What To Expect At A Magazine Internship

Morning guys and welcome to Blogmas day 5!! So today I wanted to talk to y'all about Internships.

This is a topic that comes up rather regularly and something I often get asked about. Obviously the pipe dream for a lot of girls, budding journalists and bloggers is to work for a print magazine - of course, technology is steering us towards digital (unfortunately) which means magazines are now declining. Nevertheless, online/print publications are fairly similar in which the way they operate. Websites such as Buzzfeed/Daily Mail still have deadlines to meet, laise with PR companies and socialites to bag interviews with etc but Digital is just instant where as Magazines have a slower, more ahead of time process.

Anyway, regardless of the type of publication - internships generally have similar duties that are required of the intern obviously dependent upon the nature of the internship. I myself have experience working in both the editorial and fashion/beauty departments of magazines so anything that I list below is all to do with my experience, although this may differ from other peoples' experiences in interning.

So first things first...

1. It's Glam But Not That Glam - So for anybody who hasn't been on an internship and aspires to bag one at a national publication and has visions of them being Andy from The Devil Wears Prada and the staff being extremely obnoxious and rude - good news, you're in for a surprise. None of the staff I worked with during my time interning have ever once been patronizing, quite the opposite actually. You need to remember that at some point, these members of staff were all in your position and have worked their way up or in some cases, just got lucky and were in the right place at the right time. Either way, you have no need to worry about being spoken to in a rude manner, in my experience anyway. Staff members are usually chatty, friendly, polite and are keen to get to know about your aspirations, if you play your cards right one opportunity may lead to another - it worked for me!

2. There Will Be Coffee - Another myth which I can confirm as being true is the fact that you will be doing Coffee runs - yes, Starbucks will become your new best friend. Magazine staff are generally fairly busy people and have long days, yeah sure it's a fantastic job they have and it must be great to have such a glamorous job title but at the end of the day they need their caffeine and if that's going to enable them to do their job better then you're a great help. So be prepared to do Coffee runs, take lunch orders and memorize the local Starbucks/ Pod.  Another thing I would say is, as simple as it sounds - do try to actually listen to someones drinks orders, even though it's only something little, for me, I find it very lovely when someone remembers I have a Soya Mocha or a Soya Tea as opposed to normal milk etc.

3. You're Not Going To Be Their Cover Girl - You'll spend a lot of your time doing tasks that you may not deem as important but actually are for the running of the magazine. For example, if you're doing a fashion internship you'll be spending a whole lot of time in the Fashion/Beauty Cupboard booking in and out products for testing, photography or photo shoots. It's kinda cool actually, you often get to see new releases and although you may feel as though what you're doing isn't important - it is. On many occasions beauty editors have asked me if I can please fetch the such and such perfume for a feature and you need to be able to find it straight away. Keeping the cupboards in order and taking note of what is in the cupboard and what isn't is important. Very often after a shoot a PR company will request they have their samples back for the next day and if you cannot find them you'll be in a bit of a pickle. My words of wisdom would be to take every task in your stride - as mundane as the task may be you should always put 100% effort into your task and do it to the best of your ability. Magazines have new interns every week, rather than being the person who coasts along doing an 'okay' job of everything make sure you stand out!

4. Seize Every Opportunity - As I said at the start of this post, playing your cards right at your internship may lead to further opportunities so make sure you show initiative. In case you didn't know a lot of magazine titles all operate under one building - for example Bauer Media have Grazia, FHM, Heat and Closer all in one building and obviously they all talk amongst one another. One time I was interning at Closer magazine and just so happened to be in the lift with the Editorial Assistant at Heat who said she'd noticed me before and said I seemed to be doing a really good job (which was lovely) and then she offered me an internship with Heat. Then at Heat I ended up helping out the girls at Closer again and also had the chance to do a bit of work with Mother & Baby Magazine. If you show interest in the magazines they will ensure you're looked after and will offer you the opportunities. As I stated before, don't sit around and wait to be asked for something to do, actively say 'is there anything I can do' 'how can I help you' and you will be rewarded. At my first editorial internship (at a newspaper) I came up with an article an idea and before I knew it I had bagged my self an inside the first page article with a picture of me discussing my thoughts on a run down town. So basically what I'm saying is work hard, be patient and seize every opportunity that comes your way.

If you have any questions please feel free to comment below or tweet me! Also please share your interning experiences with me!!

My Internship at Heat Magazine

Evening to my lovely readers!

I've been so busy the past couple of months that I never got chance to tell you about what I did in November...that's right I bagged my self a short internship at Heat Mag! Having worked at Closer earlier in the year, I must say I did find my experience this time round A LOT less daunting. The thing is Closer and Heat are literally next door to one another, on the same floor and in the same building. Since I was pretty used to the building and people there...I wasn't as nervous. In fact, I was more excited than anything.

