How I Got My Dream Job At Elle Magazine In The ‘90s
By: Jennifer Barnett
Tags: Careers, Magazine, Nostalgia, Gen X And Millennials, Personal Essay

How I Got My Dream Job At Elle Magazine In The ‘90s Jennifer Barnett Follow Oct 27 · 12 min read

A creepy ad for Love’s Baby Soft, JFK Jr. and the Peter Pan Bus

I remember the day I fell in love with magazines. It was 1983, and I was in sixth grade. My family was stationed in Spain because my dad was in the Navy, and my best friend Belle and I were hanging out on her bed in her room. I was flipping through her older sister’s Seventeen magazine, which I had just rescued from the trashcan; American magazines were hard to come by. I took it home with me and spent hours reading it, poring over the pages, marveling at the attention to detail the girl in the back-to-school fashion story exhibited with her buttery yellow headband that perfectly matched her yellow and black plaid skirt and her Trapper Keeper. That girl was going places.

I was enthralled with an ad for Love’s Baby Soft. It told the story of a girl who had the life of my dreams in four panels. In one, my dream girl nuzzled a horse; in another she sat on a sofa watching TV with her cute boyfriend; in the next, she hugged her dad who was dressed in a Santa Claus suit; and in another, she slow-danced at prom with her boyfriend. The final panel was for the perfume itself, which I had never smelled, but I was promised it smelled like innocence, which according to the ad was “sexier than you think.” I was obsessed with that girl. She had everything. I wanted to be her, and magazines gave me all the tips and secrets on how I could be. Equipped with the knowledge gleaned from my magazines, I knew I had a road map to all the shiny things that were dangled in front of me. With magazines, I could get the job, the guy, if I wanted, and craft the life of my dreams.

I couldn’t find the original ad from Seventeen, but this has all the components and it’s quite a gem

When I turned 16, my favorite aunt gave me a subscription to Glamour. She said she chose it because, in her opinion, it had the best articles. The first time I read about the Taliban was in Marie Claire.

I desperately wanted to work in magazines, but I didn’t have any connections to the publishing world. My pre-internet path to the glittering world of New York magazines wasn’t paved. It involved hours at the library, writing down the names of every person on the masthead, so I could individually mail each of them a copy of my resume, rather than simply sending a copy to the HR departments. I’d sign my cover letter with a specific pen and place it on top of my resume, carefully folding them so that the important parts were immediately visible when the envelope was opened.

After majoring in English and minoring in journalism in college, I got my first non service-industry job in the publishing department of a financial publishing company in Charlottesville, Virginia. My college professors had encouraged me to pursue writing, but that was ridiculous. I needed a real job. I answered an ad for an entry-level production editor position, not realizing that production meant laying out the components of the magazine, not actually editing anything. I began learning the layout software. I went on to work at an ad agency and then for the Crutchfield electronics catalog, but still I dreamed of working for a real glossy magazine.

One weekend, I went to visit my friend Jessie, who had left the financial publishing firm where we’d met to be a bond trader at Morgan Stanley in New York City. On the bus ride home, I decided I was going to ditch my loser boyfriend and move to New York to pursue my dream of working in magazines, and nothing was going to stop me. I’d been warned that working in production wasn’t glamorous like other magazine editor’s jobs, but I didn’t care — I just wanted in.

I spent the next few months mailing my resume and cover letter to the HR departments of all the major publishing houses in New York, but I never heard anything back. I even made an appointment with a job placement firm that specialized in publishing — back in the late ‘90s, those places still existed. I was told it was unlikely I’d get an interview, that magazine job openings were few and far between, and my resume wasn’t going to open many doors, but I was patient and determined.

One day, after months of hearing nothing, I got a call from my headhunter. He told me that there was a very rare opening in the production department of Vogue, and he said he could get me an interview. He said that the number one requirement was that I was totally proficient in QPS, a workflow management system that all the magazines used. While I had a general understanding of how QPS worked, our catalog was too small to use it. While my headhunter was sympathetic, he said there was nothing more he could do to help me. The last piece of advice he gave me was to use my friend Jessie’s NYC address for my resume. He said no one would look twice at an out-of-state resume. I hung up feeling crushed.

Still, I wasn’t giving up. I knew I needed to get an interview. It was the only way I’d be able to overcome the limits of my resume.

