Veronica is L’Oreal Junior Product Manager. This talk's from online Wechat Conversation.

INTRO

Hello everyone, Veronica speaking :) Nice to meet you all here.
I’m from Hong Kong, I graduated from Global Business Studies which is an undergraduate business programme co-organized by The Chinese University of Hong Kong, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill and Copenhagen Business School. I love travelling and immersing into different cultures so thanks to this programme I was able to make study trips to many cities like Brussels, Berlin, Singapore, Boston etc and got inspired everywhere. I graduated in 2013 and have been working in L’Oreal ever since, first as a marketing intern and then a product manager. Specifically, I work in Travel Retail Asia Pacific division, which is a division of which the business focuses in duty-free outlets (those shops you see in airports).
In terms of product category, I supervise makeup and men skincare products of the brand L’Oreal Paris, an affordable multi-category beauty brand originating from France. As mentioned in the brief background by Sylvia, my responsibilities span across a broad spectrum including product launch planning, creation of travel exclusive products, sales forecast and analysis, setting prices, visual development, merchandising, retail management and promotion planning. Beauty is a very fast-paced industry, so I always have to keep myself updated of the latest market trends, innovations and what competitors are doing.
It’s my pleasure and honour to meet you all here and to share with you all my humble experience of figuring out my career in marketing and brief knowledge of the industries I have worked in. Hope you will find relevance in my sharing and get enlightened in some way to figure out yours But most importantly, this is just my personal experience and I do encourage you to speak to more people out there to have a more objective understanding!
Thanks Veron for your detailed selfintro. Now lets go on to the next part, I'll ask some frequently-asked questions that we have collected before

GENERAL QUESTIONS

Q1: How did you figure out your target career industry along the way? Why did you choose L’Oreal as your employer?

I realized my interest in marketing when I was in high school. There was an interschool competition in Hong Kong for sixth form students called Junior Achievement Company Programme. Each participating school has about 3 months to form their own mini company and create a product and sell it at its own booth at a one-day weekend fair. At that time, I was the sales and marketing “director”, so I led the market study, creation of products, promotional campaigns etc, all that was related to marketing the product inside our school and outside. So this was my first hands-on experience in marketing, and it confirmed my passion so then in university, I decided to explore more scopes of marketing through various internships and case competitions.
In terms of internships: I have tried marketing communications, service marketing, marketing for fund-raising in an NGO, account servicing in advertising and product marketing, in my three years of undergraduate studies. Not until my last internship in product marketing did I realize my favorite was actually it.
But in fact I did not only focus on exploring marketing, because what if I actually liked something else? So I joined a vast variety of case competitions: marketing, management consulting, accounting etc, but in the end as expected, my heart remains with marketing.
So how did I choose L’Oreal as my employer – my relationship with L’Oreal started when I and 2 other classmates joined L’Oreal’s international marketing competition called L’Oreal Brandstorm. I think it is the most prestigious marketing competition in the world, as the scale is pretty massive, its organized in more than 40 countries and the competiton lasts for 6 months from beginning till end, each national finalist is sent to Paris for a global round. Each team was required to work on some real L’Oreal case studies and come up with a proposal and a presentation to present in front of a panel of judges who are from L’Oreal. My team was lucky enough to win the HK finals. Through this competition, I learnt a lot about the FMCG industry especially in beauty, how brands are built, products are launched, campaigns that we see on TV are rolled out, shops are managed etc. I was offered an internship thenafter in my current team. I did a 4-month internship and I never expected to stay after the internship because there wasn't any opening but fortunately they were looking to expand the team with one more product manager role and saw me fit to take up the position. I had great experience within the team, the learning curve was steep and I didn't want to let it stop, and I love the L’Oreal culture. So of course I stayed.
Key point: try as many different things as you can. Do not rush to decide your career. Even for me who has confirmed my interest in marketing very early, there were still many options broken down under the umbrella that i needed to test out before i could verify.

Q2: What kinds of abilities are necessary for marketing? Creative, innovative, predicable or what else?

