Catriona Cockerham Bags Job With November Collective
At GlamCandy, we pride ourselves on the successes of our students and graduates. On our HNC course we offer a vast range of opportunities to our students to prepare them for careers in the industry, however, students studying with us throughout the Covid-19 pandemic were limited in the opportunities available to them. 20-year-old Catriona Cockerham is proof that despite the challenges of studying remotely with little practical training – gaining employment in the beauty industry is still possible.
Catriona managed to bag herself a job with November Collective, a brand new Livingston-based salon run by hairdresser Christopher Laird and MUA Emma-Louise Cantwell. She said, “I found out about the job through my boyfriend who lives near the salon. I applied and was invited for an interview which was very relaxed – even though it always feels like it will be! Emma and Chris were both really supportive and encouraging about my skills, even just in the interview process.
“My job is currently as a junior makeup artist as I’m still looking to build my confidence and a clientele, I’ll get everything I need to progress in my career working in the salon.”
An immensely important aspect of becoming a professional makeup artist and building your clientele is having a successful social media presence. Nowadays, the majority of an MUAs clients will book through Instagram or Facebook where they can view a digitised portfolio of the artists work. Catriona said, “My main job is, of course, to do makeup on clients but I am also going to use the space to create content for my social media which will not only help myself but the salon too.
“The team are so encouraging of the creative side of my job and are supportive of me using my time to go out and do other work outwith the salon such as photoshoots.”
Having an outgoing, sociable personality is imperative as an MUA. The ability to communicate and make conversation with your clients often plays a part in building a reliable clientele, as well as making you more attractive to prospective clients. Catriona said, “I love being able to transform clients and help them express themselves and bring out their creative side.
“My favourite thing is hearing about my clients lives and getting to meet loads of lovely new people who trust me to paint their faces!”
Throughout her time studying at GlamCandy, Catriona developed a love for curating innovative looks and studying the history of makeup artistry. Despite the restrictions in place, she was able to find a number of positive aspects to studying through a pandemic. She said, “Everyone was really supportive during Covid and I learned a lot, I really enjoyed doing face charts and designing creative looks, and my favourite part of the course was studying makeup looks from different eras.
“Having to learn during Covid has benefitted us though, as we were taught a lot about sanitisation and keeping your makeup station clean and safe.”
With a love for getting stuck into a look and getting her hands dirty, Catriona has a specific passion for SFX makeup and originally aspired to work in TV and film. She said, “There is so many different things you can do with SFX makeup or face paints, it’s my favourite makeup to apply because you can get super messy!
“Working with November Collective will help me network and market myself as an artist as I would love to do more SFX and editorial-related work in the future. However, at the moment my plan is to travel and do makeup for different shows and shoots wherever I can.”
To assist our graduates in gaining industry employment and boosting confidence in their work, we have curated our Aftercare programme that is available to all GlamCandy graduates. Whether it’s perfecting application techniques, business advice or working on photoshoots – we want to help our students kickstart prosperous, successful careers as professional MUAs.
For more information or to apply to our HNC Fashion Makeup course, click here.
