How To Become A Vogue Intern?

Working at Vogue is the ultimate dream job for so many fashion enthusiasts. Remember picking up Vogue at the nearest store since we were teenagers, and watching with awe all the fashion movies about working at a magazine… all to feel part of the fashion industry. 

Vogue is everywhere. Whenever you want to get fashion news – Vogue is your source. Not a day goes by without hearing about Anna Wintour, so we instantly think of this magazine that has been “a fashion bible” and an investment in the knowledge and the career of anyone who wants to work in fashion. 

While there are many career possibilities at other fashion magazines, it’s perfectly normal to want a job at Vogue for someone passionate about fashion. 

However, getting a job at the leading publication in the fashion world may seem like an unattainable goal. In fact, sometimes I feel like it is a parallel universe: that there is me and the fashion industry on one side, and Vogue on the other side. If you can relate to this, you may think that you need years and years of experience before getting the chance to be part of the Vogue team. But the truth is – you CAN work there even if you have little or no experience at all; you just need to look for entry-level jobs or internships if you have no experience at all.  

How To Become A Vogue Intern?

You know how at Glam Observer we are always trying to show you that fashion professionals started their impressive career with an internship. Everyone starts at the bottom – even Anna Wintour (as crazy as it sounds). So, as long as you have the skills, demonstrate passion and perseverance, and use unconventional strategies to apply, you can absolutely get an internship at Vogue! So today I am sharing with you all the tips and tricks on how to do that.

What makes a Vogue intern special? 

While it is 100% possible to get an internship at a top publication, we never said it was super easy. Vogue is very competitive. This is the first thing that’s special about being an intern at Vogue: it’s an exclusive and unique opportunity. You might remember the famous quote from The Devil Wears Prada “A million girls would kill for this job”. Well, 500 is the average number of applicants for a job at a top company in the fashion industry such as Vogue. And because of this strong demand and prestige of the magazine, there may be more requirements for candidates than at smaller or independent publications. That’s why to double your chances of getting an internship, you will have to prepare a solid application and use unconventional strategies to stand out among other applicants. But don’t worry, we will talk about that in the next paragraphs. 

Another special thing about working at Vogue is that you will get a lot of perks once you land an internship there.

By perks, I mean that you will be learning from some of the best fashion professionals and be part of a great team. You’ll be working with famous editors, stylists and photographers who will be your mentors. You’ll help style those beautiful models that you see in the magazine’s pages, or maybe produce fashion stories that you’ve been reading since you were a teenage girl. And just as working with the Vogue team wasn’t enough, your internship duties could also include staying in contact with luxury brands to use their clothes for editorials.

No matter the degree of responsibilities you will be given as an intern, what’s true is that you will make a contribution to the successful running of the magazine, and it will be a valuable experience that will open doors to future career opportunities at other prestigious fashion institutions. 

What does the Vogue team look for in interns? 

As cliché as this may sound, a prestigious magazine like Vogue looks for people in their team who are passionate – about Vogue and fashion in general. Ask yourself this: do you really know the magazine? Yes, you may be reading every single issue, but if you want to work at Vogue, you need to study the different issues in more detail – not just reading them for pleasure, but also for career purposes. 

To help you with that, take the edition of the country you want to intern in (Vogue Italia, British Vogue, Vogue United States, Vogue France, etc.) and analyze what are the most important issues, the best editorials, and who are the editors. By the way, you can find their names in the masthead page in the first pages of every issue, and then find them on LinkedIn or Instagram to find out more about their career path and what their responsibilities at Vogue are. With the internet and social media, it’s never been easier to find out about fashion professionals and reach out to them, so my advice to you is to make the most of this opportunity.

While you are researching information about Vogue, make sure to also take notes of your favorite issues and articles, so you can use it in your cover letter and during the job interview. 

There are many skills that fashion institutions like Vogue are looking for in interns.

First of all, you need to have serious organizational skills, learn quickly and be flexible to survive in the speedy fashion environment, unless you want to reproduce the living version of The Devil Wears Prada where everyone is running all the time and feels like they are about to faint. 

Additionally, depending on the department you want to join, you may need social media skills, photography or graphic design skills. You also need to master some tech tools (yes, even at Vogue because well, they do spend time on computer programs too) like Microsoft Office, (did I mention you need Excel to work in fashion?) Photoshop and Google Analytics, to name a few.

You can read more about the commonly requested skills in this article. 

Now, if you want to become the next Vogue writer, it goes without saying that your writing skills, including knowledge of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) writing, as well as WordPress are important. However, you don’t need to be a journalist with 10 years of experience to be considered as a good writer. Even if you are at the beginning of your career and you’re still working on your writing style, that’s O.K. An article doesn’t have to be the most interesting article of the week to be considered as good and make you look like a promising writer. So, practice your writing skills by writing a couple of articles per week that you can publish on your blog or just leave on your desktop, and show your ideas by pitching Vogue’s editors. Just make sure that your grammar and spelling are on top, and always proofread your articles. 

