Author Archives: Aly

All good things must come to an end. My internship for the Beauty Advertising Directors at New Beauty magazine, which I started in January, is now complete.

Since this blog is new, I figured I would still chronicle my experiences in this one post.

I had worked as Marketing Director for Baruch’s newspaper, The Ticker, where I had learned the job on my own. It was time to leave. Fortunately, after sending in my letter of resignation I was told about this opportunity at New Beauty. I sent my resume in on a Wednesday. I heard back the next day. The following day I interviewed and landed the position. I started that Monday.

Welcome gift from New Beauty

I thought the world of beauty publications would as glamorous as the glossy pages, as rich as the $100+ wrinkle cream featured in many of New Beauty’s editorial credits, and as thoughtful as the New Beauty TestTube I received for being a member of the team. FALSE. I was greeted with a hello and then ushered back to five years’ worth of paper work to organize, enter, verify, and file for one of my bosses. This consumed the majority of my first three weeks.

Nonetheless, I was trained on industry and company specific databases. As weird as it sounds, I still have an affinity for MagazineRadar. I would type in a company to research, and then I would take note of their peak spending quarters, months, and demographic, average household incomes, view what magazines their ads ran in, including the number of pages, as well as see the creative itself. I was also able to see social media metrics and run reports such as change of spending year over year. I would then compile the information, explain what I believed to be important and then give my bosses the print outs.

As an Upper East Sider I had never done expenses. Now I was doing expenses for all three of my bosses. It was less painful than I expected yet affirmed that finance would make me miserable.

My bosses understood that I was effective and efficient in my work. I had completed every task before its respected deadline. As a reward, and because New Beauty’s editorial staff was based out of Boca Raton, Florida, I attended a Borghese media event for the magazine. I learned about their line of male products they are slated to launch as well as met hair stylist Jonathan Antin, who I had seen before on the Bravo channel.

Jonathan Antin demonstration at the Borghese media event

I was there for two issues of this quarterly magazine. Issue releases were followed by incessant tabbing of edit credits and writing then handwritten letters to the higher-ups in major cosmetic companies which accompanied these complimentary tabbed magazines.

I interned during issues 26 and 27

I grew a lot through this experience. I said yes to everything that was thrown my way including volunteering to help New Beauty’s sister magazine Surface with photo shoots and acting as doorgirl at two of their events.

I leave for Berlin on June 2^nd and when I will return I will intern for the Associate Publisher of Surface magazine.

The saying therefore must be true, “when one issue closes another one opens.”

Auf Wiedersehen,

“The Intern”

Once upon a time, there was a fashionable, driven girl named Aly, who thought she would be a hedge fund manager (and millionairess) by age 26. This dream came to a sudden halt when she decided to become a marketing major. This decision did not thrill her father; however, she promised him that she would become the most successful marketer that ever lived. Reluctantly, he agreed.

She landed the position of “intern” at one of Sandow Media’s publications, New Beauty. There she was the intern for all three directors of beauty advertising sales.

Sounds glamourous right?!?

Kind of… except on top of dressing to impress her fashion conscious bosses, she was secluded in a cubicle and subject to researching brands using MagazineRadar and Addatabase, creating pitches for her bosses, updating expense reports, and maintaining databases of thousands of industry contacts. She became an efficient scanner, copier and binder of documents.

All tasks she completed with a smile on her face, a coffee in her hand , and of course impeccable style.

Thus she (or well I) became “The Intern Wears Prada”