Common to all emlyon business school programs is the objective of ensuring students hit the ground running in the professional world. Three current interns recount how their choice of program with the MSc in International Marketing & Business Development has made their dual marketing and sales profiles especially desirable for recruiters. They describe their in-company experience in three very different industries and what set them aside from other applicants.

Agricultural Food Field - helping a US brand adapt to the UK market

Julie Bush

Graduate of MSc in International Marketing & Business Development
Class of 2022

I'm currently on an internship as an Assistant Brand Manager at Ocean Spray Cranberries, an American agricultural cooperative looking to increase its presence on the UK market. I'm working out of their Paris offices, dealing with France, Benelux, and the Nordics.

I found the position via LinkedIn, my priority sectors having been food and beverages and FMCG. I was drawn to the international aspect of the internship and they to my diverse profile, in terms of previous experience and language skills. I also used a job platform made available via emlyon, which shares exclusive offers sent by companies to select business schools in France.

I had to be resourceful to get such an opportunity, but the emlyon program was instrumental in equipping me for the task in hand. An array of support services was in place at the school to facilitate the process, including mock interviews that taught me how to prepare an effective elevator speech when pitching myself to a potential employer.

The diversity of the faculty and student cohort also stood me in very good stead for an international working environment, as did the semester abroad spent in Vietnam. We were tasked with contacting a local company that assigned us an in-company case study. Ours involved creating a new product for the Vietnamese market and a marketing strategy.

We conducted the entire project ourselves, examining the local market to determine which product to launch, qualitative interviews with locals to define our target market, creating the proposal, and presenting it to a jury of local professionals. I discussed this experience in multiple interviews, and every recruiter was impressed with our proven ability to adapt to a new, international environment and propose an innovative solution.

▲ Part of the International Seminar of MSc in IMBD

Luxury Field - the luxury enthusiast with a taste for Asia

Kirill Yusupoff

Graduate of MSc in International Marketing & Business Development
Class of 2022

Asia and the luxury sector have always appealed to me, as you can see from my track record working for Balmain and Gucci. I'm currently doing my internship at Jaeger-Lecoultre in Singapore, so I'm working on luxury watches in the role of Commercial & Operations Assistant SEAO.

Hong Kong was also on my list of potential destinations for my internship, but I opted for Singapore partly down to the corporate culture that prevails. Working for a top-tier Richemont brand was also a major draw.

To attain this objective, I benefitted from the kind of tailored support only an expert school such as emlyon could offer - they run careers fairs and conduct flash interviews, bringing you up to speed on the selection process and improving your chances of recruitment for the position of your choice.

Another outstanding aspect to the professional support the school provides is when you encounter difficulties. I began another internship prior to my move to Jaeger-Lecoultre and needed to make a switch. Far from judging my decision to change mission, emlyon was fully understanding and on hand to assist me in the process.

Thanks to their help and my carefully considered change of heart, I am now living a fully immersive corporate and cultural experience in Singapore, discovering a new business model and organizational structure.

Cosmetics Field - a mind made up to succeed

Eva Marchal

Graduate of MSc in International Marketing & Business Development
Class of 2022

The world of cosmetics has been my ambition for some time, one I first realized when working at Nocibé as a Product Assistant Manager. I am now on my internship re-living the dream in the role of Assistant Product Manager at Yves Rocher, working on the areas of eyes, lips, nails, and access.

It was made clear to me that my status as a student of the MSc in International Marketing & Business development and from emlyon was decisive in being chosen. This was helped in no small part by the opportunity to be interviewed by Le Figaro where we talked about the MSc with the program director, increasing our exposure to recruiters in the process.

▲ Interview preview poster of Le Figaro

Even better, the program director is well connected with certain CEOs and was able to share job opportunities directly with us. She has gone above and beyond the call of duty by remaining easy to reach and being a genuine conduit for internship and employment vacancies.

The study periods spent abroad as part of the program also proved decisive. During the one-week seminar in Stockholm, we visited companies, listened to CEO conferences, had the chance to enlarge our network, discover other industries and sectors, talk to managers about their experience, and add them on LinkedIn.

The semester abroad in Vietnam included a case study with a French laboratory providing pre-filled syringes and which is a leader in Vietnam. They provided us with confidential data access that helped us in developing their business in that part of the global market.

▲ Part of the International Seminar of MSc in IMBD

In short, the MSc has instilled the confidence you need when entering a new company as I did recently at Yves Rocher. I've had to adjust to a company with different processes, a different set-up, and an approach that is much more based on analytics. The grounding emlyon gave me has been decisive in being ready for such a challenge, one which I've fully embraced.

* The shared experience of International Seminar (Class of 2022) is for reference only.