This week Her Campus had the opportunity to sit down with Jacqueline Emmons and speak to her about her Internship this summer! Jacqueline is a Senior majoring in Communication Studies and minoring in Business. She is a part of Greek Life, a Victoria’s Secret PINK Campus Rep, and she works part-time at the LSA Finance Office.
Her Campus: Hi Jacqueline! Can you talk a little about what your internship was?
Jacqueline Emmons: I worked for L Brands this summer, who owns Henri Bendel, Bath and Body Works, Victoria’s Secret, PINK and La Senza. I worked for Victoria’s Secret Beauty, specifically PINK, in New York. I was a Merchandise Planning and Allocation Intern, so we worked with the merchandising team to plan financial trends, budgets, plan flow orders, basically all the financial functions of PINK Beauty.
HC: So where did you find your internship and what was the process of getting it like?
JE: I applied at the beginning of March on Handshake, and then they also had me apply on the L Brands website. About a week later a recruiter called me and I had an initial phone screening that was about 15 minutes. The recruiter was super nice, it was very casual and just very basic questions. The second round was a Skype interview with my future manager for about an hour, then my final interview was two back-to-back Skype interviews for 30 minutes with other managers in Victoria’s Secret, and then I received my offer at the end of March.
HC: Where was your internship located and what kind of things did you do in your free time?
JE: My internship was located in New York City, the office was about 10 blocks up from Times Square on Broadway, so it was a great location! I absolutely loved it, I’m from Michigan so it was nice to be able to get out of the state for a while and I had a lot of time to explore the area. I loved shopping there, I was honestly sad when I came back to the Midwest because the shopping is not the same! I’ve also never eaten so well in my entire life. Yeah, I basically just ate and shopped in my free time, it was amazing.
HC: What did a typical day look like?
JE: I would start my day by looking at how business did the previous day according to trend and budget, so looking at how the best-selling scents did, if they were doing well compared to last week, last month, yesterday. It was really important to look at things that were on special promotion. Then we would all go to team meeting with the merchants three times a week, discussing things like if we needed to put a special promotion on, or if a Victoria’s Secret promotion was affecting a PINK promotion, things like that. Then I’d go to lunch with my intern friends, sometimes I’d see a Victoria’s Secret model in the Starbucks upstairs (that did happen). In the afternoon, I’d work on my intern project, which was how to improve PINK Beauty in the digital space, and that was cool because they’re currently implementing one of our ideas on the PINK App, so look out for that! Around 5:30 I’d go home on the subway, and that was an experience in itself!
HC: Has it influenced your career goals in the future?
JE: It’s definitely influenced my career goals. At the beginning of my Junior year I was recruiting for public accounting and I really thought I wanted to be a CBA, even though I had an independent interest in fashion retail. Throughout the recruiting process, I realized that I could do something like merchandise planning or financial planning, which is like accounting but in the retail space, just more fun because you’re working with fragrances, lotions, bath bombs and all these cool things that you get to see in-store and shop for yourself. I’m hoping that after I graduate I return to New York!
Photos courtesy of Jacqueline Emmons