The inside scoop on what working at a big publication is like.
Holly Rhue graduated from George Mason University in 2018 with a major in English and double minored in Spanish and marketing. Holly first started writing for BuzzFeed. She worked their for a little over a year while still being in college, and then moved on to work at ELLE Magazine. Holly started out as an editorial fellow working on photo/video shoot sets and having the responsibility of getting the products in and out of the photo/video shoot sight. Six months later she was promoted to weekend editor and had the job of posting any weekend news to all of ELLE’s social media sites. Holly is now writing as a beauty contributor and also works for Her Campus Media as a branded content editor.
I found Holly’s profile on LinkedIn when going through people that follow ELLE Magazine’s profile. At first I was having a hard time reaching out to Holly through LinkedIn so I decided to do a little research and searched her name on ELLE’s website and found her email. After sending her an email about having an interview, I received a quick response back and we worked out a time to have the interview.
Q&A:
Q: What all do you do at ELLE?
A: “I graduated in May of 2018 and immediately started working at ELLE. I was an Editorial Fellow and basically that is a contracted position and it’s like a paid internship for students who have graduated. I was working on the news team there, but I was also writing beauty and fashion features because I was also interested in that. And I did that until November of 2018, and then I was promoted to Weekend Editor there, so basically I was doing all the weekend and night news shifts, so covering political news, women’s issues, celebrity news, award shows when those larger events happened. I did that until January. Then in January I actually left ELLE. I’m still a free lance writer there, so I still write about one story a week there, but now I am the Branded Content Editor at Her Campus Media.”
Q: How did you end up working for ELLE Magazine?
A: “It was actually supper crazy. So I went to George Mason University, which is right outside of D.C. I was apart of my Her Campus Chapter when I went to school there. So I was writing about campus news and campus trends and things like that. That’s how I figured out that I loved magazine writing, more so than just straight reporting. That’s how I knew I wanted to get into magazines. Basically, I just started my senior year of college applying to every single entry level position I could find at a major magazine. The resource that was most useful to me was a job board called ed2010.com, and that’s a job board where magazines post their entry level positions and internships. I was like a month before I graduate and I had applied to so many publications and never heard anything. I was registered for grad school at the time and I was ready to just go to grad school because I didn’t have a job yet. A week before I was going to graduate someone from ELLE contacted me about my application and they invited me to have an interview with them. I went to New York City and interviewed there with the News Editor and then she hired me right after that. It was a two week period where I graduated from college, interviewed for this job, got the job, and then had to move to New York because they needed someone to start immediately.”
Q: How has working at ELLE influenced you as a writer?
A: “When I was in college I thought I wanted to be a news writer for the longest time. I thought it would be really exciting and really fast pace, and with my involvement with my Her Campus Chapter I would take on the news stories because I enjoyed it. But when I was at a larger publication, like ELLE, I worked more on the digital side of ELLE.com, so when I was doing news writing there I realized how much news there was and had first hand experience how much news takes over your life. It’s very stressful, very fast pace. You have to stop whatever you are doing in the middle of a project to attend a new story if something pops up. I would say the way it influenced my writing is that it actually pushed me onto the featured side of magazine writing. So rather than news I’m more interested in beauty and fashion features especially like personal first hand ‘I tried it’ stories. Those are kind of what I specialized in when I write free lance stories. It really helped me work through what I was interested in writing about. It broke down those romanticized dreams I had of what I thought I wanted to write about.”
Q: Was there ever a time when you made a mistake while working at ELLE and if so, how did you handle/fix it?
A: “Yeah definitely. There was one instance where a very expensive necklace from Jennifer Fisher was lost some time during the photo shoot, which I was actually not at the photo shoot because I was just responsible for bringing things in and out of the photo shoot. But I was personally responsible for this $10,000 necklace because I had signed for it. Basically, I just had to own up and be responsible for it and go up to one of the higher up editors and say ‘hey I was not on the shoot that I was responsible for pulling product in. I pulled this necklace in and now it’s mysteriously missing.’ I told my boss and she knew that there were security cameras in the photo shoot and that we would be able to access footage from them. I was able to view the footage to see that someone had dropped it and it had fallen under a vent in the photo shoot area. The lesson learned there was just knowing when something is out of your hands and being humble enough to go to someone higher up and say ‘I don’t know what to do here, please help me.’
Q: If you could change how ELLE runs what would it be and why?
A: “I would say, if there was a way to expand the edit team, that would be huge for them. Unfortunately, digital journalism is such a saturated field. There are so many websites that provide the same content and report the same events and because of that the teams are smaller. Hearst, which is the company that owns ELLE Magazine and a number of others as well. They aren’t firing people per say but they are doubling up positions. Certain individuals, especially when you are in that middle tier as far as what you are responsible for goes, like the editor for beauty and the fashion section. If there was a way to increase head count on the edit team that would make the job a lot easier, but it is also a great way to get to know people in multiple different verticals. The nature of my job was to help the entire team. I was able to make beauty contacts, and make fashion contacts, and make news contacts. It is a good thing, but with the industry drop having a higher head count.”
Q: What advice do you have for someone who wants to work at a magazine like ELLE?
A: “I would say write as much as you can. I would look into it and see if there is a Her Campus chapter at your college, because that is a very well respected organization within the industry to be involved in. If I was looking into hiring an intern at ELLE and see Her Campus I would be like ‘Okay they have experience writing beauty and fashion and lifestyle content, which is what we need at our website,’ so that would be written proof to me if I saw on someones resume. I would also look into anywhere you can intern, whether it’s in your hometown over the summer or during the semester at your university. Any editorial experience is just so huge, I mean, when it comes down to it the magazines are just looking for people who know how to write. They want people who make their jobs easier. An editor doesn’t want to have to hire a writer who they have to do a lot of editing for.
Special thank you to Holly Rhue for letting me reach out to her and helping me make this blog post possible. Having the opportunity to interview Holly was a great learning experience and connection. She gave me great resources that could help me in my future of becoming a writer at a magazine like ELLE. During our interview she was very genuine and kind. I was very lucky to get the opportunity to talk with her. If you would like any more information check out Holly’s LinkedIn account here.
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