My dad told me that a friend of his in Alcoholics Anonymous had mentioned he had a niece who worked in the photo department of Elle magazine, and offered to put me in touch. I called her immediately. She took my phone call, but didn’t have any advice about breaking in. She offered to put me in touch with the HR department, but I’d already sent them my resume (multiple times). I pressed her for a name. I needed to know who was in charge of the production department, and I needed a phone number. She somewhat reluctantly gave me the name of the editorial production director, and said yes when I asked if I could say she’d referred me.

When I hung up the phone, I had a name and a direct phone number to the editorial production director of Elle magazine. It felt like I was holding the golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory (the original, not the Johnny Depp fiasco).

Her name was Lisa Loverro. She already seemed very sophisticated. I carefully wrote a script of what I would say when she answered the phone. I knew I had to keep it short and sweet, and I needed to grab her attention and get her to agree to meet with me. After endlessly practicing in front of the mirror, I finally dialed her phone number. It went straight to voicemail. I hung up. I had already decided I wasn’t going to leave a message — too risky. I was going to keep calling until someone picked up.

By the third day, I was getting worried. What if she had caller ID and had figured out the same person was calling her and hanging up without leaving a message? Still, I kept dialing.

When she picked up the phone, my heart nearly stopped.

I often think back to this moment. Lisa Loverro could have easily blown me off. She had absolutely no reason not to. There wasn’t a job currently available at Elle, she didn’t know me, and she was extremely busy. There was no reason for her to give me even one moment of her time. But she did. She said that if I faxed my resume over to her, she’d take a look at it. I seized the moment and put my entire leg in the door before she closed it. “Actually, I’m going to be in town this week and I was wondering if maybe I could drop my resume off in person, just so you can put a name with a face.” I held my breath, and in the next moment, Lisa Loverro changed my entire life.

“Sure, that would be fine, Lisa said.” How about Monday?

Now that I had a real interview at a fashion magazine (never mind it was only an informal arrangement to drop off my resume), I needed something appropriate to wear. I called my friend Emily who worked at Nordstrom and she set me up with a personal shopper. The service was free, and I needed a professional. The shopper helped me find what I thought was the perfect outfit, a black Alex Garfield suit dress with jacket and a pair of Stuart Weitzman shoes. It was more money than I’d ever spent on clothes, and even though it was the middle of July, I wore panty hose.

Then everything fell apart.

The weekend before my interview, John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bessette (as well as Carolyn’s sister), went down in a plane crash while on the way to a Kennedy family wedding. As I watched the news coverage, I was heart broken not just because of how shocking and sad it was, but also, selfishly, because I was worried my meeting with Lisa Loverro would be canceled.

In addition to working at Elle, I knew from my research that Lisa Loverro also worked on George — JFK Jr.’s new magazine. I had even fantasized about the possibility of running into him on the elevator. I knew Lisa worked very closely with JFK Jr, and I couldn’t imagine how devastated she must have been. I was sure she was going to cancel our meeting.

Even as I sat in the reception area the day of our meeting, I was convinced someone was going to come out and tell me that Lisa was unable to see me. While I waited, I overheard people talking about the plane crash as they walked by, speaking in somber, hushed voices. The mood lightened briefly when someone came out to retrieve a stack of modeling portfolios that had been messengered over and held up the modeling portfolio of a young Ivanka Trump, sharing a laugh with the receptionist over how cheesy it was. I wouldn’t have known — after all, there I was wearing a wildly inappropriate black suit I’d paid a small fortune for — but I trusted their judgment.

When Lisa Loverro came out to greet me, I told her it would be completely understandable if she wanted to reschedule under the circumstances, but she waved the suggestion away and said that she needed a distraction. It was obvious she’d been crying. I followed her to her office.

We ended up talking for probably 20 minutes. Lisa spoke openly about her friend JFK Jr, and I was amazed at how she was able to simultaneously grieve and remain poised and professional. She took the time to look over my portfolio and review my resume. She said there wasn’t anything available in the production department at the moment, but that I seemed like I had my act together and that something would come along eventually. Just those few words of encouragement made it seem like my dream of working in a magazine could actually come true some day. I thanked her profusely for her time, left her at least five copies of my resume, and showed myself out.

I returned to Charlottesville feeling cautiously optimistic. I sent Lisa a thank you note with my phone number included so she’d have it handy if anything came up. I planned to check in with her every so often, just to make sure she didn’t forget me in case a job opened up, but I wasn’t sure how often I should contact her. I wanted to be careful not to cross the line from being proactive to being a pain in the ass.

