3 things to refresh (or learn) before going to a job interview with a fashion company

Only 2% of the applicants get a job interview. And in fashion where on average 500 people apply for the same job, this means that only 10 people get to the job interview and only 1 at the end gets the job. 

Just getting the job interview is an enormous achievement you should be very proud of. The hardest part in fact of the job search many times is in fact getting to this interview.

But what happens once you get to the job interview? You’re super close to getting the job, however, there are still other people who got the interview like you so you are still in the application process competing with on average other 10 candidates. So how do you succeed at the job interview so you can land the fashion job of your dreams? 

Let’s first see what you should expect from recruiters on the day of the job interview.

Not all the interviews are the same. For internships and entry-level positions, some companies will just have one round of interviews that are more generic to talk about you and the reason why you want that job.

However, some companies, especially the most prestigious ones might do more rounds of interviews even just for an internship, to go a bit deeper and ask you more than just why you want this job.

Like it happened to me when I went to the job interview with YNAP and AMQ for my eCommerce internship. I had 2 rounds of job interviews.

Companies are not going to tell you in advance what you should expect from a job interview so you don’t know whether it’s going to be just one and more generic or if it can be a multistep interview process where they want to test you on different things. So it’s better to be prepared for any scenario. The more prepared you are the more confident you’ll feel and the more chances you’ll have to land the position.

The final hiring decision is based on two things:

• 65% of the hiring decision is given by a gut feeling about whether you’ll be a good fit for the company
• 35% is influenced by how you answer, say and do during the job interview

Yes, as you can say now, hiring decisions are most of the time, mainly given by just a feeling between you and the recruiter. If the recruiter can see something special in you, you can get the job despite the fact that you might be less competent and have less experience than another candidate. That’s why many times you might feel you are 100% qualified for the position but you might end up not getting the job, because maybe the recruiter didn’t feel that you were the right one even though you had it all. The good news is that even if you believe you might lack some skills or experience, you could get the job if you leave a strong impression and they see you have the potential to grow inside the company. 

So if you have a job interview coming up soon, or if you have applied for many jobs and you want to be prepared when a call will come, you have to look at your resume first. How honest have you been with the skills you added? It’s normal to make your CV look as amazing as possible and that’s okay. But when a job interview is approaching you need to be prepared in case you need to demonstrate how proficient you really are. 

These are the 3 things to refresh (or learn) before going to a job interview with a fashion company. 

1. How much you did your research about the position and the brand

Recruiters will test how much you know about the brand. They want to know if you did your job before going to the job interview and you know about the position (read again carefully the job description before going) and also whether you have learned everything you could find about the brand on Google. By doing this they will really test how much you love and are passionate about the brand. 

These are the things you should refresh or learn before going to a job interview with a fashion company

• the history of the brand
• the brand values
• who have been the different creative directors
• who is the CEO
• who is the manager of your department (search on LinkedIn)
• watch the most iconic and recent fashion shows
• visit their website
• get familiar with what they post on social media
• what celebrities and influencers they work with
• what’s your favorite collection
• if you can you visit their store

You cannot just say that you are very passionate about this brand. Someone who is really passionate can also express WHY they love this brand so much with specific mention of collections, values and other facts. 

They also want to know exactly why you want that job. You have read above how many people apply for the same job, so it’s very easy for them to find someone else who wants that job so badly. They are not looking for someone who is just looking for a job, but someone who really loves the brand and it’s super interested in that specific position.

So do your due diligence and study the brand. 

2. MS Excel

I’ll never forget the morning of my second step of the job interview. After my first round which was very broad about me (and my non-existent previous experience in fashion), they invited me over for a second round of job interviews. They just mentioned that other people from the team wanted to meet me.  So I didn’t prepare for anything more than just refreshing the information about the brand (step 1) and I practiced answering the question again: tell us more about yourself. 

Instead, as soon as I entered the room that morning, there was a laptop open waiting for me with an exercise on Excel. They asked me to calculate the sell-through and do other formulas with Excel. I was nervous. I didn’t refresh my Excel formulas as I did not expect it but luckily I was quite confident with the program so I passed the test and got that internship. 

So now as a fashion career coach and mentor, I always recommend my students to refresh (or learn) Excel before going to a job interview. People might not know that in an industry such as fashion they could test you on a tool such as Excel. But instead, it’s the most used program in this industry and not just to analyze sales and numbers but also to organize things: a list of guests to a fashion show, samples that you receive from brands for a photo shooting and more. One of the exercises they asked me to do on Excel that morning was not about sales. I had 20 images of fashion products on the Excel sheet and they asked me to order the items according to one logic of my choice. So like I said, even if it’s not to calculate sales, it’s useful to be familiar with the program.  

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3. Language

Fashion is an international industry. And especially when you work for the biggest companies of the industry, you’ll meet and work with teams from all over the world. So just because your job is based in a specific country it doesn’t mean that you won’t communicate with people from other offices based all around the world. How many languages you speak is important in this industry. The more languages you speak the better, however, just up to 2 languages it’s great. Fluent English is normally requested everywhere so if you’re a native English speaker you already have an advantage. Other languages might include Italian if you want to work in Italy, French if you want to work in Paris, and Chinese if you want to work in that market. 

My eCommerce internship was based in Milan but Alexander McQueen is a London-based brand so as an Italian native speaker they wanted to test my English level. The job interview was conducted half in Italian and half in English (yes they asked me some questions in Italian and I was answering in Italian and at some point, they asked me questions in English so I understood I had to answer in English as well and that they were testing if I was able to understand and communicate in English). 

I know that learning a new language is not easy. it wasn’t easy at all for me, I still make mistakes so you can imagine I was making even more years ago when I went to that job interview. But it’s doable and even not expensive. I am self-taught. The last time I studied English in a course was in high school. I became fluent by myself: I downloaded some apps on my smartphone, I’ve been watching videos and movies, listening to podcasts, and reading in English. In the beginning, it was really hard and it took me weeks to read one book, but the more I practiced it the easier it became. Not everyone will test your language during a job interview, but it happened to me so just be careful when you write your language level on your resume. I remember I wrote fluently. That’s probably why they wanted to test how fluent I really was. Furthermore, my job required me to work every day with the London team so it also depends on how much you’ll have to use that language in your job. Sometimes it can be just useful to know an additional language just in case and in some others instead, like in my case where I had to communicate daily with the London team, you work with that language every day. 

Ready to impress recruiters with your Excel level and get the fashion job of your dreams? The Excel for Fashion course is opening enrollment again soon! Click here to join the waitlist to be the first to know and for some special waitlisters-only bonuses!