It was a lot of fun! As most of you probably know - I absolutely love the buzz of visiting big cities and what better city to visit than London?!

So I should probably start telling you what I actually got up to whilst I was 'daaan saaaf' rather than babbling, here it goes...

On my first day , it involved getting up at 5:30am and leaving the house by 6:20am (a traumatic experience for me to say the least). Next thing was to avoid dosing off at the train station and make it to Kings Cross in one piece - again a troublesome experience. Once I got to Kings Cross I had to take the tube to Covent Gardens and then simply take a short walk to Heat Towers.

Once I arrived in reception, I just had to wait for the editorial assistant to come and fetch me - she shortly appeared and called out my name. I was pleasantly surprised when 3 other interns' names were called also. Maria (the editorial assistant) gave us a brief tour of the old building and then led us to our desk. We all got our own desks which was pretty good!

This time round I chose to do Editorial rather than Fashion - and in all honesty, I actually enjoyed the Editorial side more as it involved more writing rather than being locked in the Fashion Cupboard. I don't mind the Fashion Cupboard but writing is definitely where my true passion lies.

Throughout the week I...

• Was introduced to various members of staff 
• I wrote a whole lotta web content
• Briefly bumped into Holly from Geordie Shore
• Did an online Twitter chat with some X Factor Contestants
• Went to visit the girls on the Closer Fashion Desk and helped them out with some fashion samples
• Put together some goody bags and sent out subscription issues to the lovely ladies at Mother & Baby Mag
• Got given some lovely books on the last day as a thank you for my efforts

AND I got the chance to sit in the Coco-Cola truck! 

All in all it was an amazzzing experience - Heat yet again confirmed to me that I do want to work in the magazine/fashion/publishing industry when I'm a little bit older. 

Have you interned at any magazines or PR companies recently? If so, comment below -  I would love to hear all about it :) 

GoThinkBig celebrate their 1st Birthday!!

This week GoThinkBig had their 1st birthday! If you're sitting here reading this wondering what on earth 'GoThinkBig' is - is it a person? a product? Well for all of you who aren't aware - GoThinkBig is an organisation that focuses on helping young ambitious people get their foot in the door in the media industry and several other industries in fact.

GoThinkBig has an opportunities website where you can apply for work experience, internships, apprenticeships and entry level positions. If you're anything like me, when I stumbled upon this website I was beyond excited. I did my first fashion internship at Bliss Magazine back in early 2012 which I gained off of my own back. I sent them my CV, registered my interest, wrote a cover letter and then wrote a further letter explaining why I think I'd be pefect to be a Blisslet & luckily I nailed the deal. It wasn't easy to obtain the work experience but well worth it in the end. The point I'm making is - for me to land that work experience I emailed every magazine possible begging for an internship but didn't hear back from the majority of them. Who wants a girl who has no experience in the industry?

GoThinkBig take out all of this hassle for you and actually advertise real opportunities which, if you apply for - whether you're successful or not in gaining the opportunity you are still notified rather than sitting and waiting. Waiting upon an email telling you that Vogue wants to employ you and thinks you're fantastic (a girl can dream eh!).

Anyway, the whole point of me writing this post is because I'd like to give a big thank you to GoThinkBig for all that they've done for me this year, it's changed everything for me!! Back in January this year I found GTB and thought hey ho lets give it ago and think I applied for every opportunity going. A month later I had completely forgot about applying for all these applications when I received a phone call from the Style Assistant at Closer magazine (midway through drying my hair and rushing around getting ready for sixth form) asking if I'd like to do a fashion internship next month. Me being the stupidly excited/panicky person I am just literally didn't know what to say! I was just astounded that a big magazine would take any interest in me! Anyways, I accepted and so a couple of weeks later, off I went to Shaftesbury Avenue...

However the luck didn't stop there! On my second day of interning at Closer I was in the lift and the other girl in the lift began talking to me and stated she was really impressed with me - turns out she was the editorial assistant at Heat magazine! Maria gave me her contact details and told me I'm more than welcome to do some work experience at Heat whenever I like. So, once I got home from London I emailed her and  sorted it. In a week I'll be off to Covent Gardens for a week to Heat Towers but this time in the editorial department. Hooray! GoThinkBig is definitely worth giving a try, it does prove that one opportunity can lead to another. Thank you so much GTB :)

Check out the video below to see even further details on how GoThinkBig can help you!
Follow them on Twitter: @GoThinkBig
Or if you think you're ready to get your foot in the door, check out their website for opportunities: www.gothinkbig.co.uk