Fashion companies receive on average 500 applications, so how can you stand out and impress fashion recruiters especially when you have no experience? I tell you 7 things you can do in this 6-minute video below!
- Express your Why
When you’re at the beginning of your career and your resume, your cv is normally poor of experience, fashion recruiters won’t focus so much on what you have on your resume, they will instead focus more on your why: your motivation, your passion, what drives you, why you want to work for that brand and that company.
That’s why when you have no experience you should leverage your cover letter more than your CV, because through it you’ll be able to express your motivation and why. Fashion companies love a customized application so add something personal about the brand and company when you apply, so they can understand that you are not randomly applying for so many jobs to get one job, but that you want to get exactly that job. Be very clear about which work experience you want to get and why, express this why and make sure you don’t seem indecisive or you won’t make the shortlist.
2.Don’t make it about you
Don’t make your applications about you, but make them about the brand, the company. Even if you’ll be the happiest person on the planet to get the job, don’t center the application around you. Instead of saying ” I want to work there because I want to learn, I want to finally work in my favorite industry” say something like this” I’m driven and my desire to learn and to grow and the passion I have for this brand and the fashion industry, will make me the best resource you’ve ever had!” With the first sentence, you are just looking at your interests, with the second one you are looking at the interest of the company. In the end, companies want to know what you can do for them, not what the job can do for you.
3. Think out of the box
Nowadays the old standard job application alone doesn’t work anymore. You have so many tools that you can use to apply for jobs and to reach out to fashion companies: You have LinkedIn, Instagram, emails… don’t just use the online application, apply for fashion jobs/internships with a combination of multiple strategies. And remember that a creative job application can overcome any lack of skills and experience outlined in the job description.
If you are afraid that the problem could be the fact that you don’t have experience yet, and so fashion companies will never consider you, you should be mainly focused on finding ways to impress fashion recruiters with a creative application customized to the brand. Because when you are creative with your applications, recruiters will see that you think out of the box which is something fashion companies love
4. Keywords, keywords, keywords..
Make sure that anytime you apply for a new fashion job you add the keywords of the job description in your resume and cover letter. Even if you are applying for Fashion PR Internships but at 3 different companies, fashion recruiters might have different requirements, so even if it seems to be the same job, each company can consider different things, skills and previous experience… so tailor your application to each job and company.
5. Quality > Quantity
When you are at the beginning of your career you might be tempted to try to fill out your resume with anything just to write something. But remember that is all about quality so it’s better to have a few but key elements relevant for that job instead of for example adding skills just for the sake of adding. For example, adding Photoshop for a fashion buying internship and then missing relevant skills such as Excel could be a serious problem. So make sure that you add only the information that is relevant for the job, avoid any babysitting or working at a supermarket experience… just think about some personal projects or things that you did in school that can be relevant for that job.
6.Cover letter vs CV
Your cover letter is not a recap of your resume. Both documents (cv and cl) serve you to tell companies different things about yourself and have more chances for companies to know you so they can hire you. If you use the cover letter just to repeat again the information that is on your CV you’re missing the chance to tell them something else that might get you the job. Actually, when you have no experience you should leverage your cover letter more than your cv because through this document you can express the why and motivation we were talking about in the first point of this list.
Companies are hiring for potential, not a finished product, they prefer to hire someone who has the motivation because they know that if you have the potential, you can learn everything else on the job. So make sure your potential is transparent through your applications.
7. Make sure you apply for the right job
The word assistant in fashion could be quite tricky. You might read Assistant Buyer, Assistant Designer… you’ve just graduated so you might think that you can apply for this job because they are looking for someone who assists them. But if you read the job description you might find that most of the assistant jobs require one year of experience in a similar role. So in this case is better that you find the same job but at the level that suits your experience. For example, if you have never worked before and you’ve just found an Assistant Designer position that you like but that requires one year of experience, look for a design internship instead.
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