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Advice for Fashion Design Students: How to Find a Job After College (without any experience)

getting your foot in the door for your first job as a fashion design student

can be hard without having any experience it can feel like you send out

hundreds of resumes and portfolios and you don't hear anything back it's like

your stuff is going into a black hole but it's not your fault because as a

fashion design students they don't teach you this stuff in school you learn

how to design but a lot of what fashion school is lacking is teaching you the

skills to land a job which is why in this video we're gonna go through

three strategies that you can implement today to land your dream fashion design

job even if you're a fashion design student and don't have any experience

you'll also learn the proven strategy to turn a fashion design internship into a

the full-time job I'm so Heidi founder and successful fashion designer and I teach

the real-world skills that you need to get ahead in the fashion industry that

you don't learn in fashion school a lot of people don't talk about this stuff so

I like to call it fashion industry secrets revealed

now advice in these videos isn't just stuff that I've made up it’s stuff that

I've learned over a decade of being a designer as well as things that I've

learned from doing over 75 interviews with fashion professionals on my podcast

these designers have worked for brands like Mavi jeans theory and Puma I've

hand-picked their best advice from the podcast interviews and package them up

into these short videos for you all the podcast episodes mentioned are linked

below in case, you want to check out the full interview but for now, let's jump in

real-life advice for fashion design students on how to break into the fashion

industry after college even if you have no experience strategy number one is to

show real life and commercial work in your portfolio now I know this might

come off a little contradictory you're thinking but I don't have the experience

so, where am I supposed to get this work from, I'm gonna tell you exactly how to

do that now the big concept behind this strategy is the difference between

showing schoolwork in your portfolio versus showing real-life work in your

the portfolio’s the difference between showing conceptual projects versus

commercial projects and this is a topic that comes up so often on the podcast

the example that I want to share right now is from Shelly Simpson in episode 53

Shelly manages the entire recruiting department specifically for the fashion

industry at atrium staffing a recruiting agency in New York City and she sees

hundreds if not thousands of applications for design jobs but Shelly

has the upper hand of being in direct contact with the brands in a recruiting

position and so she knows inside and out from firsthand experience what brands

want to see in your portfolio and application she shares that the biggest

mistake fashion design students make in their portfolio is showing too much

school work and too many school projects their books are usually full of designs

they've sewn themselves and pictures that their friends have taken of them

apartment or backyard now I don't want to discount the work that you've

done in school and the value that you've gotten out of this very expensive

education but it is not always the best idea to include all your school projects

in your portfolio so what do you do instead I'm gonna let Shelley tell you

in her own words so I think it's important to have some of your school

work in there but anything you can take from an internship is gonna be key um

and that's gonna be some of the basics they just want to know that you have the

systems especially if you're gonna be going to a corporate or mass-market

a company that you've worked in Photoshop and illustrator they're gonna want to

see some of your flat sketchings and they're also for an assistant designer who is

