CV, curriculum vitae, resume ... call it whatever you will, for many aspiring fashion journalists, one of the hardest tasks in starting their career is creating a CV. Unfortunately, the quality of your CV can make all the difference between being offered that job or not, so it is well worth investing time and effort into making sure that your CV presents your skills and achievements in the best possible light.
What is the purpose of a CV?
In order to create the best possible CV, first you must understand its purpose. A good CV should answer the following questions:
What skills and qualifications does this person have?
What work experience does this person have that directly relates to the work in question?
What can this person offer the publication?
What sets this person apart from other applicants?
If you have already written a CV, go through it again with these questions in mind and see if you can answer them all clearly and easily.
What to include on your CV
A fashion CV can be divided into six parts:
Personal Information
Education
Work/Employment Experience
Publications
Professional Affiliations
References
Personal Information
Your name and contact details need to appear at the top of the first page of your CV. You do not need to include your age, religion, marital status, sexuality or any other such information - just your name, address, email and telephone number.
Education
In this section you need to list your educational achievements, whether they be at school, college, university or elsewhere. Remember to include the name of the institution and also the dates during which you were a student.
How much you include depends upon your age and experiences - for example, there is little point for a 30 year old with two university degrees to include her GCSE results, but a 19 year old first year undergraduate may like to include these achievements, especially if her grades were good.
Always include details of degrees, certificates or awards that you have earned, as well as any vocational or apprentice training that you may have. If your degree/certificate/award included a course or courses which directly relate to fashion or journalism, then remember to include these details (in brief).
Work Experience
In this section you need to include details of all your work or employment experience including after school jobs, summer jobs, part-time work, full time employment, volunteer work, work shadowing and work experience. Arrange your employment history in chronological order, starting with the most recent - remember to include the dates for which you were employed and the full address of where you worked.
Now comes one of the hardest parts of writing a good CV - the description of your duties and responsibilities at work. Whilst it may be easy to simply write a bland description of what you did for two weeks whilst at work experience in Topshop ('I worked on the till, helped to unload new stock and hang it up…'), wouldn’t it sound much better if you wrote:
'During my time working at Topshop, I gained experience of fashion sales and also customer relations. As part of my responsibilities, I helped to promote new stock and gained first hand insight into the changing trends in fashion.'
None of that was a lie - working on the till, well, that's fashion sales, answering queries from customers = customer relations. Being one of the first to see new stock, well, if ever there was a way of being exposed to changes in fashion trends, then unloading and hanging up fifty pairs of skinny leg jeans is going to have to count for something!
The basic principle is, don't sell yourself short - you worked hard, you gained experience and insight from what you did, so don't be modest (don't boast either, though) just be honest about what you did and how you did it.
What are editors looking for in my work-place experience?
Fashion editors will first of all be looking for experience of the fashion industry, in all its many shapes and forms (photography, design, make up etc) as well as experience of publishing.
They want to be reassured that you know what you are doing and that they aren't going to be making a mistake in offering you the job or commission.
Beyond that, an editor will want to see evidence of your ability to work not only on your own (and keep to deadlines) but also as part of a team, that you have good interpersonal skills, that you are organised and can be trusted with responsibility, all of which are traits needed in a good fashion journalist, freelance or full time.
Publications
In this section you need to include details of all your publications including the title of the piece, where it was published (i.e. the name of the magazine) and the date. You might also like to include a brief description of the contents of the publication if it is not immediately clear from its title. If you write your own blog, this is the place to include those details.
Professional Affiliations
If you are a member of a group or organisation related to fashion or journalism (such as the National Union of Journalists) then this is the place to include it. If you don’t have such memberships, and they are by no means necessary, then just omit this section.
References
In this final section of the CV it is normal to include the names and addresses of two people who can vouch for your abilities (make sure that you ask them if they are willing to do this before you list them!).
You may like to include one referee who can talk about your writing abilities and another who can vouch for your fashion credentials.
If you have published work in the past, then you may like to ask your editor if he or she will provide you with a reference - unless you are applying for a permanent job, then it is unlikely that the referee will be called upon, but the fashion industry is a small world, and it may just be that your potential employer knows or is a friend of your referee - networking pays off!
More questions? Email us ask@fashionwriter.co.uk
