I was initially invited for a face-to-face interview one day last week but was unable to make it due to the demands of New York Fashion Week, since I have barely had time to eat my lunch this week - let alone take 2 hours out of the working day to commute 45 minutes across London to Canary Wharf, complete a lengthy interview and commute 45 minutes back to the Coach office at Oxford Circus. So frustratingly, I had to reschedule. This involved a lot of waiting on 'tenterhooks' as the Look/Nivea teams had initially only scheduled to carry out the interviews face-to-face on that one specific day. Therefore, it meant a lot to me that they were able to accommodate a phone interview the next day and it kept me feeling positive that my difficulty in meeting at their initially proposed time hadn't completely diminished my chances of being considered for the placement. I left for lunch early on the hunt of a quiet location to take my phone interview, selecting The Royal Institution of Great Britain Museum as the best possible choice since I assumed it would be very empty on a Thursday lunchtime! Thankfully I was right, so I rather awkwardly carried out the half-hour interview in an empty stairwell under the watchful eye of the museum staff before awkwardly making a swift exit! The interview, carried out by a member of the Beauty team at Look - as well as the Project Manager of the competition and an independent adjudicator in the form of a beauty blogger - definitely went well. I made some really confident and well thought out answers which definitely is no easy task during a phone interview and the interviewers kept letting me know that they agreed with my points which was reassuring!
I was nervously awaiting my fate when I found out on that same afternoon that I had been invited to the next stage of the interview! I actually wasn't aware that there would be another interview stage (definitely my fault for not asking) so this was a bit of a shock. I had been feeling scared about having to confess to Grace at Coach that I was being considered for another internship, despite having only been at Coach for a week and a half. The next stage of the interview would unavoidably have to be done face-to-face so I bit the bullet and explained to Grace that one day next week I would be going for another interview for a placement 'after this one' but that of course, I would make the time up that I missed. The interview involved bringing some pre-prepared tasks with me in the form of Instagram stories featuring Nivea beauty products and a feature of approximately 300 words to write about any products I liked. I decided that since I had found out during my phone interview that the internship role would actually overlap with beauty and fashion writing, I would write a fashion feature for my submission to show my strengths in both sectors. I also wanted to demonstrate my graphic design skills as I think that this is something that could set me apart from the rest, as well as my knowledge and interest of bloggers as this is something I was asked during my phone interview. I'll be printing out several copies of my feature for each of the interviewers to keep, hopefully leaving a positive impression!
Edit: I left the interview beaming from ear-to-ear about how well it had all gone! It was an extremely daunting interview process which consisted of me sat at a table surrounded by 5 interviewers. Conversation flowed well and was extremely engaging; I had plenty to say with each question asked and gave honest and passionate answers in response. They were all very impressed with the extra effort that I had taken to arrange my writing piece into a LOOK feature article layout and I was secretly very happy that I had printed off extra copies - there were a lot more people conducting the interview than I had expected! Sadly, I didn't get the internship. The whole application process was the best I have experienced so far; I felt like I had been genuinely considered with care and time invested into my candidacy. I received helpful feedback and plenty of words of encouragement and praise, plus a hamper of beauty goodies which is always a bonus! After enquiring, I found out that the competition had received over 600 entrants. Despite not being successful at the final hurdle, the whole experience has definitely increased my confidence to continue pursuing big career-related challenges even if the odds are stacked against me.
Post a Comment