is to be on the train back to Clapham Junction chanting “in the rack” to one of your colleagues. 

7. Training is King.

The only words you should be saying when someone offers you free training at P&G is “thank you”. The courses, the copy lunches, the week long trips to haunted hotels in Geneva, were all part of an incredible package that trains you for life. The reason people love working with ex-Proctoids is because we all speak a common language that we’ve learned from this experience. It wasn’t til I left that I learned that it isn’t true everywhere. 

I loved being a grad, the thrill of watching your first TV ad go out, or the first time you see your creative in a magazine; but my biggest asset from that time wasn’t the lessons I learned about writing documents or presenting sales figures, it was my best friends. Every morning at 8am I met my two pals for a cup of tea and a cup of porridge at the small Costa in the atrium of the building, those two pals are now Marketing Directors at incredible businesses, and we still talk about the same career building stuff that we did back then, its just now our opinion matters quite a lot more. Hold tight to the people you meet on the way up, otherwise it’s going to be a lonely place when you get there.