Surviving Internship Pressure

I'm at the halfway point of my time at TeenMag.com! Though I'm positive I'll be staying on as a Contributing Writer while I'm at college, I know it's not going to be the same as being in the office every day. This time around, there's no guarantee that I'll have the opportunity to go back to TeenMag.com. Eek! 

Unfortunately, it seems like EVERYONE—from the competitive intern I work with to my friends and parents—are under the impression that I'll definitely be offered a position at TeenMag.com when I graduate next year. I would absolutely love to work at TeenMag.com, but as we in the magazine industry know, there's no guarantee there will be a spot on staff for me next summer. 

I've been meeting with alumni from my school in the magazine industry, attending Ed2010 events (maybe I met some of you there!), asking editors from other departments to coffee, and pitching stories to TeenMag.com as often as I can. I feel like I've been taking all of the opportunities I can while at Teen Mag, and have complete faith that when it's time for me to apply for a job, something will fall into place. I know that my family and friends want the best for me, but it's making me crazy that every family dinner conversation somehow revolves around earning a position at Teen Mag.

5 Tips for Offering to Help Your Editors

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Working at Lifestyle Mag is often as glossy as the pages of the print issue. But, it can also be VERY stressful at times, as I found out yesterday.

Your Complete Guide To Organization At Work

Hi Edsters,

With the craziness that is working at a magazine, it is important to stay as organized as possible. I have been guilty of forgetting minor details or been in need of a desk clean-up before, especially the more the summer goes on and the long term assignments need to be worked on. Working with editors and other interns has taught me a few tips about staying on track with assignments and not forgetting anything. It is definitely important to remember what you have due and the details your boss gave you. 

Here are the times I have felt unorganized and tried to find a solution to the messy.

When running an errand... I could spare myself a lot of semi-heart-attacks if I kept better track of receipts. I have never lost one but I have by mistake placed them down on a shelf or put them in a mysterious pocket I didn't know I had. Therefore, I find it best to put the receipt in my wallet next to whatever cash I have on me. That way it is easy to notice it when giving it to your boss. Another important tip is to put the company credit card (if given one) somewhere also noticeable in your wallet, away from other cards. 

How to Network with Your Contacts

Image Courtesy of the University of South Australia via Flickr

Hello there, Edsters,

Because I work besides my editors, I feel that it’s too weird to request an informational interview. For anyone who doesn’t know (I had to Wikipedia the term the first time I heard it), an informational interview is something that every intern should have.

Typically you’ll meet with a higher-up that has a job that you’re interested in, and you’ll ask them any questions you might have about what they do and how they got there.

It’s a great way to evaluate how you are doing in comparison, and what you should do once you’re finished with your internship.

Is It Ever Okay to Say ‘No’ At Work?

Hey Edsters,

Yesterday, I received my mom’s monthly magazine package in the mail. The package is my lifeline: My mom graciously forwards me 7 pounds worth of magazines every month so I can keep up with my 10 different subscriptions that are each equally necessary to my growth as a savvy magazine industry individual (despite everyone else’s addiction suspicions).

I cracked open Marie Claire and flipped through to my favorite section, Marie Claire @ Work, when a particular headline stopped my flipping fingers dead in their tracks. It was an article on the “latest type of workforce discrimination;” apparently, single girls are finding it harder to retain a work-life balance then the married-with-kids set. Work is getting delegated to the single people who are assumed to have more time to toss around at the office, while parents are rigidly retaining a 9-5 work schedule.

I’m not sure how valid the argument is, because I know that if I was a working parent, I would be a whole lot more likely to lay down rules about when I can and can’t be in the office vs. if I’m single and looking to work my way up the ladder. As a non-married person, I’m probably much more likely to take up extra work, whether I need to or not, because I don’t have the same commitments and I’m eager to show how much chutzpah I’ve got. What struck me most in the article was what one woman said who was countering the discrimination argument. “No one respects people who are slaves to the job. Build the muscle to say ‘no.’”