Veron：Marketing is about offering the RIGHT product/service to the target customer at the RIGHT price, RIGHT place, and RIGHT time. Many people are mistaken that marketing equals promotions and campaigns but it’s more than that. I will break down this question by splitting it into skill sets and personality traits:
Veron：which each of them has to do with one arm of marketing
Veron：Skill-sets:
1) communication skills - o in terms of INTERNAL communication - marketing is probably the most pivotal function in a company (parallel to sales perhaps) and for every strategic decision you make you need the involvement of other functional teams - sales, finance, operations, you need to convince them to support your idea. In terms of EXTERNAL communication – marketers are the ones who craft the messages in a way that they believe can best speak to their target customers, the message has to be clear in a way that the customer grasps the benefits of the product/service and is convinced to purchase your product, and best case to make return purchases after. Other than customers, you also communicate a lot with external stakeholders in your whole product/service chain – suppliers who manufacture your products if you are not doing it in-house, agencies whom you outsource to in hosting an events or designing a banner, media companies who write or broadcast news about your brand.
Veron：2) analytical skills - marketing is not just about creativity and avant-garde inventions, but also how you execute all these innovative ideas, and whether it drives sales/growth – there has to be a business impact. At the end, whether a marketing strategy is validated by management, depends on the feasibility and return-on-investment, so you definitely work a lot with figures and charts. Truth be told, I spend 50%+ of my day on excels and numbers, because every decision you make at the end of the day requires solid numerical justifications.
Veron：3) adaptability - the market is constantly changing (cliché but true), there are always new doors and opportunities out there to address, you need to keep improving and evolving in order to sustain your position in the market. You need to make decisions fast before you lose a lot of sales.
Veron：4) project management - on top of daily operations, you may work on projects with a fixed time frame and that requires proper and professional project management skill- so you can deliver the plan on time and achieve timely results. You have to establish a realistic schedule and allocate a budget, coordinate with your subordinates or external parties, monitor the performance closely to ensure the project achieves its target at the end.
Veron：Then in terms of personality traits (for those who hadnt had a marketing experience and would like to do a first & foremost sense check of whether you are a good fit):

1) self-drive: marketers always go the extra mile to delight customers to give them more than they expected. We work to create the future, we are drivers of the market ‘norm’.
2) curiosity and inquisitiveness: in marketing context it means being your sensitivity towards what’s happening in the market and what are the latest trends, as you have to keep track of your brand’s performance (market share, sales, evolution) in the market, monitor competitors’ (what products/service they recently launched, what campaigns they rolled out)
3) creativity/innovation/boldness – some people are mistaken that creativity is about design/aesthetics, but in fact it has a broader implication, it is also related your strategy and approach in tackling a problem. Marketers always need to shake up the status quo and introduce fresh ideas into the mix. Always challenge the market’s (customers/competitors) expectations on what you can deliver.

Q3: What did you learn from you internship experiences? And how do those experiences inspire you in your career now?

Veron：What did I learn from my internship experience:
Indeed, on-the-job training is always more important and useful than theories in your text books. Other than understanding of the industry and how the company operates, I did learn both hard and soft skills. The hard skills include how to do market segmentation, product positioning, business analysis, project management, budgeting etc. Usually they are transferrable between companies especially of the same industry. Soft skills include communication both internally within the company with different departments (finance, logistics, customer service etc) and externally (with consumers, suppliers, agencies etc), how to align and management everyone’s expectations, my sensitivity towards the market, how to present ideas to your clients or other people in the most convincing manner etc.
Veron：How did those experience inspire me in my career:

Three key factors when I considered my internships:
-industry (service oriented or product oriented?)
-culture (not only company culture but also team culture (whether I like to work with people of the same nationality or a more international team)
-nature (the different sub-functions under marketing to deduce where my strengths are)
With this in mind, I always tried to look for internships that are different from my previous one to ensure I can always gain something new that will help me make a better career decision in the future. Which is why I said, as I have tried many different things, I can make a more informed decision of what industry I like most, what company or team culture makes me feel most at ease and what nature of marketing does my forte lie in.

Q4: What was the biggest challenge in your work? And how did you solve it?

