My journey first began during the Pandemic, it was around mid-July 2020. I have to say, I was bored. My industry was the fashion industry, and jobs in that industry were/are scarce. Who can blame fashion companies, who was getting dressed? Even me, I was wearing pyjamas or workout clothes daily. Yes, I was applying for jobs but those were scarce as well. I got almost no responses for my job queries and I didn’t know what to do. I was/am a Canadian in Sweden, and sadly my Swedish is not the best. I also have underlying medical condition and working with the public was out of the question. So here I was , a 35 year old Canadian in Sweden who didn’t know what to do with my time. I was bored doing home workouts every day and watching reruns of the Office/Sex and the City/ Rupaul’s Dragrace. In my search I was looking at internships and found this program called “Acadium.”
Applying to Acadium is very tricky because they are selective with their apprentices/interns. I applied twice to be part of the experience and the first time I was rejected. Through their program, I am/was meant to develop my career. I am meant to train under a company /mentor for a period of 3 months in exchange for professional credit and experience. It is great during the pandemic since many companies are not hiring at the moment. So, during this time, I wanted (and still want) to expand my career and develop my skills in social media, influencer relations and marketing.
Like Tinder, you are meant to look through different mentorships till you are matched! I was lucky and got matched with Kyutee.com. I learnt that their company was a nail brand, they did nail wraps. They are they are stickers that you peel, press, and file professional nail art onto your nails. Through this we had a message exchange, and I answered many questions my mentor asked me. Then we had a Skype call and GUYS I got the position. I was so excited but then came fear! How would a digital mentorship/internship work? I have always done, in person internships and to be frank I did not like them. I always ended up making coffee, taking the trash to the trash room and oh so rearranging the overflowing stock room. In this digital one I was able to learn fully from my mentor and the company. I was the spy, getting secrets on how a company works.
Through this experience I learnt so much! I also got to see the results of my work. The best parts were having a mentor listen to and love my ideas. We did sign a couple of big influencers to our company (be prepared to see them on instagram). We participated in the campaign When We all Vote (Michelle Obama’s campaign for Americans to vote). We also had proceeds go to this amazing organization. It was amazing to see one of the influencers I contacted being mentioned in WWAV and re-gramed! But it is was hard as well, due to the pandemic we were very limited on how to make content. It was also hard being in different time zones, me being in Stockholm, and my mentor being in Los Angeles.
The beauty world is very different from the world I came from. I came from the fashion world and it wasn’t the best. Just think there is a bunch of people who made Miranda Priestly look like an angel. Including one boss who threw a box across the room because I wouldn’t look at him in the eye. What advice would I give to those wanting to intern in the beauty industry? The beauty industry is very competitive, and you will be working hard. Yes, there are people in the beauty community who remind me of people in the fashion industry. I had influencers tell me, they will not post even though we were giving proceeds to charity. They were wanting large proceeds to post a simple picture for a cause. I understood their arguments ( as they are working as well) but at the same time this was a charity campaign. But most influencers were amazing and actually were some of the kindest people. They understood the importance of this campaign and supported us.
In the end, I learnt a lot through this mentorship. However, to ones who want to be interning in a beauty brand. Get literate in all the beauty brands in the sphere, beauty influencers and pop culture. You also should know what is going on as well in the political sphere in the country your mentorship is and the world. Just be creative and learn as much as you can from a company. Like I said the beauty of a digital internship/mentorship you are not making coffee. You are actually learning about the business and that is amazing.
About the Author:
Nicole Scott has a degree in fashion design/art history. She won the Worth Contest EU. She works as virtual assistant and intern at Kyutee.
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