All About Internships and Work Experience Placements

[BetteT]

Yes... most companies only want students who are getting credits ... it's to insure that they have the committment. But some don't ... you just have to do your homework and ask each employer what their policy is.

And ...no ... they will not usually pay expenses, from what I have seen. That is usually your resposibility ...just as your expenses at school are. But ... again ... ask each company ... they are all different.

[e-v-elina]

so i finally got in touch with this magazine about an internship. i asked if they offer internships and she said "it happens", and then she told me to write a little about myself etc etc. and that was 1 week ago, she hasnt written me back. what should i do? i dont want to be too "pushy".

[Carrme]

BE PUSHY!! These people get so busy.
I intern, so I know. Check in!!

[yayiuski]

hey guys i'm interested in doing an internship in Europe or in the U.S if anyone has some type of info let me know please!

[BetteT]

See the thread pinned at the top of this forum ... there are postings there frequesntly. Mostly US ... but then since you are from PR, you would be allowed to work without a work visa since you are already a citizen ... which might be a snag if you tried to work in EU.

[xTresChicX]

Originally Posted by carlacarstens

Many companies have paid internships - Abercrombie, Aeropostal, etc. Usually the more corporate the company and the more brands they own, the higher the chance that they have have paid internships.

Other internship opps will offer a small stipend, usually around $10-$20 a week, to cover travel or your lunch.

If you have to take a paid internship due to college policies, I feel like they should have contacts in your career center. It's pretty tough/competitive to get those internships. You should also check to see if you can sign a waiver saying that you will not endure financial hardship due to taking an unpaid internship. Many colleges that have the paid internship policy also have that option.

If the case is that your college will not accept the credits, then I can speak from personal experience! All you have to do is go to your major's department, and ask if you can be sponsored by somebody. What this means is that you will receive a small amount of course work, or be assigned a project, and upon completion will be granted the credit. I had to read 2 books and write a paper relating my internship experiences to what I had read.

As far as boosting your grade, credits would not help. You won't get an A or B type of grade for completing an internship, you'll just get the number of credits, and it won't effect your GPA. Think of it as a requirement.

Carla
FreeFashionInternships.com

thanks carla!

I am really frustrated because according to my course director, higher-level students cannot gain credits from internships....although a lower-level student was boosted to higher level through taking a work experience placement- it doesn't seem fair!

I suppose I should look at the work experience as an investment for future oppurtunities though....

[eurofashionjunki]

I am not an intern, I am their slave and they treat me like ****! So fed up. I've been ill so many times. They really are affecting my health! Luckily my internship finishes in 3 weeks.

[Lina5]

what are you doing?

[tannixu]

I got offered an internship but I had to be able to receive college credit, and the problem is that my school doesn't offer it until after junior year. Does anyone know of another way to receive credit??

[pinksatin]

Originally Posted by tannixu

I got offered an internship but I had to be able to receive college credit, and the problem is that my school doesn't offer it until after junior year. Does anyone know of another way to receive credit??

I am in your same shoes so I feel your disappointment/injustice. I mean the reason we want to intern is to further our education so why will our school programs prevent us from applying to so many positions because they won't offer credit until later?

My only solution so far is that I simply don't apply to listings that specify "MUST receive college credit" and the like. I won't waste their time or mine. Even in Jr and Sr year at my school though they only offer credit for internships with specific design/ad agencies in my city (in the midwest) that they have agreements with. The positions I'm most interested in are in fashion in NYC. SO I'll do what I can for no credit until I have to do those through school.

Also, does anyone have any tips about cold calling/emailing if you find a company/mag you want to work for but you haven't seen a listing. Like is early monday best or later in the week or in the after noon or what? It's probably not that important but I don't want to call when they are super busy and they'll be annoyed by the interruption. But I don't want to call late or I'm afraid they'll think I'm lazy and just woke up or something.

Also, looking at websites and mastheads I found ways of contacting, but no specific HR person. Should I just email the person in the departments I'm most interested in or is there a default title you contact before all others?