going to want to know if you're able to do the tech packs we've talked about

the importance of illustrator sketches and tech packs in other videos but if

you can show some examples of that work from real-life experience at an

internship in your portfolio that's gonna make a huge difference and like

Shelley said even if it's just some of the basics that you worked on it's

better to show that than a book full of just schoolwork now you might be

wondering what's the etiquette on including work when you only did parts

of the project well, I answer that question and tons

more about your portfolio in my free ultimate guide to portfolios you can

check that out now but first I want to share another piece of advice from

another interview with a very successful designer and will answer the

question of what do you do if you don't have an internship what kind of work are

you supposed to show in your portfolio then you can still see success and you

can still land your dream job which is exactly what Carly Louise Stout did

Carlos’s word for brands like Maggie jeans and her works have been featured in

publications like Vogue and InStyle and an episode 60 of the successful fashion

designer podcast I interviewed her where she shared some amazing advice Karlos

been working in the industry for 15 years and she's had a very amazing

career trajectory but it didn't start this way when she first was breaking

into the industry out of fashion design school, she applied for over 20 jobs and

did not get an offer the brand's kept saying we

can't hire you because you don't have any experience or they kept offering her

unpaid internships which was not an option she had bills and rent to pay so

Carla took a step back and looked at her portfolio and she realized that all

the projects that she was showing were school projects from University and she

analyzed the designs they were very conceptual and artistic and she did

something really smart she thought what do brands want to see what is

being produced in the marketplace it is commercial driven

designs it is not conceptual driven artistic designs so she did a few

self-directed projects on her own were more commercial that was more like

what brands were producing and selling and she put those in her

portfolio almost immediately she landed her first job so what can you do in this

situation take a look at what brands are designing and selling what is

for sale on their website and what they have in their stores, you don't want

to base your designs on exactly what you see on the runway you can use that

as inspiration but what you see on the runway those designs don't sell they

don't ever actually go to a market that's not close to reality people buy and

wear so take a look at what brands are selling and do a few

self-directed projects that are more commercially viable will show the

a brand that you understand their aesthetic and you know what types of

things need to be designed for the end customer so whether or not you

have the opportunity to do an internship you can get some more commercial real

life artwork in your portfolio and this will help you stand out from all the

other designers whose books are full of schoolwork now if you do have the

opportunity to land an internship later in the video I'm going to show you the

The number one thing you can do to turn that internship into a full-time job but

right now let's jump into tip number two and send customized

applications to stand out from the crowd into really good brands attention you

need to send a customized cover letter and a customized resume and perhaps even

a customized portfolio to brands that you're applying for

you're gonna base this content on the job requirements and you're gonna

tailor each application to what they're asking you this is where I scream really

loud and clear do not send generic copy and paste resumes and cover letters to

every gland you apply to this is not a marathon to apply to 500 jobs out there

you will have ten times a hundred times more successful if you pick the top 10 or

20 jobs that you're passionate about and you spend the time to send

custom applications and resumes to those jobs only and this is exactly what

happened to Kirby Nunez in episode 72 of the successful fashion designer podcast

he wound up landing his dream job at Puma because of this exact strategy now

to start Kirby applied to every sportswear brand

out there Nike Adidas and then Puma this was the category he wanted to work in

but he was sending generic application after generic application he applied to

Puma seven times six of those times they gave him a big fat no or he just didn't

even hear anything back but on the seventh time he got a yes so I asked him

what did he do differently from those other six times it was because he

told Puma why he was interested in the job he researched the projects

they were working on the initiatives they were taking in the industry and he

told them why he was excited about those and why they were so amazing and he showed

them why his abilities and his strengths could help their brand do a better job

at those initiatives and projects, he told him why he aligned with their

brand and why he was such a great fit so doing that customization in his

application and his cover and his resume allowed him to get his

foot in the door even after they had told him no six times another example of

this came up on episode 29 when I interviewed Mae Lee Bingham mainly works

for Phillips Van Heusen a multibillion-dollar lifestyle apparel

a company that owns brands like Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger and mainly

