Ace the Unilever Future Leaders Program Online Assessment | 2024 Guide

The Unilever Future Leaders Program, known as the UFLP Unilever, is a 3-year opportunity to be educated by one of the world's top corporations. Throughout the program, you will obtain experience in a variety of management roles and functions while developing and sharpening diverse skills that will benefit you on both your personal and professional journeys.

With many applicants hoping to get into UFLP Unilever, you will have to go through a fierce hiring process, with the first big step being a cognitive and personality assessment provided by Sova.

Unilever does not play around, so they picked not 1 but 2 test providers to help them screen applicants. 
Throughout your Unilever online assessment, also called the profile assessment, you will face the Sova Assessment and the HireVue games.

The Sova Assessment is a more traditional assessment known for its difficulty, blending personality and cognitive questions without time limits. The HireVue Games assessment - although sounds like a fun alternative to old-school reasoning tests, they are just as much of a challenge, if not an even bigger one. Behind these innocently-looking games, you are tested on several traits and skills, which may not always be easily identifiable. To make it worse — even if you understand the specific abilities being assessed, discovering the correct results pattern, as required by the recruiters, is a struggle.

Let's get to know them better:

Sova tests consist of a blend of logical, verbal, and numerical assessments, along with a situational judgment test (SJT) evaluating decision-making in work-related scenarios.

Widely adopted in the corporate sector, including renowned firms like Bain & Co consulting group, the Sova assessment aids in determining candidate suitability for specific roles.

With targeted questions designed to glean comprehensive insights while minimizing volume, the assessment streamlines the evaluation process. Its efficiency allows employers to swiftly acquaint themselves with prospective hires.

Moving on to the HireVue Games.

The 11 HireVue games assess various personality traits, problem-solving skills, and cognitive skills, such as working memory and performance under pressure.

Excelling at each of these games requires familiarity and strategic planning of the answers that will make you fit Unilever's requirements. Reaching such a level can only be achieved with a correct practice methodology.

While the exact games that Unilever will include in your assessment depend on the role you apply for, it is wise to prepare for them all.

Following the Unilever Profile assessment, you will have to go through a pre-recorded video interview.
The digital interview will include 3 questions and the Unilever digital interview case study, which presents scenarios you will face as part of the Future Leaders Program. The questions will be related to the field of business you applied for. As the questions are pre-recorded, you will have a set time for preparing for each question and then a set time for recording a response.

The case study exercise focuses on business issues relevant to the role you hope to have at Unilever. You do not need to have in-depth business experience for this exercise, the recruiters are looking for evidence of skills such as your ability to think logically and laterally. In this exercise, you are given a package of information about a business situation, e.g. the possible launch of a new product, to read through and understand. 

The Unilever assessment centre is the final part of the recruitment process for applicants to the Unilever Future Leaders Program and internships. It lasts for a whole day and is an opportunity to meet the other applicants, some current graduates, and learn more about Unilever.

There are usually 6 to 8 applicants at each assessment centre, and you will be put through a range of exercises, each focusing on a different skill. Throughout the day, you are assessed against the Unilever Standards of Leadership, so don’t forget to review them again before you set off. 

The exact assessments you will get can vary from scheme to scheme or job to job, but the basic assessments you can expect at a Unilever assessment day are detailed below:

You are given a new exercise and 30 to 40 minutes to prepare a presentation to deliver to a panel of interviewers. You must prepare a 10-minute presentation as well as know what you are talking about well enough to answer 10 minutes of questions in your presentation.

The assessors are marking you not just on your content but also on how well you can communicate your points verbally and how well you understand what you are talking about. Giving a presentation can be a nerve-wracking experience. Build up your confidence ahead of time by memorising a strategy for creating and delivering a great presentation.

Each assessment day contains a group exercise. These can take the form of discussions or tasks to be completed as a team. Example group exercises include tasks when you are given information about a business situation, a launch of a new product, or a business looking to reduce costs and maintain quality, and a task to discuss strategies for dealing with it or asked to create a list of priorities for action.

Throughout the exercise, a team of assessors will be watching for your contributions. You are expected to speak up and get your point across without dominating the group. Remember that Unilever places great emphasis on “leadership,” and think about what that means in a group setting. Read up on group exercises and prepare your strategy with our group exercises pages.

The final assessment at the Unilever assessment centre, as well as in many other Unilever recruitment processes, is the competency-based interview. In this interview, you are asked questions about your skills and how they relate to the Unilever Standards of Leadership.

In the interview, you should give examples from your previous experience to back up your answers, demonstrating your skills. Prepare these examples ahead of the assessment centre, as well as research Unilever and the market further. You should also prepare some questions to ask the interviewers. Once you have pulled together all of your research, the final stage is to rehearse delivering your answers. The best way to test yourself and keep fresh is to have a mock interview to simulate the real thing. 

Below are some questions asked at Unilever interviews in the past. These questions are here to give you an idea of the type of information you need to gather and learn ahead of the interview. Think about how you would answer these questions ahead of your interview.

• What is your favourite Unilever product, and why?
• What are Unilever’s main competitive advantages over its biggest rivals?
• Explain why you would be a good manager.
• Which brand’s marketing strategy do you particularly like, and why?
• What are the recent trends affecting FMCG companies?
• What would you do in your first six weeks in the role?

Once you have completed the Unilever assessment centre, you have completed the entire recruitment process for UFLP Unilever. All you need now is to wait for a response in the next day or so. Getting this job is a testament to all the preparation you have put in up until that point in the process. As we went through the different stages — starting with the Sova and HireVue games, following the dos and don'ts of pre-recorded interviews and case studies and ending with the different activities of Unilever assessment day— we hope you have a grasp of what is ahead of you.

Good luck!