We worked hard on our resumes, applied to every job posting, and stressed over interviews. But it was all worth it to land our awesome internships! This is a blog series to highlight the incredible opportunities we had this past summer beginning our careers. If you worked at an internship this summer, contact us so we can feature your experience in an article!
Saks Fifth Avenue. Three words synonymous with all things fashionable, stylish, and New York City. What collegiette™ girl wouldn’t jump at the chance to intern at such a luxurious and high-end company? Well, this past summer I was fortunate enough to grace the presence of the immense office building on the corner of 49th and Madison Avenue in N.Y.C., the corporate offices of Saks Fifth Avenue located directly across their flagship store.
My adventure as a Saks Fifth Avenue intern began hundreds of miles away from the Big Apple. I was studying abroad in Paris, France and got an email from a friend of mine who had graduated BC two years earlier. When she was my age, she had interned at Saks and was now employed with the company. She had heard from her coworkers that Saks had seriously improved their summer internship program and was currently recruiting on campuses across the country. Knowing that this opportunity was something I would be seriously interested in, she emailed me with the recruiter contact information and suggested I get in touch. I was ecstatic and immediately emailed Leah, the Saks recruiter.
It took a few weeks to hear back, but I was persistent and kept emailing Leah to let her know how interested I was in the Saks Fifth Avenue Summer Internship Program. My persistence paid off and she emailed me back, asking me to send her my resume and cover letter. Once I did that, we would arrange a Skype interview. The thought of an interview via computer screen completely freaked me out. I was uncomfortable enough video chatting with my friends, let alone a college recruiter who I was trying to impress! Plus, the internet connection in my apartment in Paris was totally unstable and always seemed to cut out at the most inconvenient times. I was terrified at the thought that my potential summer internship was completely reliant upon Paris’s unreliable wi-fi. My worrying ended up being completely for nothing; after two rounds of interviews, I was offered a position in the Saks Fifth Avenue Executive Excellence Internship Program.
Now, before this moment I had never considered going into a career in retail and the thought of working at Abercrombie and folding sweater after sweater made me cringe. But there was still this intrigue that I felt the fashion industry had and I was determined to break in and experience it myself.
Our first day in the Saks Fifth Avenue Summer Internship Program was intimidating, to say the least. All 40 interns met in front of the building and stood around awkwardly, totally judging what everyone else was wearing, and giving the up-down to assess the competition. No one spoke a word and we were all determined to make the best impression possible on the first day. As the first few weeks unraveled, we started to befriend one another and learned more about what our intern responsibilities would be. Each of us would be assigned to a buyer and work under that buyer for the duration of the internship program. For those of you that don’t know much about the fashion industry, here’s how it works at Saks: for each department (like men’s clothing, women’s handbags, evening dresses, bridal, children’s, etc.), there are a number of buyers, each of whom has a team of people working for them. Within the buyer’s department- handbags, for example- the buyer is assigned to a certain number of designer brands that Saks carries. So a buyer in women’s handbags may buy for Jimmy Choo, Fendi, Prada, and Valentino. Other buyers are assigned to different designers in that department so that no one buyer is responsible for every handbag designer that Saks carries.
From the moment I met my buyer, Michele, and her team, I was in absolute awe. I knew these women were going to teach me everything and more about the buying world and what it takes to succeed. From day one, everyone could not have been more willing to help or patient with all of my stupid questions or inquiries. Michele was a buyer in Women’s American Contemporary Ready to Wear, Women’s Designer Evening, and Bridal. Among her designers in each of these departments were Carolina Herrera, Oscar de la Renta, J. Mendel, Herve Leger, Vera Wang, Monique Lhullier, and Jason Wu, to name just a few. It was amazing how these top designer names that once awed me soon became everyday names casually thrown around the office (“Yeah, Oscar is so sweet and his collection this year is amazing”).
As an intern, in addition to helping out with everyday office tasks, I closely shadowed Michele to learn more about the life of a buyer. One of the things I got to experience was “going to market.” About a year in advance of each season (there are 4 seasons each year: Fall, Pre-Fall, Cruise, Spring) the buyer “goes to market,” meaning they visit each of their designer’s showrooms to look the designer’s entire collection for that season. At the showroom, there are models that show each look as the buyer and her team snaps Polaroid photos that will then be used back at the Saks offices to remember what each piece looked like. Sometimes the designer’s showroom is right around the corner from the Saks office and sometimes it’s a 30-minute cab ride downtown. At the time I went to market with Michele and her team, we were looking at collections for the Cruise 2012 season, which will hit the Saks stores in February of 2012.
Once the buying team gets back to the Saks offices, there’s an entire process that goes into choosing which items the buyer chooses for Saks to carry in its stores. Once the pieces are chosen, the buyer and her team then have to decide which Saks stores are going to carry, which looks, and in what colors and sizes. The entire “buy” takes about 2-3 weeks to finalize and the amount of care and consideration that goes into putting the buy together completely amazed me. Everything from the budget to the sizing history to the location of the store (Houston LOVES the color red), are just a few of the factors that need to be considered when putting together the buy. And, once the buy is written, there’s still more work to do! Every day, the buying team is able to pull reports to see how well the collections they bought are doing. These extremely detailed reports can tell the buying team that a Carolina Herrera classic white blouse in size 8 was sold in the New York City store for $450.
In addition to working closely with the buying team, the internship program coordinators also arranged a bunch of activities for the interns. Among these were a tour of the Saks.com studio, a field trip to the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and roundtable with Steve Sadove, the CEO of Saks Fifth Avenue. Other than the very first day, the second most stressful and nerve-wrecking day at the office was “Assessment Day.” The interns entered the Saks Fifth Avenue Executive Program knowing that they would have the chance to participate in “Assessment Day” at the end of their internship. This day would consist of interviews, panels, lunch with Saks executives, and a retail math test. It would mark the culmination of our internship experience and would help the Saks Internship Program coordinators decide which interns would receive full-time offers at Saks Fifth Avenue after they graduate.
In the days leading up to “Assessment Day” (dunh-dunh-dunh-dunnnhh) you could feel the panic in the air. Every intern was freaking out and none of us had any idea what to expect since we were just given a vague description of the kinds of competencies we would be evaluated on.
Michele and the rest of my buying team helped prep me before the big day, asking me typical interview questions and helping me think about how I would draw upon my internship experience at Saks to set myself apart and show how this was an industry I could truly succeed in. Walking into Assessment Day the morning of July 28th, I knew I was as ready as I ever would be and as I hugged my dad goodbye and he headed off towards his office, I mustered up every ounce of confidence I had and marched inside the building. When the exhausting day was finally over, I was extremely pleased with my performance and couldn’t stop talking about the day’s events at a celebratory dinner with my parents at NYC’s famous Le Cirque restaurant.
About a month later and merely days before I headed back to BC as a senior, I got the call. The good kind of call! The same kind that I had received, what felt like years earlier, in Paris letting me know I had been accepted into the Saks internship program. But at the end of this phone call, I knew that this time my career at Saks was just beginning. While I may have been heading back to Chestnut Hill in a few days, it wouldn’t be long until I was back in NYC walking into the impressive building on the corner of 49th and Madison. My experience in the Saks Internship Program had set me up for success after graduation. It made my summer one of the most memorable and the people I met, opportunities I embraced, and knowledge I gained will be something I’ll cherish forever. While I’m totally loving senior year at BC, I can’t wait to get back to Saks Fifth Avenue and begin my career in an industry I unexpectedly fell in love with.
Photo Source:
http://affordableluxuryblog.com/2011/01/daisy-b-loves-good-customer-serv…
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