knows what it takes to get recognized amongst a sea of hundreds or thousands

of applications here's the thing any brand that's using an electronic

the application process is filtering candidates via computer algorithms which

means your resume is getting scanned by a computer before a real person even

sees it to decide if it's a good match all that Meili explained in her own

words exactly how this works you can't just apply like take the same

resume and apply it like 20 different jobs it's not going to work you have to

take the time to read the job listing that they've posted somewhere and find the

keywords that they're looking for and then make sure those keywords are in

your resume before you apply you know that's quit when it goes through it's

not even a human being that's like printing them all out it's like a

computer system that's looking for certain keywords and then if your resume

has those keywords it's gonna rise to the top and then hopefully you'll get a

callout back but like I said if you're resume or application doesn't have the

keywords from the Job Description a real person is never going to see your

an application which is why it probably so often feels like your resume is going

into a black hole, I guess that maybe you've been guilty of just copying

pasting and not matching and tailoring your application to the job description

now does all of this take work yes it takes work to customize your application

but I guarantee you you will get ten if not 100 times more the results in

success if you take the time and put the effort in to do this and if you are in

In the stage of trying to find interns instead of jobs you can also use these

strategies to do that as well because an internship is a great way to get your

foot in the door and land a full-time paying job I'm going to tell you later a

the strategy you can use to that turn an internship into a full-time job but

first, let's jump to tip number three do something out of the box

how can you make yourself stand out amongst the competition one example that

mainly Bingham from episode 29 did is to create a mini portfolio book in a

physical form and mail it yes via the post office to the brand now she used

his strategy years ago to stand out and I think it resulted in something like 5

interview opportunities out of 6 or 7 applications that she sent out and of

those interviews she got two job offers so does it work yes and the reason is

because if you stand out amongst the competition

Koreans recognize you they see that you think differently than you think

creatively a name note issue our inboxes are bombarded we get so much digital

content that doing something physical can make you shine in a big way

now it doesn't have to be a mini-physical portfolio book but think about

this get creative what can you do that no other application is doing to get that

brand attention because standing out and showing them that even in the

application process you go above and beyond is going to show them that you

are an exceptional worker you are a creative thinker and that's the kind of

people that brands want to hire they'll realize that you care instead of

just hitting send send send on a kajillion generic resumes so do your

research find out who the hiring manager or the design director is and send

something directly to them don't send it to the HR manager it's probably gonna

get lost so do a little research go in the side door if you have to scoot

around break the rules a little bit it's ok again does this take extra work yes

it does but the fashion industry is competitive and to stand out you have to

do the extra work you will be floating automatically to the top

competition if you do something creative and out-of-the-box then no one else does

now I promised after the three tips we would go into how to turn an internship

into a full-time job and that's exactly what I want to share with you right now

there is one super simple but proven strategy you can use to do this once you

have your foot in the door you need to go a hundred and fifty percent above and

beyond doing an exceptional job and showing that brand showing every person

that works there why you're amazing this is going to help you create

relationships and contacts and this is what will lead to future opportunities

it's what I like to call doing the extra credit so what exactly does that mean

well think of it like in school what is the extra credit that you can do to go

above and beyond in the workplace, once you get your foot in the door do that

extra credit without anybody having to ask you and in episode 72 of the

successful fashion designer podcast Kirby Nunez did this exact strategy to

turn his internship at Puma into a full-time design job he still works

there two and a half years later as a full-time paid designer a couple of the

things Kirby did to stand out during his internship specifically were

offering to help when someone went on vacation answering their emails taking

over some of their workload once he was done with his assigned projects he would

go around and he would ask everybody is there anything I can help you with

there's there anything I can take off your plate right now in the meantime he

was noticing the other interns were sitting around bored taking

hour-and-a-half extra long lunches and only caring about what they were

assigned to do and not doing anything else by him taking the initiative to ask

for extra work to do more to offer more he stood out hugely from the other

the thing that Kirby and other people I've had on the show have done is to

take specific initiative see things that need to be done and

asked to do them showing that you see where there's an opportunity to help it's

gonna show that you're a huge team player and a hard worker simple examples

are things like taking the initiative to organize the fabric and trim library so

it's easier for the team to find the stuff that they need

maybe it's noticing that the showroom keeps getting disorganized and things

keep going missing so maybe you create a spreadsheet in a tracking system to

track all the inventory whatever it is see where there's an opportunity for

improvement to speed things up or to just help someone do their job a little

easier and take the initiative to do that not only will you shine in your

internship and increase your chances of having it turn into a full-time job

10x you will make tons of friends and contacts the concept is very simple if

you make someone's job easier they're gonna love you they're going to remember

you and then next time they need to hire someone whether it's at that brand or

another brand that they work out in the future you're gonna think of you now I

know this can be a lot to digest I am hit the best content from over 75

interviews on a successful fashion designer podcast and I know that it can

help to hear more examples and stories of exactly how these designers use these

strategies to get ahead in their careers so if you want to hear more about

exactly how do these strategies work I've linked all the podcast episodes below in

the description I've also linked to the free ultimate guide on creating your

fashion design portfolios that I mentioned earlier this is a step-by-step

a guide that will answer all your questions on your portfolio in the

meantime if you like this video please subscribe and click the thumbs up and

for more free tips advice and tutorials for getting ahead in the fashion

industry head on over to successful fashion designer comm and sign up for

the email list I share tons of stuff there that you don't see on YouTube it

also love to hear from you about what changes are you gonna make to your fashion

design job hunt from the advice that we talked about in this video let me know

below in the comments.