Sara Zucker
Digital Media Analyst at NARS Cosmetics

“Thanks to my job, I’ve never looked better.”

Sara Zucker gets to play with makeup all day. As NARS’ Digital Media Analyst, she’s also involved with the company’s online media outreach, content production, strategy and analysis, but the important part is that she gets to play with makeup all day. The gig’s a bit of a curve ball for Sara considering she got her Masters in Library Science, but when you factor in the popularity of her personal fashion blog, her day job makes total sense. How’d she go from libraries to lipstick? Good, old-fashioned networking.

Let’s talk about college. I went to undergrad at the University of Connecticut (double major in English and History) and grad school at Queens College (Masters in Library Science, Certification in Archives, Preservation and Records Management). I initially entered college as a vocal performance major; my grades were crap, but I had been performing for years and wanted to make all of those many dollars spent on voice lessons worth it for my parents. After realizing that I really had two career options in music—to be a performer or an educator—I decided “the hell with it” and switched to a major where I could just read books all day. For some reason, that seemed like a more lucrative plan.

In an effort to hone my writing skills, I interned in the Public Relations offices of multiple schools within the university and after a brief stint in Ad Sales, I enrolled in grad school to become an archivist because, I mean, old books are cool as hell.

What was your first job? I had spent one summer interning in the Ad Sales department at DNR (a now defunct business-to-business men’s fashion magazine), so when I was offered a job doing something similar at the New York Observer the day before I graduated from UConn, it didn’t seem like a terrible idea. Sales could be cool, right? No. I won’t go too in-depth about the level of misery I experienced because Jared Kushner is the bomb, but let’s just say that I happily entered grad school after five measly months.

What about your worst job? Please read previous answer.

What’s your dream job? It would be absolutely disgusting if I said that I am currently doing my “dream job,” but I am. I play with makeup every day, interact directly with my brand’s ideal consumer, create a voice across all digital platforms that isn’t too far off from my own and brainstorm future projects online. I don’t know what isn’t awesome about that.

A job you would never want? To be anyone’s assistant.

So, how did you get this job? At the time, I had a 6-month contract to be Glamour’s Community Manager, an experimental position created by Conde Nast. Though I didn’t put two and two together at the time because I am incredibly naive, when the contract ended, so did my time at the magazine.

So I was out of a job and emailed just about every friend I could think of to be all “Hey! Haven’t seen you in so long—let’s get drankz! Miss you. Also, I’m unemployed.” [Special Projects Director at Conde Nast] Eva Chen sent me this job description from NARS and told me to ignore the title as it was actually a social media position. [Glamour’s Fashion Development Director] Susan Cernek put in a lovely and unnecessary (but so lovely) recommendation, and I was able to get an interview the day that I applied. My soon-to-be-boss and I grabbed a cocktail and, despite my unpreparedly wearing moccasins and jeggings because I had no idea that I would get an interview, she saw something in me… enough to extend a job offer a few days later.

Follow Sara on Twitter and check out her Tumblr.