Working conditions
Be prepared to work shifts. Many airports operate 24 hours around the clock, and 3 am can be as busy as 3 pm. You have to work fast people are always in a hurry to catch their plane. Languages are useful, and you will be trained to identify cultural differences to help people make their choices when buying.
Although you may work just for one company, you cannot be there all the time. You form a working relationship with another consultant, so you understand and know each other's products. When you go for your break, your colleague takes over even though he or she may be working for a rival house.
To familiarize you with the products, you will often be taken to the company's head office for training, which could be in Paris for Clarins or Chanel, or Switzerland for La Prairie. Sadly, the Japanese companies tend to bring their top staff, including chemists, over to Europe for staff training! You will be paid to fly over to these courses, and put up in top hotels. But the trip is not a holiday; it is hard but interesting work!
Salary
Rewards are good. Starting salaries are around £10,000 pa, but you can soon work up to £15,000 25,000. Managerial positions pay very well indeed. Benefits often include bonus schemes, subsidized meals, free life assurance and discounts. The major retailing companies operate duty free outlets in the USA, Australia, Asia and all over the world, so if you like the work, there are opportunities to work in other countries.
Tip!
Recently Nuance was bought out by the Italian company PAM, which may mean opportunities to transfer between its Italian, Swiss and Hong Kong operations.
Clarins operates beauty studios at Heathrow and Gatwick.
Facing the main area are sales counters, selling all Clarins products for men and women. Most of its products are fragrance free, since the company discovered that men were buying them to counteract the effects of travel on their skin. Airport retail space is extremely expensive, so a treatment studio is cunningly designed to fit into the smallest space possible at the back of the counter. There, stressed travelers (male and female) have massages, facials and treatments. The difference between treatments here and ones in a normal beauty salon is that instead of taking an hour or 90 minutes, all treatments are geared to take 45 minutes (the optimum time for the average traveler).
Sally Morante works in the Clarins Gatwick studio. For some years, she worked for a well known local salon, until deciding that shift work fitted in better with her lifestyle. She works quickly and efficiently to ensure that clients don't miss their plane, but has a soothing manner that makes you feel you don't care if you do! One of Sally's most popular treatments is an instant tanning session. Holidaymakers who want to look tanned, but don't want to risk exposure to the sun, book in for an exfoliating and tanning treatment with products that dry within one minute.
Whilst Sally is treating customers, she will also give them a gentle sales pitch, describing the treatment and what products she uses. At each step she took, she quietly told me what she was doing (reassuring) and what she was using (so I got the subtle message). She told me that she was using a Hydra balance cream and lotion designed for dehydration, which was good for frequent flyers. This made sense, so I came out and bought the product to continue the treatment whilst on holiday.
As I came out, feeling a million dollars, there was a carefully angled display shelf with tonic bath and relax bath lotions; Sally's colleague explained that the first was good for anti stress, and the relax bath would help me sleep if suffering from jet lag. The end result was a feeling of well being, and the effective training each staff member takes makes customers feel they have made a choice to buy products that will do them good, and fit in with their lifestyle.
Finding work
If you like a certain perfume house, phone its head office and ask if it is recruiting. Phone your local airport or look on its Web site; click on shopping and apply to the concessionaire. Look out for ads in local papers. Ask at the job center.
Tip!
Even if you aren't working in the retail section, don't forget that you can take advantage of often lower prices at the airport, especially if you want IT equipment. BAA has pioneered a scheme whereby, provided you are traveling, you can buy this and have it delivered to your home.
