Never Too Late To Dream a New Dream.

Advertising wasn’t always my first choice starting at Temple University. Entering Temple, I began my studies as an undecided Business Major at the Fox School of Business. Although it was scary, I decided to enter the Klein College of Media and Communication as an Advertising Major in my junior year. I credit this decision to be the best decision I have made at Temple University. My entire College experience improved by making this change. I finally felt like I discovered my true career aspirations. From junior to the beginning of my senior year, I was dead set on pursuing a career in Pharmaceutical Advertising. Once again, I considered my interests including advertising, fashion and the beauty industry. In aspirations to combine my two interests; I sought out to find a spring advertising internship within the beauty industry.

That’s when I found Mented Cosmetics. Mented Cosmetics was always a brand I’ve followed. As I’m heavily interested in the beauty community. From the beginning of the interview process, I was determined to land this position. My interview process was composed of two zoom interviews and a social content assignment. In this social content assignment, I was challenged to create  a sample piece of content promoting Mented Cosmetics. I chose to create a Get Ready with Me style content video and discussed the benefits of the brand. I completely loved this assignment and was able to land my role as Social Media Marketing and Partnership Intern at Mented Cosmetics. 

My position at Mented Cosmetic truly has been a dream come true. I confidently can say I have found my space. Mented Cosmetics is founded off of bringing minority women to the beauty space. All of their products are curated for Black and Brown women. Mented Cosmetics is truly a company that cares about their customers and does the same for their employees. Mented Cosmetics is a Black woman-owned business which wanted to bring diversity to the beauty space. It’s truly great to see women like me succeed in the business and makeup industry.  My mentor, Jennifer Etienne, head of Social Media Marketing, has been a great inspiration to me at Mented. It’s been a wonderful experience to see a young professional succeed  and grow within Mented Cosmetics. Everyone I have met during my time at Mented Cosmetics has been extremely welcoming and willing to help me succeed. Although I’ve had few encounters with Head of Brand, Kate Fernedez, her work and creativity for the brand never stops amazing me. Even the CEO, KJ Miller, takes time out of her day to ensure the welling of her employees. KJ Miller is truly a CEO that puts her all in her company and that is why she has been so successful. I hope one day, I can follow all of these women’s footsteps and build my own beauty empire.

My roles at Mented Cosmetics differ day to day. The overall  purpose of my role is to support the marketing team’s use of their natural social media channels, drive engagement, send out partnership communications, plan, schedule, and report on organic social media platforms, finish the competitive analysis, develop social content, and more . Everyday is a new learning experience and I can say I’ve gained a lot of experience due to the fact the internship is extremely hands-on. I have weekly one-on-one meetings with my Mentor Jennifer Etienne where we discuss my roles for the week and will gain a new skill to add to my experience. In the duration of this internship, I’ve learned the ins and outs of Social Media Marketing. Being an ever changing industry, it’s important to stay up with trends and requires you to endure new challenges. This internship helped me develop both my soft and hard skills. My soft skills I’ve learned within my internship include how to be coachable, adapt to change quickly, effectively communicate and much more. In terms of technical skills, I’ve gained experience within Excel, social media platforms including; Later, Scheduler, Shopify and much more! All of these skills have helped me to translate to success in my course and will help me in my future endeavors.

My advice to anyone looking for an internship or having a crossroad in their career path, is to just follow their passion! Even if it is a scary jump at first, I could say every decision I’ve made during my time at Temple has contributed to my career success, skill set, and discovered my true career passions. If I continued to stay in a path I knew I truly did not enjoy, I would not have been granted the amazing experiences and found the correct path for me.  After my internship experience, I plan to pursue a career in Social Media Marketing within the Beauty industry.