Milk Makeup’s Post

7 things I wish I had known as an intern, in honor of National Intern Day: 1. Executives, celebrities--they're all just people. Sure, they make more money and have more experience than you do, but they shouldn't intimidate you so much that you freeze up when you talk to them. I was only 18 at my first internship at Teen People Magazine, and I was so nervous about interviewing Jennifer Love Hewitt that I accidentally called her Jennifer Lopez. (At least this made a funny story to share when I interviewed her again many years later for Working Mother.) 2. Try to figure something out yourself first before rushing to ask someone for help. But if after, say, 15 minutes you're not making progress, ask for an assist from the lowest-level person who can help you. My editor at my second internship, at Parenting Magazine, taught me this, and I wish I had learned it sooner. I bet she did too. 3. If you get an assignment and know a better way to do it, suggest it. I spent days and days manually transcribing celebrity interviews at Teen People. The tools in 2001 might not have been as great as they are now, but there had to be a better way than me listening to a fuzzy recording, typing a few words, restarting the tape (yes, tape!), and doing this again and again. (I get unpleasant flashbacks whenever I hear Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray talking.) Using tech could've been more efficient, but I, perhaps wrongly, assumed I wasn't allowed. 4. Use your inside voice. Interning was fun. I'd talk a LOT to fellow interns. But one time an editor complained about all the noise coming from the intern bullpen. It was embarrassing for us to get scolded. I'm sure it was embarrassing for our super-kind manager to have to tell us to pipe down. 5. Set a goal for your internship and ask your manager to help you reach it. I wanted a byline SO BADLY. But I wasn't strategic about getting one. I should have looked for editors who were drowning and needed the extra help, or low-level opportunities where my writing would've been appreciated. I got very lucky to get to write something anyway. 6. Don't take feedback personally. I was shocked--SHOCKED!--when only my first two sentences of that article I wrote were left as I had submitted them. And I felt so foolish that I couldn't produce writing exactly like what the editor wanted. I shouldn't have. Editing is subjective, as so much feedback is. Instead of feeling wounded, I should have learned from the editor's changes--and even shown I understood them and pitched another story to write. 7. Take pictures! I have 4 photos from my time at Teen People--and even less from my other internships and jobs. The memories will be so precious when you're a middle-aged fart like me and want to reminisce. Here I am with the one visitor I worked up the nerve to talk to: Edwin McCain, of "I'll Be" and "I Could Not Ask for More" fame. (He was nice.) Love that I get to be a mentor to a Fidtern as a #fidelityassociate #nationalinternday

When I was 23 and desperate to break into the magazine world, I turned down an internship at Time, Inc. An undergrad professor and long-time columnist for Sports Illustrated set up an interview for me with one of the big-time editors there. This professor had taught my Magazine Writing class and was the first person to tell me that I could make a career out of writing. I had no idea how to do that, of course. But I moved to NYC and commenced applying to "writer" jobs. When this interview came up, I was ecstatic. One weekend morning, I took the 1 train to 50th Street and walked to the Time Life building, adjacent to Radio City Music Hall and Rockefeller Center. It was a Devil Wears Prada fever dream. 😈 I had a lovely chat with the editor. I was truly in over my head, but he was kind and asked me a lot of questions about my writing. And then he explained that the opportunity to work as his part-time assistant was an unpaid internship, and that I would have to be available during random weekdays. I was already temping as a receptionist during the day and working evening and weekend shifts at the children's section of the Upper West Side Barnes & Noble to afford my half of the rent and a Metrocard (which was $79 a month, omg). I knew I couldn't hack it as a waitress or bartender. I couldn't rely on my parents to pay my rent. I needed a day job. And so I turned it down. Nevertheless, I eventually got where I wanted to go, after a two-year detour as a lace salesperson, followed by student-loan-funded graduate journalism school. In J-school, I landed a paid internship at Meredith over the summer; after graduation, I got a full-time role as a local news reporter. 📣 The ability to take a low-paid or unpaid internship is a privilege. 📣 It has nothing to do with work ethic. There's simple math involved for many of us: You need X dollars to survive. There are 24 hours in a day. If you work 8-10 of them unpaid, how can you make X dollars in the remaining waking hours? Sometimes, you can figure it out. I couldn't. When we talk about the GymShark job or the absurd salary "ranges" posted for jobs from $25,000 to $600,000 or the unpaid "opportunities" lurking around the boards, we're talking about exploitation, but also about privilege. Many of us don't have the privilege to take these exploitative positions in the first place. We need to stop legitimizing them by crowing about the "access" they provide. Labor is labor and no one should have to work for free to jumpstart their career.

