This week was the grand unveiling of Get The Job, and we celebrated with a launch breakfast at The Ivy. The wisdom flowed, as did the coffee…
Get The Job , our sparkling new beauty and wellness careers platform, is go, and to celebrate we held a VIP breakfast event yesterday morning to get things off the ground with a bang. We were honoured to welcome the biggest talents and shining stars of the health, fitness and beauty industries, and after catching up over green juices (or double espressos for some of us- we managed to temporarily break the coffee machine) our Editor-in-Chief Susannah and Creative Director Sarah unveiled what we’ve been beavering away on for the last few months (check our our trailer for an insight into our newest business venture).
Now we’re two years old and helping to unite our favourite brands with brilliant minds, we thought it was only appropriate to showcase and applaud the women that came before us and blazed a trail to make the beauty industry (nay, world) what it is today. Enter skincare legend and wellbeing warrior Liz Earle , prestigious journalist Sali Hughes and slick entrepreneur Vanita Parti .
Liz took the floor first to give us an insight into her impressive and inspiring career moves. Originally a journalist, she was often at loggerheads with copy editors due to her propensity to write long, story like features. She made the most of her skill set and decided to write books instead before moving into television. A successful career on the box followed, with interviewing Linda Evangelista in her bathroom and filming with Gordon Ramsey particularly sticking out in Liz’s memory (“he was really quite sweet back then”). A phone call from former John Frieda marketing executive Kim Buckland sowed the seed for her botanical skincare line (“Liz, you must do this!”) and successful mail order and QVC sales soon followed. Liz Earle Naturally Active Skincare soon launched online, to much acclaim (the team are attracting awards by the dozen) and Liz sold her brand in 2010, remaining a creative consultant to a team of more than 600. Liz has joined the likes of us and since set up her own wellbeing website (she frequently checks in with us to keep up to date) and still strongly lives by the philosophy that you’re only as good as the team you surround yourself with. If Get The Job had been around when she started out, she thinks it would have been a goldmine of opportunity.
Taking and creating opportunities was a consistent theme throughout the panel Q&A that followed; Sali launched her own website and essentially forged a single person digital brand so that she had a space that she alone owned. While she works for other publications, she’s paved her own way and only takes on projects that she wholeheartedly believes in. She confessed that she’s encountered challenges, and that she initially regretted taking on her hugely popular Guardian beauty column as she felt that others’ perceptions of her as a journalist shifted, but she persevered to prove that women can multitask intellectually- an interest in cosmetics and current affairs are not, in fact, mutually exclusive. She’s since gone on to publish a wildly successful beauty tome, Pretty Honest , and her Guardian column stats continue to soar.
Vanita’s eyebrow empire was also founded on honesty, practicality and with astute, busy modern women in mind. Blink may have begun as just one chair in Fenwicks lingerie department, but Vanita single handedly brought eyebrow threading and grooming not only out of the salon and onto the shop floor, but also to the consciousness of women all over the country. A brow treatment offers an instant lift, and it wasn’t long before women were queuing up for appointments and indeed, jobs. Recruiting at The Job Centre wasn’t ideal, and given that so many people aspire to break into the beauty industry (it generates more money than the fashion machine, after all), a dedicated resource such as Get The Job will enable many a skilled beauty buff to bring their talent to the table and soak up others’ success stories and advice.
The breakfast ended with panelists and guests ‘paying it forward’ to those that gave them their first big breaks (check out our twitter feed to see who we chose!). Everyone went back to their desks with goody bag in hand, packed with treats from Rude Health , Plenish and The Urban Kitchen , not to mention day passes for Equinox gym, a Blink brow treatment voucher and a complimentary class from our friends at Triyoga . Beauty, brains and breaking into a sweat are the things we love best after all…
Launched on Thursday 13th November, the new section of the site will not only help you find your dream job in beauty and wellness but will also feature the latest in business news, inspiring interviews with key industry players and a behind the scenes look at some of our favourite brands.
Here at Get The Gloss we are all about championing those in the industry, and to celebrate the launch of Get The Job we are encouraging you to share with us via social media the person who gave you your big break using the hashtag #MyBigBreak.
Whether you share via Twitter or Instagram don’t forget to include our handle @GetTheGloss and nominate others to pay it forward too.
A big thank you to all our goody bag contributors: Rude Health , Aduna , Plenish , Blink , The Urban Kitchen , Bounce , The Pure Package , The School of Life , Equinox and Triyoga .