Veron：Funny enough, I was never a fast-worker. I was a perfectionist and I used to perfect everything to the last minute until the deadline. But FMCG is as you know ‘fast-moving consumer goods’, and it’s really SUPER fast-paced. In this industry, it always happens that you have barely enough time to make a decision or come up with a plan. Everything is urgent. For e.g. a new competitive brand whose store is right next to you suddenly launches a very aggressive 50% price-off promotion. The earlier you act, the less sales you lose. You need to think fast and act fast, and not just on your own, you need to immediately call together the whole team, formulate action plan and delegate tasks to everyone to split the work. You can imagine this was a big challenge for me at the beginning as I was always a person that takes time slowly.
Veron：How did I solve it - I learnt to fix a specific time frame (a literal alarm that rings when the time is up) for each specific task, so that I don't lose excess time on one project sacrificing another. Also you cannot do everything at the same time, I learnt to set priorities and time limits to complete each task in that order. Somehow you learn by doing, luckily it's the harsh realities on the job that push me to change my (i guess bad) habits!

Q5: Can you share some networking skills to us? What should we pay attention to in social networking? Do you have any suggestion to us?

Veron：Needless to say, do ample research of the topic/company/event before attending and show up prepared and with a fresh mind. Perhaps checking out the backgrounds of the speakers and participants online is also a good idea!

Q6: How did you prepare for the case competitions? Is there any book or course to recommend?

Veron： There is no specific book to recommend in preparing for case competitions, at least I didnt read any. But then, I would say for all case competitions, you always need to have solid grounds to justify your proposals - this means doing comprehensive research and analysis of the industry/company. Look for business cases out there (many online resources or could be published books) of companies which have faced similar challenges as the question under study and you can also use these to justify your proposal where applicable.
Veron：In terms of verbal presentations, do not just read out your report or powerpoint slides or any form of written language and grammar. Always craft your speech differently than your report because you don't speak in the same way! Practise your speech in front of the mirror or to your teammates, so that you practise looking into another person's eyes. Don't just present numbers, but also their implications, for e.g. "with this proposal the company will grow at 15% (doesnt mean anything)- you can also mention how many times faster than the market rate (now it means you are adding value to the company because there is a gain in market share"

Q7: How do you present yourself during the interviews?

Veron：Professionally and honestly.

In terms of professionalism-
I always do thorough research of the company/industry and specific position I am applying for. I try to reach out to people (hopefully already in my network or otherwise ask for referrals from friends or even friends of friends) who has worked in the company/industry for their first-hand experience. Familiarise yourself with your resume and cover letter and prepare further details of every line you put in these 2 documents. Always wear a smile and respond politely to every question even when you are a bit hesitant on the answer.

In terms of honesty-
I always remind myself to present my true self at interview. I do not want to fake an image that does not represent my true interests because it means I may end up (i) being in a company of which the culture doesn't fit me, or (ii) being in a role that my strengths do not lie in or (iii) being in an industry that I am not passionate about. As a good HR, she should be able to deduce whether I fit the industry/job/culture based on what I present her at the interview.

POP QUESTIONS

Q1: How to cooperate with colleagues who is hard to cooperate with?

Veron：I suppose there are 2 types of difficulties, one is that their working attitude is bad and two is that they have vastly different ideas than yours.
To tackle the first type, be result-oriented, don’t hurt your relationship with them and think about what’s the best way to achieve the results at the end of the day. For the second type, be open-minded in the sense that ensure you are not too subjective and try to understand their opinions and show your understanding to them so they feel less challenged and would in return give in a little perhaps – human sensitivity smoothens everything.

Q2: How do you achieve the work-life balance?

Veron：Set aside time for yourself always – and mark it in your calendar as an event so you are obliged to follow. Forget work when you are out of the office, keep your mind busy with other things like - set up gatherings with friends because they can inspire you and sustain you, put aside time for family, and don't forget also time for your sports to maintain your health and your hobbies which enlighten you and keep your spirits high so that you have full energy to return to work.
Veron：Oh and always take a 10-mins walk once in the morning and once in the afternoon for some fresh air! Motion away from the computer to relieve your eyes.
### Thanks for:
DearMentor(Wechat: DearMentor) &
DreamBigCareer(Wechat: I-Dreambig)