Fashion is a veeery competitive industry. Just like you, thousands of other fashion enthusiasts wake up every day with the big dream of working in the glamourous industry. Getting noticed among thousands of applicants is hard but not impossible! All you have to do to stand out is to think out of the box. If you do what anyone else is doing it will be harder to get noticed in a pile of other resumes, but if you add something extra that impresses the company and recruiters then you win! These 3 things are not only aimed at impressing recruiters but they are things that don’t depend on anyone or anything else such as for example waiting for a company to post a job in order for you to apply. With these 3 things, you’ll stand out but also take full control of your career depending just on yourself!
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- Record a video cover letter
I’ve already said many times that the cover letter is even more important than your resume, especially when you are at the beginning of your career and you don’t have a lot you can show and previous experience you can leverage on your resume. Just because you don’t have experience yet, it doesn’t mean you can’t land any job. Anyone started from scratch and from somewhere so you can too! And since cover letters make or break the hiring decision, let’s make them extra special by sending not just a written one, but a video cover letter! Record a one-minute cover letter today and send it over via email or attach it to your online application. You can record one with your smartphone or using Zoom. Make sure you personalize it to the company and the job, don’t make it general about you, tell them why they should hire you and why you are the right fit for the company. Make it short and sweet. Smile and act confident, don’t look too shy! Practice it a couple of times until you get confident in front of the camera, make sure you look exactly into the camera and not to the floor or your hands or around, look friendly but also professional, enthusiastic about the position, and again confident. When recording this don’t think about who will watch it or you’ll feel the pressure and you’ll act nervous like if the person is in front of you, relax, you are by yourself at home and you can record it again and again until you like the result.
- Build a document that shows your skills
If you believe that the lack of experience is what is holding you back from getting jobs and internships, then use something that proves to companies that you can do the job despite you don’t have experience yet. Prepare a PDF that showcases your skills. For aspiring fashion designers, this will be a portfolio of sketches, mood board, clothes that you have produced, for aspiring writers it could be a couple of sample articles. These works on your portfolio don’t necessarily need to be of real previous experiences, if you have never worked before you can create projects just to build your resume.
You can create this document whatever is the career in fashion you want to pursue. Many believe that a portfolio is only for more creative jobs, but that’s why I have not called it “portfolio” but a general document, because anyone should create one. For example, if you want to get a job as a social media manager for a brand, prepare a PDF with posts or IG stories that you’d post for one week or a couple of days on their Instagram profile complete with captions and hashtags. Take a look at what the brand is already posting, try to keep the aesthetic of the brand but bring something new and interesting as well! Maybe they post only once a day and you can say that you believe that posting twice means more engagement and that you could take care of that! This works extremely well with new brands and startups that you can find on Instagram but I recommend preparing a PDF to send along with your CV and Cover letter anytime you apply for a new job. For established fashion brands that are more competitive, adding this PDF/portfolio is something that will make you stand apart from anyone else who is simply submitting their CV.
- Emails, emails, emails….
Has this ever happened to you? You wake up and you say that TODAY you finally want to apply for jobs/internships. You go online, you spend hours on websites such as LinkedIn or FashionJobs… but you can’t find any internship or job you can apply for or just a few opportunities seem to be made for you. The title of this article is not casually saying things you can do TODAY, they are all things you are in control of and so that you can put into action right now. Applying for jobs online is not something you have the total control of, you are always depending on companies and recruiters that have to post the job in order for you to apply.
But stop making your career depending on others and things you can’t control such as companies that post jobs online in order to get started. Be the author of your life and career, make sure that you are not depending on things you can’t control. Make a list of your favorite brands, look for interesting fashion companies and agencies online (there are so many cool brands and startups that you can find on Instagram that are perfect to start with!) check out their websites, and if they don’t have a job posted, cold email them, introduce yourself and ask for a job/internship. Most of the jobs in fashion are not posted online, but this doesn’t mean that the company is not hiring! They are simply using other ways (connections) to hire people and the job/internship can’t make it online that they have already filled through word of mouth! If you email them, you might arrive in their inbox right when they are looking for someone! Or they will keep your applications for future opportunities or open a position for you because they like how resourceful and enthusiastic you’ve been by sending a spontaneous email!
Want more tips to land your dream job in fashion? In this free masterclass I share 3 secrets to get a job in fashion quickly even if you have no experience. Click here to register for free
