Working as a beauty consultant can be a fun long-term option but for those who eventually move on, beauty retail can be used as a springboard into many different careers. Here are some ideas for employing the skills learned as a beauty consultant, to flourish in other roles. Highlight these skills on your resume and use them to evidence your interview statements.
Customer Service and Clienteling
Few outlets at high-street level require the customer service skills that are standard in make-up retail:
- Attentive, friendly customer service combined with a sales focus makes a successful beauty consultant perfect for almost any sales or high-end boutique job. You will already be used to listening, asking the right questions and providing a top service by finding the correct solutions.
- Getting to know individual customers and providing a service led sales atmosphere is unlike much average retail. This experience would be useful for working in a designer fashion boutique, a spa or in hospitality.
- Experience with make-up beauty booking systems teaches the importance of booking turn-around time for the make-up artist, confirming appointments, recording accurate customer information and juggling a busy day. This experience is very helpful for spa reception work or any role that involves running a diary, such as a personal assistant or administrator.
- Part of good customer service in beauty is promoting a relaxed atmosphere and personal appearance facilitates this. It is not about dressing up or being affected: Looking clean and approachable helps people to feel at ease. Not everyone is used to this for work. Just travel on a morning rush-hour commuter train to experience bad breath, musty clothing and habits such as sucking fingers. Being hygienic and well turned out will open doors in any part of the luxury service industry as well as in to any career that involves close contact with people, from healthcare and the food industry to PR.
Make-up Artistry, Beauty Therapy and Treatments
Providing personal services is part of beauty retail. Depending on experience and qualifications, this can be from professional make-ups to mini facials on counter, full beauty therapy treatments and teaching workshops. For anyone who enjoys working with their hands and having a closer contact with people, these opportunities make beauty retail unique and rewarding. In terms of experience, it elevates the job from more than basic shop floor work on a resume.
- Certificated beauty therapists can work in spas doing everything from basic facials and waxing to aromatherapy treatments and sports massage. While study is essential for this career, beauty retail can be a good taster of the wider beauty industry and it can also provide a relevant job while you are doing your training.
- Anyone who flourishes with the close personal contact that is part of make-up and beauty appointments might enjoy a further career working with people. With further training, such experience could lead to counseling or being a personal trainer.
- Professional freelance make-up artistry is an obvious step from a beauty retail job. The flexibility of retail can be useful while building up reliable freelance work. Using contacts within the brand can also help to develop a freelance career, as can becoming a regional or national make-up artist. While engaging in the long process of building up a profitable freelance make-up career, beauty retail at least keeps make-up skills fresh with daily practice and provides a monthly salary.
Product and Market Expertise
If you have worked for a few years, for a top quality multi-brand name such as Space NK or Urban Retreat, not many people will have more knowledge of beauty products or the market than you. This counts for beauty editors and PR staff, who often have to rely on marketing information from brands. If you have day in and day out practical product application practice, in high-end beauty, together with some management experience your knowledge of the beauty industry will be second to none.
- Working in beauty editorial, PR, copywriting or being a freelance beauty writer will all benefit from quality hands-on experience, even if it takes time to get in to these careers. Beauty writing often needs to be built up slowly, like freelance make-up artistry, and much like freelance make-up artistry, shop floor experience is not considered a strong resume credit. Yet many beauty writers have never actually worked with products in a store, despite writing about them every day. Having this extra experience will give authenticity and authority to writing.
- Anyone with management experience could aim to become a beauty buyer. A prestigious beauty buying job can take a long time to work your way in to, but from a well-rounded career in beauty retail management, an assistant buyer’s role can be a possible career change away from the shop floor.
Whatever career change appeals, the flexibility of cosmetics retail can be an added help when considering career development and training. It is often possible to drop hours down to a part-time beauty consultant position if time, to build a freelance portfolio or attend training, is required. Weekend work also means that even full-time beauty consultants can have a day off during the week, maybe to complete a course. This all makes beauty retail a great place to learn skills as well as a good job while developing your resume.
Shefali Choudhury - Writer and visual artist, Suite Beauty topic editor, Shefali spent 10 years in professional makeup artistry from beauty to blood ...
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