L'Oréal reviews

Please, do not be bamboozled and fooled by the company propaganda plastered all over linkedin and career sites of the fake utopia they want you to believe in. Before accepting this internship at the DMI (Direct Marketing International) in Paris I was warned by professors that they dealt with students being exploited and worked like a slave - I should have listened they were right. If you are reading this I highly advise to work for another company in France. I have 10+ years work experience. I took this internship because I am a foreigner and it was apart of my masters to have an internship and complete it to graduate. 

This is by far the worse job I have ever had in my 10 years working as an adult. Interns are exploited at this company. I came to France for better work life balance - haha I should have run away as soon as I got this offer. Plan on leaving the office at 7/8pm - and if you work from home, good luck they will abuse you like an animal. I was told as well as other interns to LIE on our time sheets about the amount of hours we worked because apparently they had a scandal a few years ago about over working interns - I AM HERE TO TELL YOU IT’S STILL HAPPENING and even during a pandemic. Everyone knows we work well past our contract hours - now we are just told to lie about it and WORK IN SECRET. Managers will play a psychological game to save their reputation to HR. They will tell you to go home in person with smiles and concern but in reality you know you cannot because they pushed 5 hours of work on you at 5pm so you end up either staying late at the office or taking your laptop home to finish. My contract said 35 hours, I was easily working 60 - 80 hours a week and sometimes finishing work on the weekend. You try and keep up with the endless demands of managers who will have you redo the same powerpoint 27 times (I am not over exaggerating this is how many times I reworked a powerpoint once that was just used for an internal meeting). The company culture is very hierarchical if you have a lower position you will be ignored or talked down to or most likely not even listened to. 

I feel the company is getting away with abusing interns because most of the interns are young and do not have any previous work experience. Also no one reports the bad behavior because they are relying on their manager to recommend them in order to get hired. When I tried to speak up and say something to HR I was ignored and brushed aside and told to speak transparently with my manager who was regularly condescending, her constructive criticism on a powerpoint presentation I completed with another intern was “the beginning is pretty and the end is getting shitter and shitter.” Let’s just say she made the Devil Wears Prada look like a nice person. 

Working here is only worth your time if you have an upper management position in this company. Working as an intern you are paid 1200 (1400 but 200 is taken out every month for taxes) and as a junior if you do get hired you will be getting paid 2200 per month and barley scraping by in Paris while you give your entire life to a company that doesn’t appreciate you - I wouldn’t recommend it. Also they will try and entice you to stay for 5 years because at the end of 5 years you have access to shares. All of my managers worked for the company for 5+ years and its the only thing they know in their working careers - I honestly pity them because they do not know that life can be so much better. 

I wanted to quit this internship and I couldn’t I had to finish it in order to validate my masters - this is how it is done here in France. The company knows this. They know they own you for 6 months and you won’t be able to get out - my recommendation is don’t start -run away while you still can.