How To Survive Your First Informational Interview

Hey Whippersnappers, 

I requested my first informational interview, and I survived! Here's how I made it happen: 

I was on my Twitter account a few weeks ago and saw one of my followers was an editor from a fashion magazine. Score! A quick Google search told me that she was an alumni of my university, and I sent her an email to see if I could pick her brain with some questions. She responded right away, and we met on my lunch hour the next day! Here are some tips for scoring—and surviving— the informational interview:

PUNK: Chaos to Couture

Hi Edsters,

I'm sure I'm not alone when I admit I have a NYC bucket list for this summer. I mean, come on...who doesn't!? In a city full of 24/7 excitement, I'm finding there is always somewhere or something new to explore and fun to see, just never enough time to do it all! Yet, there is one thing I HAVE to check out before I leave the Big Apple and return back home. 

Surviving the Heat, Fashionista Style

Well Edsters,

There's no doubt about it. Summer is here, with temperatures to the max. I don't know about you, but this New York City heat is trying to get the best of me, and my hair! See, for years now, summer and I have developed a love/hate relationship. There's nothing I adore more than the fun outdoor activities that come with this season, not to mention all the summer dresses, wedges, and short shorts you can get away with. Yet, the humidity can sometimes take a damper on these anticipated days. My usual leisure walk to the subway quickly turns into a grueling, sweaty nightmare, in which I look like a hot mess by the time I get to my destination.

Seeming how I have no control over the soaring thermostats, I have come up with some useful fashion/beauty tips on how to survive the dreadful heat. Let's be honest, even when it feels like a smothering sauna outside, you still want to look your best right?! Therefore, I've created a mini-collage on how we, fashionistas, can take on the sun's beaming rays.

• For starters, I've found there's nothing more comfortable -- and stylish -- on hot, humid days than a sleeveless, sheer top. And because these blouses are flying to the top of the trends list this summer, you can most likely find them in any shop. Particularly for printed, colorful ones, check out Forever 21. 
• Sheer shorts are another one of my favorites. Not only are they cool and comfy, but the added touches (like the laced ones below) add a touch of glam to any outfit.
• In the summer, my go-to hairstyle has become the one-and-only ballerina bun, such as Lauren Conrad's below. This effortless undo is great for this season, as well as a quick way to add some chicness to your look.
• We all know that accessories are a necessity to taking any outfit to the next level. Except in the scorching temperatures of summer, I've found that the big statement pieces sometimes causes more sweat than desired. Therefore, I've become a fan of smaller-pieced jewelry. These are still just as cute and fun, yet much more lightweight.
• A smaller purse is also a great way to take on summer. As silly as it sounds, if you're anything like me, you tend to pack everything you own and more into your bag. That results in one heavy pocketbook. By switching only your must-haves into a smaller purse or even a clutch will allow you to still look stylish without feeling tied down.
• Sandals, sandals, sandals!! I love them so. Not only are these shoes extremely lightweight, but they come in all different prints, designs, and colors! Check out Target for a great selection at an even better price!
• Lastly are my beloved oil sheets, me new lifesavers. Wandering around this big city has its perks, yet I've found myself having more of an oily face than usual. For a quick fix, I use the Clean & Clear oil sheets. These take about five seconds to use and allow you to feel so refreshed and clean (hence the name!). Perfect for a hot, muggy day if you ask me!

What are some tricks you've come up with when surviving the tremendous heat that's taking NYC by storm? Please feel free to share any beauty tips -- I'd love to know:)

XOxo,

Fashion Intern

How To Recover From A (Stupid) Mistake

Hey Edsters,

We've all done it. Mistakenly hanging up on someone important, copying the wrong document on the wrong paper, or missing an important dateline for our boss. Doing something wrong at work isn't a crime although it can feel the end of the world in the office. I have never been sure what the best approach to fixing an error is and this past week I was challenged with overcoming a minor mistake. 

How To Get Better Assignments

Image from Flickr

Edsters,

Recently, the Mag has been prepping for a major photo shoot. I was invited to sit in on the meeting with my editors as they went through a checklist. The list consisted of items that need to be borrowed or bought from various retailers, and who was responsible for checking them in. 

