I used to work for Benefit a while back and had someone email me asking for a few pointers for the audition so I've pasted what I wrote below (it's slightly edited and about 3 years old but should be useful to people) :
What will happen is there will be about 4 girls come into the store.
They'll be told a little bit about benefit and then will be shown how
to traffic stop people . Benefit is all about traffic stopping , our
motto is we must have bums on seats at all times , meaning if there
are no customers at the desk we have to find one in a different part
of the store and bring them back and sit them down ... to sell to of
course
They will then be given a quick demo of 4 benefit products which will
probably be You Rebel Tinted Moisturiser , High Beam , Porefessional ,
Benetint (these may change ) . But I would tell her to look these
products up and get to know them a bit better. There is a tag line
that you must remember for each product for you rebel it's " a
defiantly different tinted moisturiser" , High beam is "super model
in a bottle " Porefessional is " complexion perfection in a tube" and
benetint is "the sexiest flush in a bottle" . So if she knew these
before hand it might be an advantage because the quicker you pick
things up the better you look and its all about the first impressions.
Tell her to wear something trendy, there all about the way you look ,
so if she looks well they'll warm to her instantly.
I would also advise her to have a little think about what make up she
is going to wear , I wore a red lip with winged eyeliner a tiny tiny
bit of blush because i knew they were going to apply make up out over
my make up , one girl i auditoned with had way to much blusher on and
when the tinted moisturiser when out over it , it looked terrible !!!
I would go for the simple base foudation , no powder over it or it
will go cakey , contour the face, tiny tiny bit of blusher and then
winger eyeliner because at least it will look polished but you wont'
look silly after they put more make up on you, pay particular
attention to the brows too because we're very brow focused due to our
brow bar. Stay away from any brightly coloured eyeshadows as this does not fit into benefits look.
They'll then split the girls into pairs and and each will take turns
to apply the products to the other girl while remembering the lines
they were given and they'll prob do a bit of role playing traffic
stopping each other. The main thing to remember with traffic stopping
is to never ask a question that someone will immediately say no to
like "would you like to try some benefit make up ? " That never works
, you have to ask , Have you tired porfessional yet , which will
usually get answer by , whats porefessional , then this is the brazen
bit you have to be super confident and say really casually "come over
here for a second and i'll show you , it's amazing etc .... "
the manager will go through all this on the day anyway but just so she
knows.
She'll then spend about 3 hours on the floor wandering through the
store trying to get people to sit down and demo the products and
ultimately to sell them as much as she can. When you first do it can
be soul destroying when you can't get anyone to sit down but tell her
if she just keeps her head and thinks of it as a numbers game ( ask
everyone !!!) she'll get there . I would also tell her to go for the
older lady , they're usually good buyers
She'll also have to be
quite an aggressive sales person , when we finish doing a demo we
always end with something like , What were you favorite items there
today .... will i get those for you ? Do you need any of those items
today ? etc be quick with every customer and if they are not commiting
get rid of them fast and move on the next one, if she does get a sale
tell her to stay with her customer till the products are through the
till (someone else will do this) and the customer has left , this
shows a good level of customer service and will be something they'll
watch out for
If she's not doing well in the traffic stopping session they'll tell
her she's not been sucessful this time and send her home, she also has
the choice to go home herself if she feels the job just isn't for her.
If she lasts the 3 hours they'll be a short interview afterwards with the manager, the best thing she could do is say that she would love to work
for benefit just have her name assosiated with such a fanatastic brand
and she also has to show that she
has bags of energy left after the audition , thats a really important
one , i know theres a little box at the end of the interview sheet
that says tick if they look tired and if its ticked she won't be
succesful.
It's a very hard job , much harder than any other cosmetic counter and
it's not for everyone , having said that when you do get your foot in
the door with benefit and have a bit of experience you become sought
after by all the other counters because of the aggressive sales
techniques you'll learn !
