Cosmopolitan UK - 09.2019

COSMOPOLITAN · 67

I did a year of working as an unpaid intern

before I got my first full-time journalism job.

I wasn’t from London, so I had to make ends

meet by working at a pub in the evenings and

at weekends. After every placement, I always

tried to stay in touch with the people I had

met, even when it felt a bit cringe – the

publishing industry is a small world and you

never know who knows who. The contacts

I made led me to my first full-time role at

a magazine, which led me to an online job

at a newspaper, which together gave me

the experience to land the role of senior

digital writer atCosmopolitan. Since then

I’ve worked my way up. And now I get to

work alongside the talented megastars

featured on these pages every day.

For six years, I worked at a job

I hated. It was at an insurance

company and the longer I was

there, the harder it felt to leave.

I’d always wanted to be a beauty

journalist, so I started using my

annual leave for work-experience

placements. I was asked to

interview as a personal assistant at

Cosmopolitan– it wasn’t the path

I wanted to take, and I definitely

wasn’t the best at my job, but

I went out of my way to take on

extra work and pitch ideas to the

beauty team. When the beauty

assistant left, I walked into the

editor’s office and told her

I wanted the job. The beauty

director wanted me for the role

too, thanks to all my extra work,

and they gave me a three-month

trial. It was a risk, but I’ve now

learned that taking risks pays off.i

My first job in video
wasn’t exactly glamorous.
I worked on anything
from property and car
conventions to small-
time music videos – no
job was too minor. I got
a lot of support and
encouragement from
friends and my partner,
which was priceless in
the long run – I would
suggest asking for help
wherever you can. In the early days, I also said yes
to everything first and then thought about it later.
If I had given myself a chance to think about all the
things that could go wrong on a job before accepting
it, I wouldn’t have gained the skills to be here. That’s
my advice for anyone who’s suffering from imposter
syndrome – load it off on friends and family, and just
throw yourself into it.

Claire Hodgson

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Laura Capon

ACTING BEAUTY EDITOR

Alex Hering

VIDEO LEAD