I was surprised at how organized everything was in order for the shoot to run smoothly. During the meeting, one of the editors was nervous about ordering an item of furniture because it was out of stock in the retailer’s New York locations. Because I live near the non-city store, I offered to call in the item and have it shipped to the shoot myself.

All of my editors’ heads snapped up when I mentioned taking on an important role. 

How To Fake It Til You Make It (In Writing)

Image via allieiswired for Flickr Creative Commons

Hey Edsters,

I’m not sure how common this is (a show of hands in the comments section would be helpful) but I’ve been really stressed out lately at my entertainment internship due to the number of weekly bylines I’ve been getting on the site.

Wow, that sounded really conceited. Stick with me here.

Since I scored my internship through an editor who was already familiar with my writing, she wasted no time shooting articles my way. My internship is about 2% website production work and 98% writing articles. I’ve been amassing clips left and right, getting great editorial feedback, and I even got a job offer! Oh wait, that last part was a dream I had.

Anyway, it’s been great—so why did I hit that awful moment that most interns, at one point or another, have the joy of dealing with? You know, that moment when things get so rough that you contemplate quitting.

What Eva Chen's Promotion Means, and What You Can Learn From It

Everyone at Teen Mag was so excited when Eva Chen got promoted to Editor In Chief of Lucky Magazine this week. I've always looked up to Eva, and followed (okay, stalked) her social media sites for insight as to what it's really like to be a magazine editor. She's a celebrity in her own right, and I can't wait to see what's in store for her and for Lucky! 

It's so rare to be promoted to Editor In Chief (it's not like Anna Wintour's going anywhere...), and I think the fact that Eva earned the title says something about her exemplary career and the direction the magazine industry is going. Here are 3 lessons interns can learn from Eva:

To Be or Not To Be?

Hello Edsters,

When interning with twenty-some other girls, I have found it to be a great challenge to make myself standout as an intern and get the most out of my time at the magazine. Even though I have tried some tricks up my sleeve to project my ambition for my internship – such as introducing myself to all of the editors and assistants, being the first to volunteer for a not-so-thrilled-about task, and even arriving early while staying late – it seems as if I’m still a number instead of a name. I don’t know about you, but for me, this feeling is a tad bit more than just discouraging. It’s a little disheartening as well. I knew before I made the move up to the Big Apple for the summer that it was a necessity for me to develop a thick skin. I knew this would just be a part of the job. Despite the fact that I'm absorbing any negative criticism and turning it into positive motivation, I'm trying to decide if the magazine industry is truly for me.

How to Escape the Mid-Internship Rut

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Hi there, Edsters!

I’ve been at my amazing internship for over a month now. It’s been an incredible experience and definitely something that I don’t take for granted—but I’ve noticed that I’ve started to fall into a routine lately. I don’t think routines are bad, but sometimes routines can lead into…well, a rut of sorts. I feel very comfortable with Lifestyle Mag’s office and my responsibilities, which is great! But, I realized that because of my new found ease, I stopped looking for new and creative ways to exceed expectations! I think it’s always important to strive for a better day than the previous—regardless if you’ve been at the internship for one day or 45! Keeping this in mind, I did a bit of internship soul-searching and came up with a list of 4 ways to get whippersnappers out of a mid-internship rut!

Running In Heels

Hello fellow Edsters!

This past week at the magazine one of the editors gave some of the interns a presentation on being professional and kicking a** over the course of this summer and wherever we go in our careers. There have been so many discussions recently on women in the workforce and how important it is for women to aspire to be in the top of their fields. The presentation touched on everything to know from how to dress to how to deal with a crisis. I was surprised by a lot of what the editor said but also extremely interested in the tips on how to be professional in a magazine setting. A few tid-bits of information stuck out that aren’t just relevant to working in publishing.