About two weeks later, Lisa called me. She said she was glad my thank you note included my contact info, because something had come up and she wanted to know if I could meet with the editor in chief of Elle the NEXT MORNING. She said she couldn’t promise anything, but that “something was happening” and if I was available, she’d like to get me in front of Elaina Richardson.

I squeezed my friend Holly, ran out of Crutchfield, drove the two hours to my parent’s house, and caught the next available Peter Pan bus from Washington D.C. to my friend Jessie’s apartment in New York.

It was August now, and I wore my same heavy black suit and panty hose. Elaina Richardson was wearing a breezy pair of capri pants and a pastel button-down shirt when she greeted me warmly and welcomed me into her office. We talked for several minutes, and Lisa explained that the editorial production manager of Elle was leaving, and that they were looking to replace him as quickly as possible and needed someone who was an expert in both Quark and QPS — the document management system I was only marginally familiar with. The new French art director had just taken over the art department and insisted that whomever was hired be an expert.

I was an expert in Quark, but not QPS. Still, I knew I could learn it, and I wasn’t going to let this opportunity get away like it had at Vogue. I knew I had to lie.

As the interview with Elaina and Lisa progressed, I could sense that things were going well. Elaina was remarkably easy to talk to. She had a casual manner that made me feel at ease, and I was able to relax and talk in detail about the kind of work experience I had and how I foresaw it translating to working on a major magazine. I talked about my love of magazines, and about why I wanted to move to New York. I had done my homework so I was able to talk specifics about the articles in Elle and I really did know everything there was to know about Quark, so when they invited the art director in to meet with me, I was able to confidently talk about mechanics and convincingly bluff my way through the QPS bits. My expertise appeared to please the art director. He waved his cigarette around and nodded as I dug into the finer points, being sure to use lots of jargon and expound on the merits of character style sheets and the different options for kerning and leading. He barely glanced at my resume and he had brushed aside my portfolio, but I had him with the Quark speak.

While I was talking I caught a glimpse of Lisa’s face, and I could tell I was nailing the interview. Everyone shook my hand when I left, and Lisa walked me to the elevators. She assured me I’d hear something soon, and my heart beat so loudly, I could hear it in my ears. As Lisa pushed the call button for the elevator, she asked me what my salary expectations were. I hadn’t expected this question to be asked so casually, with the elevator on the way. I had absolutely no idea what the going rate was for this job and I’d been unsuccessful in finding it out. I knew junior editors made what seemed like an impossibly low salary in the low 20K range — how did people live in NYC on that amount? — but technical jobs paid more. I made 19K at my job at Crutchfield in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“Well, Morgan Stanley is offering 50K, but I know that’s crazy… it’s finance and they are in a different wage bracket,” I said. “That’s doable,” Lisa said matter of factly, and I think I was still standing there with my mouth gaping open as the elevator doors closed and took me back to the lobby.

I had just gotten back to Jessie’s apartment when Lisa called me and offered me the job. I accepted on the spot before she even told me the salary. Lisa told me to hurry up and get my apartment squared away because they wanted me to start the next week.

My friends in Charlottesville threw me a going away party and all chipped in to buy me a Kate Spade bag. They gave me a copy of the Elle masthead with my name written in. I still have it.

The masthead with my name written in and the Kate Spade bag my friends gave me at my going away party when I got my dream job at Elle magazine

I asked if I could come in for a few hours before I officially started my new job at Elle to work with the person I was replacing so I could secretly learn QPS. I never let on I was learning it in real time, and I was an expert by the end of my first day, which turned out to be a good thing, because the French art director also had a secret — he didn’t know how to use QPS either and was relying on me to teach him.

I thrived at Elle and took on more responsibility, steadily climbing the masthead. My career in magazines spanned two decades at the most prestigious publishing houses in the world, where I worked as the managing editor of Redbook, Teen Vogue, and ultimately, The Atlantic, until I abruptly left my career a few years ago, walking away from everything I’d dreamed of at the height of my career, but that’s a story for another time.

In those first months at Elle, I’d work well past 9pm and walk out into the neon lights of Broadway and I felt like the luckiest person alive. My life was better than the girl’s in the Love’s Baby Soft ad, and I smelled like Issey Miyake, which was a vast improvement to creepy-sexy-under-aged innocence if I did say so myself.

I’d still like a horse, though.