From Mining to Beauty – how I got there

I found my passion in beauty ever since I noticed my first fine line around my eyes two years ago. It was at the time when I was working as a business analyst in the mining industry. I couldn’t have my job and passion disconnected more! I talked to many friends and recruiters about my chances of moving into the beauty industry but they all were doubtful about my success.

It was not surprising as this is a very attractive and competitive industry. Recruiters say that someone with experience in this field will always have the advantage. LVMH and Estee Lauder didn’t find my resume interesting enough to invite me for an interview and a friend from Unilever explained that to get a position of a business analyst or other commercial/accountant role, the employee needs to grow from a junior role within the company. That was not an attractive offer for an ambitious qualified accountant with 9 years’ experience in roles like financial controller or project manager. But here I am in the centre of beauty industry working for one of the most influential women in the Australian cosmetics market.

Here are 4 tips on how you can change the industry. I hope my story will inspire you.

1. Make sure you actually do something instead of just talking.

That’s the most common mistake: many people complain about their jobs but on the weekend will rather rest than update their CV and look for opportunities. Life is all about choices.

2. Picture yourself in the industry

Subscribe to job offer notifications with the right keywords, read market data, basically immerse yourself in the industry you want to be in. I know it will be hard as from 9 to 5pm, or even longer, you are involved in a completely different environment but if you love it, sacrificing your private time will not be that difficult.

3. PR yourself

I set up a beauty blog but you can find a better way of doing it. I ran my beauty blog for around 3 months and it was the busiest but also the most rewarding time of my life. I absorbed a lot of experience in web-development (I learned everything just by researching online), I attended a Photoshop course, “Writing for magazines” workshop and I spent fair amount of time making sure every PR person knows about my blog. During my interview for the job I had tangible evidence that I was passionate about the beauty industry.

4. Let everyone know

Since my mentor got his second job around 30 years ago and all other jobs thereafter, it was always due to someone recommending him. It seems to work for me too. In business everything is about relationships. After the speech from the lovely Bahar Etminan (the editor of www.Rescu.com.au) during “Australian Beauty Bloggers Weekend” around 15 people out of 80 stood in the queue to congratulate Bahar on her great inspiring speech. One of them was me and here you go. Bahar is the one who connected me with the right person, who knew about my skills and my aspirations. Through networking you can open many doors and jump many fences.

Good luck!