beauty advisor

retail sales associate

floor manager

assistant store manager

stockroom manager

Sephora

Overall Sephora is a great company to work from and the best retailer I’ve ever worked at however is also a high pressure management job - especially for bigger stores.  

The team are all very lovely and hard working. Everyone gets along well and is a fun environment to be in! 

Would recommend for someone as a full time/part time/casual position. 

However as you reach a manager level it is very hard to progress from there as there is not a lot of room for growth, and no progression past Store Manager. 

The management titles do not even reflect the amount of work you are actually doing. 

‘Senior Beauty Advisor’ (aka Department Managers) - this is the equivalent to a Store Manager at a smaller retailer. You work a weird rotation and barely get weekends off, you are constantly on the shop floor trying to juggle 50 things at once especially working in a bigger store. It is very stressful trying to run the shop floor as a department manager when head office does not give you enough hours to adequately staff the shop floor. You deal with angry customers all the time and sometimes burnt out staff as there is not enough people on shift. No work life balance at all and pay is not reflected in work load. Good thing is you can ignore all the what’s app chats and messages on your days off unlike ASM & SM

‘Assistant Store Manager’ - the same as above except on top of this you also have a lot of operational work to complete while managing your department managers and all your other team members. Good thing is you have set days off however can never enjoy your days off as always have 1000 WhatsApp messages coming through, and always have team members/Department managers contacting you 24/7. This role is hard work but only the store manager gets celebrated for the success and assistant manager is overlooked. ASM also gets paid basically the same as a department manager. 

‘Store Manager’ - is basically an office based job. Most of it is spent on zoom calls with other managers and people in head office - most of these calls are a waste of time but you have to be on them even if you’d rather be supporting your store. There’s lots of work to do audit wise but the store manager is not the one actually running the shop floor and sales, that is mainly Department managers and ASM. It is hard work as the audit is impossible at Sephora and they set unrealistic standards that you will never meet. Like the assistant manager the store manager also has no work life balance as they have calls from people 24/7. Once you reach store manager level there’s no where else you can go as they only have 3 area managers in the whole country who are only ever hired externally - they don’t ever promote from store manager level 

I started when I was fresh out of beauty school, as a casual and stayed for 3.5 years. At first I didn’t know any different but after many years of no progression, bullying and micro management I knew and decided that this was not the place for me to progress in my beauty journey. You will not progress within this company if you are not liked by management and I like to say that it’s like the blind leading the blind. There’s no work life balance as we are all expected to participate in a group whatsapp chat as well as perform well on our floor hours - it’s a team effort which is a pro and also the training and experience you get is great if you’re passionate enough to stick it out. I also appreciated the gratis because it was the least you could do, you aren’t paid fairly though, Saturday’s and sundays etc you won’t make a casual loading on top. The team has its ups and downs, you are mostly welcomed however quickly can fall to the back of the pack. Only for the passionate! It’s customer service at the end of the day so you need a tough skin to get by especially within the beauty industry

Sephora doesn't hold the same values as I do. They preach about being individual, having a great work culture; full of respect and teamwork. When it comes to the crunch, sephora cares only about profitability, and if you are a casual employee will have no loyalty to you. Store management offers and open door communication policy, but a lack of respect shown towards team members questions this entirely as most do not feel comfortable talking to their management. HR are friends with store management and it can feel as if you cannot even speak to them about issues. Furthermore there is little support towards career development unless you are friends with the upper management, and although your goals and aspirations may been known, and you work as effectively and as hard as you can, it is hard to get any feedback from management as to how you can get to where you want to be. All in all I find it a dead end job in some respects, wirh profit always placed above employee satisfaction.

I was working for SEPHORA for 2 years and 8 months, once COVID hit they dropped about 60% of their staffing, took away employee benefits and still till this day with vaccinations they're not opening any makeup services.
Management needs a bit of work on how they treat their staff, they should understand the pressure they place on their fellow staff members when they refuse to hire more staff, it's literally embarassing for a flagship store. The store manager treats the place like an office job and never fully supports the staff at all especially during busy times. We lost product allowance and a lot of staff benefits once COVID hit.

Sephora is a great place to work but it's not all sunshine and rainbows like everyone thinks working in makeup would be. At the end of the day it is CUSTOMER SERVICE and if you are not passionate about the beauty industry, customer service, and self directed learning then you will more than likely end up as a low performer in your team. Sephora is very fun and collaborative and your store team is like your family. Progression into management is quite easy to achieve if you're a top performer but the issue is once you become a manager, it gets much harder to progress past that - especially if you want to work in HQ. There unfortunately aren't mnay career pathways open to you past becoming a manager. For me, that is the only big downfall. 
There are lots of work perks such as free product gratis, lots of training events, and special initiative competitions to win product, experiences, and holidays!

Worked for sephora for about 2 and a half years. It was amazing at the start but as the years went by, more responsibility was put on me with no extra pay.

I also felt like i could never switch off as we had multiple whats app group messages going off every 2 seconds and training we had to do in our spare time.  on top of that, being micromanaged by people who were barely on the floor was a nice little touch. 

Also if you want to have a holiday, good luck getting approved for it. 

Just like any other retail job really, except you have to wear a full face of make up daily and you get free gratis almost weekly!

A little hard to grow in company depending on management. You get to form great relationships with your co-workers but unfortunately many leave after a few years due to no advancement in career. Looks great on the resume however! Also salary is standard retail pay~



Worst job I’ve ever had, management in most stores are bullies and treat you like children. Have to ask to go to the bathroom and get water like you’re in school and get denied if it’s ‘too busy’. Managers have their favourites and they’re the only ones who get anywhere in the business. If you aren’t a two faced snitch, you won’t get promoted. HR do the absolute least if you have any issues, they really don’t care about their employees at all. The most toxic environment I’ve ever worked in.

Working at Sephora (Fountain Gate) looked like:
- No weekend rates (unless working an 8 hour shift)
- Lack of investment in skills, knowledge, and training 
- Micromanagement of access to water, phone, and bathroom
- Part time contract without part time shifts (casual expectations of different shifts each week, often exceeding contracted hours for no extra benefit)

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Beauty advisor 11 salaries reported	$30.09 per hour
Retail sales associate 36 salaries reported	$29.40 per hour
Floor manager 35 salaries reported	$32.10 per hour
Assistant store manager 9 salaries reported	$69,084 per year
Stockroom manager 7 salaries reported	$32.24 per hour

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