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Profile: Lara Lain


Occupation: - Marketing Assistant at LOOK Magazine

Briefly describe your typical day working at LOOK? - My days are varied and include everything from photocopying, sending out letters, placing online competitions on Look.co.uk, placing full page competitions in the mag once a week, working on store events with High St retailers, going to places like the Isle of Wight festival if we have activity going on there for readers, hanging out with celebs at The LOOK Show's to working on pages in the mag and everything in between (and more!)


What experience did you gain before working at LOOK? - doing unpaid work experience at an equestrian (horsey!) mag
- paid work at events for a lads (boobs!) mag
- interning for free in a national newspaper fashion cupboard (jobs were fine, team were stuck up to be honest!) 
- working at events for another national newspaper (loved it!) and then admin for them (events came and went and then plain admin was all that was available)

What is your favourite part of the job? - All of it

What is the hardest part of your job? - Meeting deadlines can be hard if you're relying on other people (usually PR's!!) to give you info/copy/products that you need but we always get there in the end!

What advice would you give to people aspiring to work in the magazine industry? - study (no-one can ever take your qualifications away from you and they show you can commit to hard work)

- focus on what YOU want to do (don't be swayed by what other people advise you to do, it's your life!)
- make a list of things you are good at and what you enjoy, see what jobs you could apply these to (you might be pleasantly surprised by what you come up with)
- don't give up if no-one responds to your application (working people are very busy, apply once again and if still no response, move on to the next position)
- work for free/ intern/ work for a low wage if you can get experience (experience counts!)
- If you are interning/ doing work exp, go around the building and hand out your CV while you are there(meeting people face-to-face can often give you the edge above others)

What trends do you think will be key for this summer? - For me personally it’s always all about brights at this time of year. I've spotted quite a few nice crop tops and lightly feather jackets around too.

Which are your favourite high street clothing stores and why? -  I have two faves; H&M for a mix of reasonably priced up to the minute fashion and French Connection as it's great quality and I do love a good sequin or two ;)

What do you hope to achieve in your career? - I want to work my way up to being a Senior Marketing (what my boss is!). My next stop in getting there is a Marketing Executive role and this is something that I am working towards at the moment.

Huge thanks to Lara for taking the time to answer my questions. You can follow her on twitter @LaraLain x
Main image is Lara's own.