Sorry if those are silly questions, I've just never done the cold call/email route, I've always responded to listings so far but I want to pursue this more aggressively. Thanks!

And congrats dior_couture1245!

eurofashionjunki Do you mind telling us who you work for? Just because i want to make sure I don't try to work there by accident. And just hang in there the last three weeks, it will be over and you can still use them as a reference on the bright side.

[reese06]

Pretty good short read.

Source: nypost.com

SLAVES TO FASHION

FASHION WEEK INTERNS LEARN HOW TO PUT ON A SHOW - THE HARD WAY


By BRIAN NIEMIETZ

February 9, 2008

WHEN factory workers in China spend 60-hour weeks sewing labels onto sportswear for $4 a day, it's called a sweatshop. When young girls travel from far and wide to set up chairs, check names and fetch water bottles 24/7 for free, it's called Fashion Week.
Meet the cogs in the Fashion Week machine, Maxiel Diaz and Taylor Richey, two lucky girls who beat out several dozen applicants for internships with uber show producer People's Revolution.
The prestige marketing and event coordinating company has played host to hugely successful shows for Valentino, Bulgari, Longchamp, Paco Rabanne, Vivienne Westwood and Jeremy Scott. Between the hands-on experience and the networking opportunities, a recommendation from a company like People's Revolution all but guarantees future work in the fashion world.
"Whatever they want me to do, I'll do," says Diaz, 20, a student at Manhattan's City College. Diaz says in the month leading up to Fashion Week, she'd arrive at People's Revolution's SoHo office at 9:30 a.m., working as late as 2:30 a.m. stuffing gift bags, confirming RSVPs and stepping up to any other task that might arise.
"I haven't had a social life in over a month," says Diaz, whose parents operate a furniture store and grocery store in Queens - so close yet so far from the tented runways of Bryant Park. "It's a great opportunity to be here, and nothing can break me."
Richey, a 22-year-old student from Tampa, Fla., started her internship a month before Fashion Week began. She counts Diaz as a friend, despite the fact they're competing for positions with a company that has only 34 staffers between offices in SoHo, Los Angeles and Paris.
"If you're good, people want to keep you their secret," observes Richey, who hopes her internship nets a paid job. "If you're bad, they'll let everybody know."
People's Revolution president Kelly Cutrone compares Fashion Week to going to war, in the sense that there will be delegating, commanding, yelling, fighting and, on occasion, crying.
"We tell them at their orientation that if they cry they have to leave the office," says Cutrone.
We didn't see any tears, but the first day was definitely a struggle. The company's Web servers crashed, so Richey had to retrieve RSVPs from hundreds of phone messages and paper invitations. Nail polish being shipped from Australia for the next day's Sass & Bide show was deemed possibly "toxic" by US Customs, and that kept Diaz on the phone trying to explain those products were needed for the show's swag bags.
"It's really crazy, but I kept it together. I started getting frustrated, but this is what I wanted to do," Diaz reported at day's end.
Any raised voices?
"I am an intern. I do not yell," Richey says.
Finally, on the second day of Fashion Week, the girls got to see their first show in the tents. It didn't disappoint.
"It was what? A month's work for 15 minutes?" concluded Richey. Still, she says the results unequivocally justified the labor. "When it comes together, it's so amazing and so glamorous," marveled Diaz.
Not every intern sees a "Cinderella" ending to their "The Devil Wears Prada" experience.
"We usually start with 20 and we end with seven. And out of seven, three are people we'd actually employ or highly recommend," Cutrone says of the unpaid labor she uses for Fashion Week and the month leading up to it. "They find out it's not what they'd hoped for. They think it's a glamorous job where you whisk around all day, meet really fantastic people and play around in pretty clothes."
And who makes the cut?
"Eye rollers are always a 'no.' Like the ones that will send you psychic messages when they're putting a stamp on an envelope: 'I can't believe you're not noticing how smart and amazing I am or you wouldn't have me doing this job.'"
Want to impress Cutrone? Read the names and addresses on those envelopes and get to know who's who at major fashion publications. Know where to buy stamps at 1 a.m.
"I always hire the person who in the middle of the night sets a glass of water on my desk, or the one who washes the dishes, or changed the toilet paper rolls or the garbage bags, because fashion's a dirty business," says Cutrone.
She also isn't interested in pedigree. "The better the school and more wealthy the parents, the worse the worker. It's usually kids from state schools or single moms, or kids who work two jobs to pay for their school that work out."
What about Diaz and Richey?
"Based on what I've seen, I feel really confident they could work for anyone," Cutrone says.
It turns out the girls didn't get to see many more shows. They were too busy working to see the payoff. Richey finished the daytime portion of her week by answering a call from a Spice Girls representative confirming the band would be attending People's Revolution's closing night extravaganza - Friday's Jeremy Scott party hosted by their new client, the mega-club Mansion.
"That should get great press," Richey correctly surmised.
She and Diaz's final moments of Fashion Week came at the end of that long Friday, which found them checking names off clipboards outside the club's velvet ropes. The perfect end to a hectic period everyone's happy to have finished, no?
"I'm sad," Richey admitted. "I never thought I'd say it, but I'll miss the craziness. But sleep is good." Have a drink, Richey, and buy a soda for Diaz while you're at it - her 21st birthday's not until May.

