(Credit)
Landing my first New York City internship from the West Coast was no easy feat. There were a few factors here that made this incredibly difficult: I was located on the West Coast and was NOT going to a school known for being fashion forward. I attended Oregon State, and had zero experience interviewing for corporate fashion roles. So why would a company even bother interviewing a girl with all of the previously mentioned issues? New York is full of fashion students who can drop by on a whim and have internship coordinators pushing for them to get these roles.
I really wish I would’ve created a comprehensive list of all the place I sent my resume to between the fall of 2012 and early spring of 2013. In those early days my resume was met with absolute silence. Around February of 2013 I was extremely disappointed that not a single person or company had gotten back to me. I was 20 - 21, around the age that most fashion kiddies are when they start their first rounds of internships.
I had an extensive background in retail and a portfolio of my fashion merchandising class projects that my teachers were convinced would get me noticed. I was also one of the founding members of my college’s student ran fashion publication. As someone who has by nature always been extremely competitive and an overachieving #TRYHARD type I was at a complete loss.
(Knowing what I know now, I get why this all happened but, at the time it was crushing.)
Finally after months of applying I got an email from the Public Relations Manager at Marc Fisher Footwear for an initial phone interview. I was ecstatic! I was equally nervous and equally excited to ramble on about all the “fashion-y” things I was doing at school and how I thought I was being soooooo innovative with my school’s new fashion publication.
Fun Note: At the time Oregon State’s Merchandising and Apparel Design departments had a really “fun” hierarchy of who mattered within the program.
I want to say it took about two weeks before the Manager who interviewed me got back letting me know that I had landed the internship. In the end my enthusiasm for my program and my extra curricular activities won him over! I can’t express enough that when you’re first starting out and really trying to land those first internships how important it is to sell yourself and be enthusiastic for what you’re working on. When you don’t have a lot of relative corporate experience or even previous internships – landing an internship with a bigger more corporate company can be hard. One of your best resources are you internship coordinators at your schools and I would strongly suggest when you’re applying to companies you’re interested in to see if there is alumni from your school currently working with the company.
(This was the outfit I wore on my first day at Marc Fisher Footwear in 2013! I can't even tell you how long I stressed over this outfit and how I'm cringing a little looking back on it now - haha.)
I am also a believer in sending a well written email to lower level coordinators and managers at companies just to start a dialogue. One of the things I’ve certainly struggled with over the years is finding a mentor of sorts or someone who can offer even the slightest glimpse of insight into some of these companies or how to better position yourself for these roles. I myself as well as many of my colleagues who aren’t from New York or don’t have super typical “fashion girl” backgrounds are huge advocates for offering advice and being a resource however we can. We know its hard!
P.S. It’s still kind of hard.
Here are a few wonderful online resources for finding your first internships:
Fashionista
Freefashioninternships.com
LinkedinIn – Of course!
Indeed.com - be wary of the keywords you use in your search
Is anyone out there in #STEEMIT land currently working on securing spring internships? I know its that time of year!
I'm happy to help in any way I can and between myself and my colleagues we have a pretty decent rolodex of contacts throughout the fashion industry in the New York City area.
The #TRYHARD diaries is a passion project of mine to provide insight about breaking into the fashion industry to anyone who might not be sure where to start. From experience, I know how hard it can be to break into the fashion industry, and want to be a resource for as many fashion #TRYHARDs as I can!
Check out my first post in these series: An introduction to #trying to make it in the Fashion industry.
#fashionindustry #fashion101 #fashionpr #fashioninternships #internships