Jean Andre. The current reigning CEO of Sephora Americas. (I miss you Calvin McDonald...) I am sure he is a lovely man, but ever since his entrance into Sephora, everything and everyone great left the building. Not even 1 month after him joining Sephora, a credit card was announced. Now keep in mind, Sephora (or at least the stores I worked in) laughed at other companies like Macy's, Best Buy and Victoria's Secret for having to deal with the hell that is the credit card scam. It's fully a scam. Then they said "Oh don't worry about the credit card, it's just an added bonus for our clients who are our biggest fans to earn more. You won't have to talk about it to anyone." THEN it became not just a metric that was focused on, but the ONLY topic of every discussion. We were to talk to every single client about the damn credit card and when we weren't talking about it enough, we would have to go on a demoralizing zoom call (think like those MLM calls where they dehumanize you and tell you it's not that hard, and to just work harder). Meanwhile none of the DM's would talk about the credit card to a single client or even help a single client while they were in store.
But enough about that credit card. Another HUGE mistake that Sephora made was eliminating any position that had any creativity or artistry involved. Oh, and if you want to do makeup and facials? You now need to be a licensed cosmetologist. You have to be licensed to PUT ON LASHES. Mind you, I am licensed, but because I was licensed in another state, I couldn't apply lashes to my clients. I had to bring someone over who was licensed to do it for me. Talk about demoralizing to my artistry. To top it off, the licensed artist would ruin the makeup I did, and I would have to repair the damage they would do by applying the lashes sloppily to the clients. It was great for my freelance career though, because all of my clients hated how Sephora changed their policy and wanted me to do their makeup outside for them. I eventually ended up breaking that rule with all of my clients and put the lashes on myself, and told management that if they had an issue with it, to fire me because I could care less.
There are so many negatives to working for Sephora but I will finish off with this last note. If you think there is room for growth, there isn't. In every store I worked in, the promotion goes the the favorite or person who has been shafted the longest. I have worked for the company for over 10 years. Every year I pushed for growth, promotions, more challenges because the job was always easy. It took me almost 8 years to get to management and when I got to management I finally realized that there was no more growth to be had. If you wanted to grow past the store level, it was the equivalent of winning the lottery for two reasons. The first reason is that the company wants the stores to be predictable, because predictability can be measured and consistency is key to success. The second reason is that it is so much cheaper, faster and easier to hire someone externally with all of the experience and knowledge needed to complete the job. Plain and simple, Sephora is lazy and does not want to grow their team from the ground up, but instead keep things as they are and fill in the holes as needed with externals. They refuse to admit this but you are just a number to them in the grand scheme of things. I was considered passionate, an innovator, someone who thought outside the box, a top performer, a highly skilled artist, extremely versatile person that could do any role given, but not qualified enough to be challenged outside of the company's comfort zone.
Overall I am glad I spent my time with Sephora because I can say I saw the rise and fall of Sephora. I genuinely loved Sephora and wanted to see it be as successful as can be. What once was an innovative and groundbreaking atmosphere is just another dated, run of the mill retail franchise that will become forgettable in the future.