Milk Makeup Lunch + Learn Highlights 🌟 Last week, our amazing interns and team had the privilege of connecting with amazing Christian Juarez, our inspiring VP of Financial Planning and Analysis, at our Lunch & Learn session. Christian offered a fascinating look into her career path, starting from her impactful role at Milk Makeup overseeing budgeting and forecasting processes, all the way back to her earlier career experiences and college days. Here are some key takeaways from Christian's insightful session: The Power of Networking: Christian highlighted the importance of seizing networking opportunities to build connections and gain valuable knowledge from industry professionals. Education & Advancement: While not essential, pursuing a master's degree in finance or accounting can significantly advance your career. Following Your Passions: Christian's journey from considering HR to ultimately landing in finance perfectly exemplifies the power of pursuing your true interests. Lifelong Learning: Christian shared her personal experiences navigating an accounting career, emphasizing the importance of networking and gaining experience through various job roles. It's Always an Option: Christian reminded everyone that a career in finance is achievable at any stage – with dedication and the right path, you can turn your goals into reality! A huge thank you to Christian Juarez for inspiring our interns and sharing her incredible wisdom! #MilkMakeup #LunchAndLearn #Finance #CareerGoals #Interns #MilkMakeup #Inspiring

This is a super interesting argument. Me and my friends have talked about paid and unpaid internships in many occasions. On the one hand we all want paid internships. Labour is labour and we all deserve to feel appreciated for our work. On the other hand entry level jobs have decreased immensely. Many of us students can simply not find work experience at all during or after university. Now many companies have to pay their interns a lot of them decide that they don’t have the budget to have any interns at all. It is a dilemma that I have not been able to solve in my head yet. Do you suffer being broke and accept the unpaid work experience or do you not have any work experience at all? Also being broke for a bit is the good scenario. Like Megan has explained, many of us have rent to pay. Even if you would want to, in many occasions you can’t take the unpaid offer because you can’t afford it. And then only the privileged get to start with the unpaid jobs and work themselves up. Meanwhile low-income kids miss out on those opportunities. But now that there is a lack of all entry level opportunities, the ones that are suffering are the ones at the bottom once again. With only a few vacancies, a lot of people apply for the same jobs. Only a minority get them, most of them from a privileged background for many reasons (education, time etc). Or people get into their industries soley from connections. Or people move to big cities like London to make it and countries like Scotland experience brain drain. Urgh, I don’t know. I don’t quite have a solution yet.

I once attended a session about the job market for college students. A prominent HR professional messed it all up by humiliating some students that raised a question about unpaid internships and she asked them: -"what you're studying?" -"what do you actually know about that?" Trying to justify exploitation with "gaining experience". Too bad we couldn't ask her if her clients were paying her invoices with knowledge and experience. As a student coming from a different city and on a full scholarship, I knew I was in the wrong room. How do you even get to the job? What will you eat during lunch breaks? What will you wear to be presentable and honor the institution you'll represent? How are you fulfilling all the needs a human being must to be able to have peace of mind to perform your job? To those things, nobody has ever been capable of providing answers so far...

Even at the age of 34 I am still having to reject applying for my dream organisations in the #tourism #heritage and #VisitorExperience space because I would need a second job to be able to afford to live. And as a disabled individual I just can't put myself in that position. Simply put, too many roles in the industry are low paid, part-time (but don't offer flexibility to have another job) or fixed-term for very short periods of time and therefore massively lacking in security. I've never had ambitions to be in a manager role, my passion comes from engaging with stakeholders and audiences working 'on the ground' and using my own practice while being a disabled person to inspire others to be more inclusive and deliver impactful experiences. But when you look at what jobs are on offer the majority that can be considered to have a wage that you can live on are at a senior level only. Despite being ten years into my career, it's hard to not be disappointed with how little has improved in the industry in the area of worker inclusion, access and job security. #inclusion #hr #JobSeeking #JobHunting #DisabilityAwareness #Employment #Opportunity #OpenForWork #Work #OpenPosition #VisitorEconomy #UK

👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 Way to go Megan Bungeroth ! This needed to be said, and based on the engagement the post has gotten, unpaid internships and low pay for lots of experience are far to common practices. I often hear of people “discussing” (read: complaining) about not being able to hire marketers, and inevitably someone will suggest “hiring” an unpaid intern for the summer or a semester. Hiring = paying, otherwise it’s a volunteer position and should be advertised as such. I didn’t have the luxury of taking an unpaid internship in undergrad, and for the same reason, I attended grad school at Southern Methodist University as a professional student, working FULL TIME during the day. Your girl had bills to pay, including student loans. But, as always, I did what I had to do and here’s what I learned: 💡Time is money 💰 💡 Know your worth (then add tax, gratuity, and round up to the nearest dollar 🤣) 💡 Respect people’s expertise 💡 If you value the work enough to bring someone on, then pay them accordingly 💡 Marketing is a discipline, you get what you pay (for just like everything else 😉) #marketing #paidinternship #fractionalcmo #cpg #consumerproducts #retailindustry

Speaking of questions.....if you're like me (someone with demonstrable work experience) you'll have a lot of students/ interns/ recent workforce entrants writing to you with requests for advice. Basically, with questions. Over the past month, I've received questions like - 'Tell me about brand strategy,' or 'Is it a good field?' I've written back to almost all these people saying I'm happy to offer a point of view, provided they have specific question(s) to ask. No one - not one self-proclaimed enthusiast - has gotten back to me. I'm not sure what to make of it. I very much hope they have something specific jotted down somewhere. Blind luck and optimism are fantastic, but not always reliable. If you don't ask, you don't really know. #questions #worklife #careeradvice

At Newton Street, we like to recognize each of our team members for their uniqueness. In this week's spotlight, we are featuring Kisa Yonker, Account Manager. 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮. Determined. Curious. (Always) Caffeinated. ☕ 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐭? The people—this has been a tried-and-true guide for my career so far. Newton Street’s mission is strongly aligned with my core values; but it was the opportunity to partner with savvy, passionate, and bar-raising communicators in the industry that made me realize I was home. 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧 𝐮𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐫. During one of my early internships, my manager surprised me with an opportunity to follow around documentary filmmaker Ken Burns as his notetaker for a local press tour. From watching him engage with local historians in our community to picking up a few new words (from his famously robust vocabulary), I was completely inspired by his passion for storytelling and eager to translate this into my own career. 📝 𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐭, 𝐚𝐩𝐩, 𝐩𝐨𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬? Local journalism will always be one of my favorite obsessions. As a third generation Seattleite, I always get excited to learn new, rich stories about our city’s changemakers, history and evolving culture. My mornings typically start with anything thing from a quick scan of The Stranger’s SLOG, listening into KUOW, reading up on the latest posts from Vanishing Seattle (a local media project that celebrates the city’s historic establishments and communities), and countless more. tl;dr, Go support your local storytellers. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐪𝐮𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞? Do you remember the quirky language tutorial videos you used to watch in your foreign language class at school? For my first paycheck, I was a child actor for a textbook company that produced English-language learning videos for middle schoolers across Japan. 📽 𝐀𝐧𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬? I couldn’t be more ecstatic to join the Newton Street family and look forward to our exciting year ahead!

Six years ago this week, I got rejected from my "dream" internship—and quickly turned it into an opportunity to write my first piece for GQ. Here's the tea on what really happened: During my junior year of college, I began freelance writing for a ton of different outlets, including one very popular media conglomerate (which will remain nameless...but I'll tell you in the DMs). Having already established relationships with multiple editors at the brand, I thought an internship was a given. I applied, waited weeks to hear back, and as I boarded a plane to my Spring Break vacation, I received the rejection email. Well, as you can imagine, I was a bit shook. And the terrible timing left me with a four hour plane ride to think about my "failure." I had purchased the latest issue of GQ before boarding and began giving it a read. And over the next four hours, I reread one article several times: A profile of Timothee Chalamet, who had just broken into the scene with the release of "Call Me By Your Name." The piece was so superbly written that—coupled with my "failure"-fueled depression—I decided to reach out to the writer right then. I sent him an email explaining who I was, why I loved the piece so much, the type of writer I hoped to become, and that I would love to learn from him. He soon responded. Six months later, I wrote my first piece for GQ. It was one of the most challenging pieces I'd written at the time—those editors are no joke—but the handful of articles I've written for them since have been my favorite to date. So, what's the point of this story? Well, I guess it's a networking success story. Also a reminder that it's ok to get rejected. But most of all, it's a message around turning "failure" into motivation to propel your career in new ways. I never got that "dream" internship before graduating college. But what I did get were bylines in GQ, Glamour, Teen Vogue, and so many more magazines that set me up for the most wild career I could have asked for. #genz #internship #career #networking #jobsearch