The night before your AC, you will stay in the DeVere hotel in Horsley and you will have a dinner with one current graduate. Very relaxed with mainly small talk about Unilever, our group was 6 candidates and 1 graduate
The next morning you will be picked up by a taxi and will be taken to the Leatherhead offices
Quick introduction about the day- you will be in a room with the other candidates, the Board Manager (she won't decide if you pass or not, she's basically just there to show you which room to go in next) and the 3 Assessors (3 senior people from your department). You will go round the table introducing yourself (the email said you had to speak for 1 minute and say an interesting fact about yourself, but our Board Manager just told us to say our name and what university we went to).
The day consists of 3 tasks. The order of the first 2 will vary depending on the candidate. You will then have a quick lunch with the graduate you met the night before, and then go back for the group task, then go home.
1st task - 1:1 interview: easy interview, same exact questions as phone interview. Make sure you nail the 'why Unilever' question
2nd task - Case study: 2 case study, a general business one about a company called Prime (basically Unilever) and whether or not it should launch a new product. The second case study will be specific to the programme you are applying for (in my case HR). Mine was on how to fix some problems one of Prime's factory is having (issues with plant productivity, threats of industrial action, trade union conflict, and low level of management's experience). 90 minutes to read both (overall about 30 pages of very dense material) and prepare a 10-minute presentation for each, followed by 10 minutes of Q&A (so basically: 90 + 10+10 + 10+10). The presentation itself is very relaxed, it's 1:1 and not many people use the flipchart given as you won't really have the time to write much in 10 minutes. The structure of the presentation you won't have problems with, as you are given 3 or 4 questions to answer (e.g. 'what are the plant's problems? how do we overcome them? suggest a plan of action to implement). Make sure you stress the importance of trade unions and that you get the maths right. In some ACs I've done in the past, the case study will have a lot of irrelevant information and you had to be good at picking out the bits you actually needed; the Unilever one gives you a LOT of information and they expect you to use all of it. You will have to come up with solutions to all the issues the plant is having and set out a detailed action plan, so definitely do your research on HR and HR strategies (don't believe what they say about only assessing your personality, they definitely do expect a lot prior business/HR knowledge!). The generic business one (the 1st case study) I wouldn't worry about, it was pretty easy. But again, make sure you include every single bit of information in your reasoning.
Lunch: in the Unilever restaurant, very relaxed and paid for.
Group task: 30 minutes to (individually) read through two packs of information. Each pack is a report about a beauty company. By the end of the 30 minutes, the group task will start. The 3 Assessors will be sat at the table taking notes, but not saying anything. It's a simulation of a business meeting (pretend you're a graduate talking to your colleagues). At the beginning, you will go round the circle quickly saying which company you think Prime should acquire and why (Gossamers, a less profitable but more animal+environmentally friendly or Marlow's - a goldmine but unhappy employees and no respect for environment). Clearly, as Prime is Unilever, you want to pick Gossamers. After everyone's said their opinion (1 minute each, timed), the discussion will start. You have complete autonomy on how to structure the discussion as long as - by the end of it - you have come up with (i) a decision on which company to acquire, (ii) a list of main risks that this acquisition will imply and (iii) a plan of action on how to mitigate each of these risks. The task itself is easy, I would say the best thing is to speak as much as you can (duh!) and challenge everything other people say that you don't 100% agree with. Don't be pushy, and don't say stuff for the sake of saying it. Two people in my group were just repeating what others had just said and you could clearly see the Assessors weren't impressed.
After the group task, you will be given the chance to shop in the Unilever shop, honestly bring an empty suitcase because the prices are unreal! Tony & Guy shampoos for less than 3 quid etc!