What it does: Estee Lauder is a cosmetics manufacturer and marketer, selling both its eponymous brand and more than 25+ others.
Size & presence: 48,000 employees, working across more than 50 countries.
Best known for: Estee Lauder luxury cosmetics, alongside other brands under its company including Bobbi Brown and MAC.
The good bits: One of the world's leading cosmetics brands, and this is a great place for recent university graduates to start their career in this industry.
The not-so-good bits: Due to the size and scale of its operations, the company is not the most agile business; meaning it could take some time for new changes to be implemented.
Estee Lauder was founded by a husband-and-wife team, Estee and Joseph Lauder in 1946. Despite her French-sounding name, Estee Lauder is an American company that has its roots in New York City—the same location where its current headquarters are based at.
Although the company started with only producing four cosmetics products (cleansing oil, skin lotion, super-rich all-purpose creme, and creme pack), it has now grown into a multinational cosmetics conglomerate, selling not only the brand that carries the company’s name but others such as MAC and Bobbi Brown.
When working at Estee Lauder, you can experience the type of environment that is best described by its current CEO. “The company operates like a family with strong values," says Fabrizio Freda, President and CEO, "And a family is, in fact, the most caring and demanding of environments for both personal and professional growth. Our culture is respectful of our roots; it continues to inspire and is full of aspirations for the opportunities of tomorrow.”
And it seems that he's saying the truth. Current and previous employees of the company, as quoted from Glassdoor, reported a family-like environment and supportive colleagues.
According to previous applicants, the recruitment process for a full-time university graduate program in Estee Lauder looks something like this.
First, you'll be asked to do a one-way interview through HireVue. Then, you'll be asked to do a set of assessments. If you pass that round, you may be invited to do a case study, followed by several interview rounds.
Estee Lauder has a lot of unique programs available for university students and recent university graduates alike, from internship roles to full-time positions.
For those of you who are interested in applying for an internship at Estee Lauder, you’ll be glad to know that the company has six different internship programs, each designed to provide a different working experience. These programs are:
Lauder Summer Internship Program is a 10-week program for undergraduates only.
As a bonus, students wishing to continue on to unique leadership-oriented full-time programs can do so by applying to the Finance and Strategy internship roles as well as the CEO Global Associate Program internship roles.
For university graduates holding a Bachelor’s degree, these full-time programs are the following:
If you do an internship at Estee Lauder, you can expect to make between $40,000-$60,000 per year. However, as a full-time employee who is enrolled in any of the university graduate programs at Estee Lauder, you can make nearly double that amount—with a range of roughly $70,000 to $120,000; depending on the degree that you hold and the program you’re doing.
Aside from a monthly salary, Estee Lauder also offers the following for its full-time employees: health insurance for the employee and their families, wellness programs, flexible working arrangements, and tuition reimbursement for employees who pursue further education.
Estee Lauder's primary philanthropic initiatives are centred upon the following: health, education and the environment. Several programs that the company has engaged in include The Estée Lauder Companies Breast Cancer Campaign and M·A·C VIVA GLAM campaign.