[gius]

"If you're good, people want to keep you their secret," observes Richey, who hopes her internship nets a paid job. "If you're bad, they'll let everybody know."

Thank you for posting the article, reese!
This part in the article scared me a lot
You have to be careful about what kind of personality you are working with
I have met a few constantly negative people, they yell too much, always suspicious, find any reason to scold their workers. Like say even if I were to tell the truth about something, they would still assume I was lying
It's important to stay away from these types... You can always find better people. Eventually you get vibes right on first encounter. The advice is, leave as soon as possible, right on meeting, ... as they are very gossip-y.

[Cado]

This may be a stupid question and also very wrong placed, but I am wondering, when youre working backstage at fwas an intern, dressing the models and so on, what are you actually studying? And one more thing, people that work as "staff" backstage, what's their job? What do they do when fw is over?

[xbryony]

Hi, I'm a Fashion Journalism student living in London, and I'm realllly struggling to get an internship for the summer at a fashion magazine...
I started sending e-mails out in September but the replies I got said to get back to them at a later date, so since November I've been sending e-mails and letters to so many magazines - some I've applied to a couple of times, and to a lot of magazines I've probably read once or never... Just to get some relevant experience. I have no experience except for my course, which I only started September '08...
What I want to know is - for the fellow Londoners in particular but also anyone else who got internships at fashion magazines - what are the key things I should put on my cover letter? I've tweaked the emails several times, and feel I'm putting in all the right points, spell checked, dropped in that I have a blog, said that although I lack experience I'm extremely eager and hard-working etc... I just don't know what it is that I'm missing... is it the experience?
I'm staying in London over the summer (as opposed to going home for the 3 month summer break and finding a house for September) as I really want to use my time to my advantage and get some experience, so I definitely want something... Is it worth getting a placement at a fashion PR company instead? Will that make it easier for me to get a placement at a magazine the next time I try to apply?
Sorry for the huge essay, but I've been wanting this from such a young age but grew up in a dead-end town, so now I just want to get out there and 'live the dream'. (I'm well aware that it's not very glamorous, I just want to get my foot in the door at last..)
Thank you sooo much if you've managed to read through all of this babble haha

[glamorousenvy]

xbryony; I am not in the same boat as you, but a very good friend of mine is going down the same career path you are, so I hear about it constantly.

My advice would be to just apply for internships anywhere you can, not just at magazines. Networking might help too, make nice with some models, get invited to a party and just network network network. You're bound to come across someone who works for a fashion magazine in London who will offer to give you some interning credit or, at the very least, put in a good word. My friend did the exact same thing and ended up speaking with someone who works for a magazine, who was then offered some interning credit. I'm sure they will want friendship or a favor down the line, but it'll certainly help you out and make you a better candidate.

Though, like I said, this isn't my personal experience, but from what I've heard this isn't a rarity. I wish I could help you out some more, darling.