Danone : Employer profile

Company profile

Come and Join one of the Top 10 Great Places to work

When it comes to finding a great place to work there are plenty of things to look for: inspirational colleagues, freedom in your job to make a real difference, and a shared ethos you can truly believe in. Throw in top perks, a responsive and dynamic environment and unrivalled opportunities to develop personally and professionally and you've found something pretty special. You've found Danone.

Here at Danone we put people at the centre of everything we do - whether we're developing groundbreaking new ideas with them, pitching our market-leading products to them, or supporting them in the community. And if you join us you can expect exactly that sort of attention too. That's why 65% of our graduates get promoted within 18 months - and why we're consistently at the top of the Great Place to Work poll of UK employees.

Why settle for good when you could be great?

Working for Danone means working in a high energy, entrepreneurial environment which helps enable everyone to take ownership and develop your talent to the full. At Danone, sky is really the limit, so if you are looking to start your career in Sales, Marketing, Finance, Supply chain or Category management and really impact the business Danone is the place for you.

Don’t take our word for it , here is what our current employees say about working for Danone

“I started my career at Danone in 2008 as a Territory Manager, which meant I looked after 25 stores in London across the top 3 accounts. After being in this role for 6 months I was promoted to National Account Executive. In the Executive role I am empowered to drive the Account strategy and receive continual coaching and feedback which has meant that alongside my National Account Executive role, I am the Account Manager for other key accounts as well. Danone has offered me some fantastic opportunities and continuously encourages my development.

The continual development within Danone means that you are always working towards your next career step, I cannot believe that I graduated 2 years ago and now have the responsibility for 3 Accounts. As a member of the sales team at Danone you have an individual development plan that outlines your career path over the next 2-5 years. For example, my Sales Director has set out my 5 year plan to be an Account Controller.”

“Supply Chain is a fast-paced, rapidly changing working environment which sits at the heart of an FMCG business.

In my graduate role as a Demand Planner in Danone UK my two main responsibilities are to manage a key customer relationship and to produce the demand forecast for one of our brands. The first allows me to shape the way in which we collaborate with our customers, enhancing our ways of working and driving for efficiency improvements. The second part of my role means that I am the first contact in the business for anything volume related to my brand. The forecast that I produce determines the production in our factories and logistics planning as well our promotional and marketing strategy, making it imperative that it is always as accurate and well-informed as possible.

Danone UK's non- hierarchical structure encourages close interaction with all levels of the business which provides a great opportunity to learn and progress rapidly in your chosen career.

As a Supply Chain graduates you will need to have dynamism to adjust to ever changing market conditions, sharp analytical skills for analysing and understanding data, excellent organisation skills to manage short and long term events and strong communication skills to handle the strong interface with all other business functions and outside contacts"

“Following graduation I soon realised I wanted a career, as a market leader and top employer I could see that Danone could provide me such an opportunity. Since my initial role as a territory sales manager, I have progressed through 5 different roles in 4 years from a category executive analysing and reporting market trends, to a category manager initially working with Co-op and Somerfield, followed by Sainsbury's and Waitrose, where your role is to advise the retailer on their strategy. This have given me the chance to then pursue a career in account management as National Account Manager”

“In my experience Danone is an excellent place to grow. I joined shortly after graduating from University and in the four and a half years I have been here I am currently in my fourth different role, in what is a relatively small finance team. Danone have also helped to support my development outside of work, and I have recently finished my CIMA studies, qualifying as a Management Accountant”

Your profile

We’re looking for graduates with a passion to excel, great interpersonal skills, excellent organisation and planning, creativity and pro-activity to help build relationships and develop cross functional effectiveness across all levels.

As a Danone graduate, you will get an excellent introduction to our business which will help build your commercial acumen and other key competencies within this double digit growth business, whilst ensuring real accountability and responsibility in your role.

Through our recruitment process, we are just recruiting for graduates who can become our future National Account Managers, Category Managers, Demand planners, Finance managers and beyond. For these roles, we are looking for strong numerical and verbal skills. These skills will be assessed at the first stage of the recruitment process.

Ideally, you will have or be expecting a minimum 2:1 degree and we will look at graduates from any discipline

What do you get in return?

Danone comes into its own, in terms of what we give back to our employees, and this has been recognised in our 2010 Top 10 Great places to work award. As well as a competitive salary, bonus, car, laptop and mobile we offer our employees a whole host of opportunities including massages at the office, fresh fruit every morning, reward trips away (the last one was to Coombe Abbey!), funding for non work related courses and plenty more.

How to apply

Apply here and quote 'Prospects', Simran Sethi, Recruitment department