Don’t be the one with the highest heels. Nearly every college student knows the importance of presentation when going over documents with their boss or in a meeting. However the standards are different in certain offices, especially when working at a magazine with half of its pages devoted to fashion. There is undoubtedly pressure to wear 4 inch heels every day at work and flaut this season's collections but the editor was telling us what is really important to remember. Clothes that fit well, are the approximate length (short skirts, obviously a no-no), and not too much make-up she said is key. I was surprised by the length a manicure could go according to the editor, which made me feel less guilty for changing my polish weekly. She concluded the appearance discussion on that fact women and men are judged differently in the office so it is important to remember to present yourself well, despite the unfairness.

The Art of Pinterest

Hey Edsters!

When I accepted my internship, I had no idea what I was in for. SEO (or search engine optimization) was a foreign concept and I had no background in CMS (content management systems) at all. Even my understanding of Photoshop would be considered intermediate at best. I was super nervous to take on all of the tasks my editors would throw at me, hoping I wouldn’t get anything that was too above my head. 

Three weeks later, I’m still on Pinterest. 

How To Pick Yourself Up Off The Floor After Making A Big Mistake

Edsters!

Guess what happened after my long-winded rally cry for the benefits of freelancing last week? I met with that editor from the fashion blog and we laughed, swapped stories, drank water, and connected on all sorts of levels and then the bomb dropped: All their freelancers are unpaid.

Story of our lives, right? I mean, I’m definitely still taking the job anyways, but I guess money doesn’t start raining down once you upgrade from “intern” to “freelancer.” Oh well, I live and I learn.

But that is not the point of this post. The point of this post is that I’ve made some TERRIBLE mistakes at all of my internships and since we’re all rounding the halfway mark in the summer, that usually means the first (or, who am I kidding, the first ten) big uh-oh mistakes have happened at our prestigious places of work.

There are different levels to these transgressions. There’s the funny type, which aren’t so bad. Example: A girl at one of my fashion closet internships took a $40 pedi-cab ride back to the office after one of her first messenger runs because she was having trouble hailing a taxi.

Then there’s the are-they-going-to-fire-me type of mistakes. Recently, I reported on a fancy, celebrity-filled panel for a post at my internship, and I mis-quoted the founder of one of the brands represented. There’s nothing like getting a ‘Hey! You messed up!’ email from the PR director of the well-recognized women’s magazine that hosted the event at 9:30 pm on the day the post was published.

How to Master the New York Subway, All While Keeping a Smile

Well Edsters,

Let's face it -- the New York City subway system can make anyone's nerves curl into a tight-wounded ball. From the stampeding crowds scurrying up and down the stairs, to the murky corners and sometimes fowl smells, it's no place you wish to be at longer than you have to. Yet, over the course of the last few weeks where I've had to zip across the city on sporadic fashion runs, I've found ways to make the subway seem more like a friend rather than foe.

How I Tackled My First Big Assignment at Women’s Lifestyle Mag

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20 minutes before the end of the day, the news editor at Women’s Lifestyle Mag asked me if I wanted to attend a party to try and score an interview for a Q&A post on the website.

Um, YES PLEASE!

This was my first big assignment at Women’s Lifestyle Mag, so naturally I was freaking out. I was so excited to have an extra project to work on, but I was also nervous. The fist big assignment is, in some ways, a “make it or break it” sort of moment and I had little time to prepare—because the party that I needed to attend started in two hours.

Stuck In Stars & Fandom

Hello fellow Edsters!

Have you ever seen a celebrity walk pass you down the street? You turn around, second-guessing if that really was Ricky Gervais walking by central park (that did happen to me, but I was too late to notice). After passing him you turn to your friend with widen eyes, yelling "Oh my gosh! Was that—" and fill in the blank of whoever you saw. We’ve all been guilty of gushing over a celebrity we love, whether it be because he/she is an amazing musician or made us laugh more than anyone else in a movie.

When working at a major magazine you are bound to encounter celebrities. Although my world obviously does not revolve around famous people, I, like many, would get pretty excited if I saw or interacted with a favorite celebrity. We’ve all “fan girl-ed” before and one day at the magazine was guilty of getting a little too excited when given an interview to transcribe. I found myself excited to hear the conversation between the celebrity and freelancer. Feeling a bit unprofessional, I tried to pull myself together after getting too excited hearing the celebrity talk with the journalist on a casual level, something you don't see on television.

