“I’m giving my notice. I’ve decided to move to New York.” At the time, those were the scariest couple of sentences I’d ever said. After working as the Associate Editor for Boston Common for almost three years, I knew if I didn’t give New York a shot, it could become my biggest regret.
How’d I do it? I kept in touch with my first editor at Boston Common. She had New York work experience and gave me freelance work at travel guidebooks she was editing. I used that money to save up for my move. Of course, it wasn’t easy. Prior to moving, I made many trips to the city, setting up meetings with HR at lots of different publishing companies. It wasn’t long before I landed a position as the Associate Editor for New York Resident. A college friend who had been encouraging me to come down became my roommate.
For me, getting my name out there and letting people know I was in the market for a job worked. Here’s how four other editors made the move and scored their first editing gigs in New York.
Amy Beal, Assistant Editor, Parenting
“I majored in creative writing at Georgetown, and while I knew I wanted to write, I had no idea how to make a job of that. I ended up at a nonprofit in DC that provided meals and nutritional counseling for people living with HIV. I worked there for three years, and while I loved it, I knew it wasn’t for me. It was emotionally draining on a daily basis. My brother came to visit—he was living in NYC—and saw I had a Real Simple lying around. He casually mentioned that he had a friend who worked there and would give her my info. She ended up giving me some freelance work, and in the fall of ‘06, I moved into the spare room in my brother’s apartment—he gave me a good deal on the rent, which was good because I didn’t have a job lined up.
“I lucked out when Real Simple, took me on as a freelance fact checker that fall. During that time, I applied to intern at Parenting, was offered the position, but turned it down when I realized it wasn’t enough money to even pay my reduced rent. About a week later, an editorial assistant position opened up there, and I got the job. Today, I write the women’s health section at Parenting, and I just love it. I get to take the work I did at the nonprofit job and my need to help people, and combine it with my love of writing. What could possibly be better?”
Ingrid Skjong, Deputy Editor, Gotham and Hamptons
“I had been working at the city magazine in Minneapolis for a few years, and one fall it hit me that it was time to go east. I didn’t do a lot of pre-planning. I was lucky enough to be able to stay with my aunt who lived in the area for the first year, which allowed me to have a home base and not pay rent (a luxury, for sure). But I moved without a job, throwing myself into the hunt when I got here. I freelanced for my old magazine for several months and made all the contacts I could through relatives, friends and networking events.
My aunt knew the then editor-in-chief of Gotham, and he was nice enough to meet with me and give me some writing assignments. I freelanced for them on a regular basis. By the following fall I was hired full-time. I learned that it’s not a sign of weakness to take advantage of a contact! I continued working on Gotham, was pulled onto other Niche Media titles, and eventually ended up where I am today.”
Joe McGauley, Web Editor, Thrillist.com
“After graduating college, I considered staying in Boston for good. I spent the summer interning, but there were limited paid opportunities in magazines. That’s when I set my sights on NYC. I had that cliché dream of landing an interview at Condé Nast or Hearst. That didn’t happen. I’d come to terms with the idea of making it work any way I could–waiting tables at a restaurant or doing the barista thing 80 hours a week.
“An editor I’d been working for during my internship put me in touch with some key NYC people. I landed an interview for an editorial assistant position at a startup new media company based in Soho. With some luck and persistence, I got the job.
“I only had a week to get things in order, daunting, to say the least. I trolled Craigslist for apartments, reached out to anyone I knew in New York—high school friends, random college acquaintances, family friends I’d never really met—so I’d have my bearings when I got here. I literally moved here with a backpack and nothing else. My parents dropped me at the train station and once I arrived, I crashed with my cousin while figuring things out. I’d saved up a bit over the summer, and eventually my lucky break came when a friend from high school told me that a roommate she’d lined up to move in had dropped out. A couple of days later, I was a resident of Brooklyn.”
Janna Johnson, Beauty & Fitness Assistant, ELLE
“I grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City, and while I’m a Midwestern girl at heart, I was always drawn to the big city. I was a journalism major in college and knew internships were key, so I spent the summers after my sophomore and junior years of college, living in NYC and interning at ELLEgirl and Self. I knew after graduation that I’d want to move here and try to get a full-time magazine job.
“Two weeks after graduation, I got on a plane with two huge suitcases and moved out here. Not long after, through Ed2010, I landed a freelance position at Parents.com. I worked there for four months until I got my first EA job at Woman’s Day; I found the posting online, applied, and got lucky! Now, two years later I am the Beauty & Fitness Assistant at ELLE, my favorite magazine!”
