Sephora Job Interview

I know it's been a while I wrote anything but I feel with blogging its hard to really get into a routine. What I've learned is you can't force anything out unless it comes naturally, so that's what I intend on doing. However I thought I'd share my experience with applying at Sephora because while I was researching I noticed a lot of people were looking for some help so I thought why not?

I applied for the Part-Time Seasonal position at Sephora. I saw the posting on the website for Square One Mall here in Mississauga, Ontario. Its the main mall here in Mississauga so I figured they would be hiring for the Christmas season. I emailed my resume and also went in person and completed the job application. Now I didn't really need a job, but I figured it was a good opportunity to gain some experience and see what Sephora is all about. Its one of the main cosmetic retailers I shop at, I dont really care for MAC's customer service or products for that matter, so I thought why not give it a shot? I just found out that I didn't get the job but I thought I'd share the overall experience.

So I applied in person on September 19th at the store. I went in the evening expecting to see the evening manager as it was near closing time but instead the sales associate directed me towards the cash area where the cashier asked me to fill out the job application. Now I had my resume on-hand, thank god, because their job application is super long and it takes a good 20 minutes or more to fill out. Whats worse is you dont really give off a great impression because the space is limited so your writing is quite cramped. Anyways I filled it out and walked out feeling quite confident. The associates I interacted with were super friendly and while I was filling out the application two customers approached me asking for help, so I thought that gave a great overall impression to those watching. I asked the cashier when I should expect some type of follow up and she told be to wait "a couple of weeks" as it was that busy time of year.

I waited for two weeks and on October 5th I received a call in the evening asking me to come to a group interview the following week on October 9th. I was super excited because the experience I did have listed on my resume wasn't all that impressive. So I began mentally preparing myself for the interview, googling what outfit to wear and what type of questions theyd ask.

Now Sephora is considered retail work, however it is more professional so I was a tad confused on what to wear. I had read online that they like if you stand out and wear their colors so I opted for a full sleeved white top tucked into a solid black maxi skirt with flats and a red scarf. I wore my pandora bracelet only and pinned my hair back. Because my clothes seemed more minimal and casual without the blazer I tried to keep my makeup not too busy and sleek. I wore red matte lips by using Annabelle's lip liner in Mars and Revlon Just Bitten Lip Balm Stain in Crush. It actually made a really nice orangey red, although the stain is magenta. For my eyes I kept my eyeshadow neutral with the inner corners highlighted and a sharp angled winged liner and tons of mascara. Overall my friends told me I looked put together and very Sephora. The red and black colors may have been overkill but hey, I didn't care and I wanted to see what they had to say.

I reached my interview 15 mins in advance and one other girl was waiting before me. Altogether there were five of us. Two wore blazers and were very plain looking. The other two were a bit more casual, with one dressed more in highschool clothes and the other more dressy. All in all I liked what the dressy girl wore the most. Based on what I had read online I assumed the group interview would take place in the food court or somewhere more open however we were directed towards the back and had to be seated on stools (how classy?) We were interviewed by two women, one a store director, the other a operations manager.

They asked a total of 10 questions I believe and tried to rotate the answers so everyone got a turn to answer first. In this situation most people tend to copy what others say before them, its just the nature of the human brain. As a psych student I was expecting a lot of this awkward repetition so I was aiming to answer first and shine. I would volunteer to answer first and 6/10 times I did, however this took away from the clarity of my answers and I'm sure I came off as super nervous.

Now onto the good stuff, the QUESTIONS. I can't remember all of them but here are some of the things they asked. They're all along the lines of how well you can contribute to Sephora:

-Talk about a past experience where you felt you displayed excellent customer service
-What are three non-negotiable things you look for in a workplace
-If you owned your own company and were the manager and therefore decided the rules, what would you do if a customer broke a perfume bottle they had just purchased? Would you replace it or make them buy a new one? (They want you to say you would replace it because you want the customer to keep coming back)
-Based on your past experience what are three things you think would make you a good employee at Sephora

If you really show them youre good at customer service, they will take note of that. Anytime anyone mentioned customer service or client satisfaction, the women would write something down. My friend also worked at Sephora as a fragrance consultant and had already told me the same beforehand.

Now I don't know specifically why I never got hired. Im assuming its because I came off as nervous although I was really excited as well. At the same time they had told us that we were competing with 200-300 other applicants and they had been conducting groups interviews in batches of 5-10 all week this month. All of this for just 25 seasonal spots. So I guess the competition was tough and I just didn't make a great overall impression. They sent me an email the next day saying that they had a number of qualified individuals for their openings and wanted to let me know that they have selected other candidates "whose qualifications most closely match the requirements for the position". So that's that. Hope this post has been helpful to those of you looking to know what the process is like. I was told if you received a call back they would make you demo a product, so basically ask you to sell a product on one of the directors not to see how much product knowledge you had but to see your customer service skills.

Goodluck!