Boundaries with your Boss

Edsters,


Although I am the only intern in the editorial department, I befriended someone my own age. Let’s call her Reese.


Reese is an intern in the market research side of the Mag. So basically she gets to see all of the products that the Mag shoots way in advance, and then packs them up UPS-style.


We got lunch the other day and it’s really cool to talk to someone that isn’t your competition. I don’t need to worry about competing for extra projects or splitting up work, and I can reap the benefits of networking.

How To Make Money At An Unpaid Internship

GUYS. Or, since Ed's colloquialisms are way better: WHIPPERSNAPPERS.

Remember that woman from last week? The one who tipped me off on a fashion website looking for freelancers?

AN EDITOR FROM THE SITE EMAILED ME BACK.

Here's a really quick backstory for those of you who don't remember and/or don't want to click back. Last week, I attended a swanky entertainment party and met a woman who ended up tipping me off to a fashion website that was looking for some freelance help. I emailed an editor from the site over the past weekend, and now I'm meeting with her next week.

It's pretty much blowing my introverted, network-adverse mind right now. So much so, in fact, that I wanted to make it the topic of this post.

If you have an unpaid internship this summer and you haven't complained at least 355 times about how unfair it is, I want to meet you and soak up some of your rays of sunshine. For the rest of us, we've been in the trenches for about a month now and the effects of long hours for no pay are starting to rub in a little, right?

So, what do we do? Well, we could keep filing lawsuits, as a few Condé kids are doing. It's a big, probably expensive step, but, thanks to these brave souls, I doubt future interns will have to endure the same financial woes that we are.

How Do You Deal With Competitive Interns?

After what seemed like years of anticipation, I'm finally back at Teen Mag! It seems like since the moment my plane landed last week, I've been buying clothes, stocking up on Moleskines, and flipping through my notes on HTML from last summer so that I could jump right into my work at Teen Mag. And it was so worth it!

I knew I was so excited to head back, but I didn't realize that my editors were excited to have me back as well! I was so happy that they each hugged me and asked me how my time abroad had been. It was so sweet! I was especially flattered that one of my editors called me her "star writer" and told me she couldn't wait to have my writing all over TeenMag.com. Seriously, I thought I might die of happiness.

Meeting this year's crop of interns, however, was not half as fun as reuniting with my editors. I had great expectations for them: Teen Mag is known for building intern classes that become really close, and my intern class from last summer still Facebook chats, tweets, and follows each other's blogs. (One of my fellow interns from last summer came to get lunch with me after she finished up an interview!) This summer, things don't look as peachy.

Lights, Camera, Intern! What It's Like To Go Behind The Scenes at a Magazine Photoshoot

Hello Edsters,

Before I started my internship at one of my favorite fashion magazines, I tried to visualize what my days would entail. As glamourous as I might have imagined them to be, I knew long treacherous days were heading my way. That thought has now turned into my reality. 

Immediately as I walk through the glass doors of magazine heaven, insanity starts, especially when there is a photo shoot that day. From zig-zagging in cabs across the city to picking up needed pieces at various showrooms and the daily coffee runs for multiple editors, it's becoming less and less surprising when I look down at my glitter-incrested watch to see the time has passed me by. Yes, I feel as though I have become Andy in The Devil Wears Prada.

Yet as tiresome as my two weeks into my internship has been, my hard-work seemed to finally catch someone's eye when one of the assistant editors asked if I could lend a helping hand at one of their shoots (as if I'd ever say no!). Before she could even finish her sentence, that three-letter word flew out of my mouth!

Overheard at the Office: How to Ask for an Informational Interview

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I sit next to the web editors at Women’s Lifestyle Mag…so naturally; I hear a lot of super interesting conversations! One of the discussions I over heard on Monday happens to be especially relevant to interns: the dos and don’ts of asking for an informational interview.