If writing for Vogue sounds like a dream career, you should know that writing is just 30% of the job. The rest of your time is about making contacts and reaching out to publications. So we invite you to check out our course The Fashion Writer Accelerator to learn about all the working strategies to pitch the editors and make sure your articles get published. 

Now that you know what the Vogue team expects from their interns, let’s see how to make it from 0 to Vogue.

How To Become A Vogue Intern?

1. Choose your department

For starters, decide in which department you want to intern. Do you want to write? Assist Editors at photoshoots? Manage social media? Writing for Vogue is one option, but it is not the only one. Just open any issue and look at the masthead: there is always a team of writers, the digital team, people who manage the visual part of the magazine, the marketing and advertising team… of course, there are many departments and roles involved in composing the magazine’s pages. So, before applying for an internship, you may want to decide which department you want to work in, so that you can email directly the fashion professionals who work there (which is one of our favorite unconventional strategies 😉 ) 

It is true that most of the interns will spend their time in the cupboard organizing all of the clothes, bags, and shoes that the magazine receives from brands and PR offices that are used for the photoshoots. So even though you may not be writing articles, running photoshoots or going to fashion shows (at least at the beginning of your internship), this is not the reason to send your application to a generic email; you should email a specific person in a specific department. 

2. Look for internships

The official way to find internships at Vogue is by applying to the job vacancies you can find online. The thing is: you may be waiting forever for a job to be posted online. Actually, if you read our weekly newsletter where we post the best latest fashion jobs and internships, you may have noticed that it’s not every week nor every month that there is an internship offer at Vogue. And it’s not because there aren’t any opportunities that Vogue isn’t looking for interns; it’s just that the offer hasn’t been published yet, or that it receives many spontaneous applications. So as Glam Observer students, you may want to use non-traditional application methods. 

Unconventional strategies are my absolute favorite!

And one of them is emailing directly your favorite Vogue editors to ask them for a job or internship.

Why? First of all, when you email your favorite editors directly, you arrive straight into their inbox. So it’s going to be harder for them to miss your application. When you apply online via a website form instead, it’s harder to get noticed among hundreds of other applicants.

The second reason is that fashion professionals love people who think out of the box.

So when you are not going through a traditional online application like anyone else, but you are emailing fashion professionals directly, you show up to be resourceful. Plus, very interested in getting that opportunity. We teach more about this strategy and other ones to stand out in the Glam Observer free masterclass. You can register here. 

If you used a combination of traditional and unconventional strategies and still haven’t heard back from Vogue, it can be a good idea to work at another magazine that belongs to the Condé Nast Group, (Glamour, GQ, Teen Vogue, etc.) so you can apply directly on the Condè Nast careers page or the Condè Nast LinkedIn profile. This way, you will not only acquire relevant experience but also build your network with people in this Group. So a potential future transition to Vogue could be easier compared to someone else coming from outside of the Group. 

Fashion companies tend to hire a lot during summer, so if you are a student or recent graduate, or you are just looking for a short-term internship program, then you should consider doing a summer internship at Vogue. But of course, you can apply at other times of the year as well. It’s never a bad time to apply.

3. Build a strong resume and cover letter

Whatever method you are going to use to land your job at Vogue – applying online or via email –  you need to build your resume. Don’t be intimidated by your short resume. That’s what internships are for – to grow your resume (aka experience). 

What you can do, however, is use a professional template. The font you choose, the layout, the colors – everything says about your personality. And editors will notice these small details, especially when they don’t have any previous experience to consider.

In addition to your resume, you should attach a super strong cover letter even when it’s not required to express your passion for the job and bridge any experience gap you have.

4. Add your blog or social media profile

Having your own fashion blog or Instagram page where you share about fashion is something recommended nowadays. Especially to land a job at a fashion magazine. Editors expect you to have a sort of online presence if you want to work for Vogue. A blog or Instagram account where you talk about fashion is not only a great way to have something to add to your resume, but it’s also something valuable to show off to potential recruiters and editors. It could be a great way to start building some fashion experience while learning precious skills along the way: tech skills to build your website, visuals and images skills, plus your fashion tastes and knowledge. 

5. Create a portfolio

A resume and cover letter are the standards. But if you want to stand out, consider adding a portfolio to showcase your skills directly. A portfolio is not only for fashion design with sketches, or for writers; it is a collection of any type of work. 

If you want to become a fashion writer, build a writing portfolio that will include clips and articles you wrote for other magazines or simply for your own fashion blog. If you want to become a photographer for Vogue, your portfolio will include photos that you took even just for fun or for the sake of building it. And if you want to work in graphic design or social media, your portfolio can be a collection of social media graphics and captions you would publish on Vogue if you were on the social media team or a layout/pagination of the magazine if you want to work in graphic design/art direction. 

This is how you can become a Vogue Intern. If you want to learn more deeply how to apply each tip, learn about other strategies (there are so many!) and feel more confident when applying for a serious publication like Vogue, we invite you to enroll in our “Break into the fashion industry” course – the first and only revolutionary course and mentorship experience that teaches you a proven step-by-step system of unconventional strategies to stand out in a competitive industry and land a job or internship quickly!