Workplace reviews and discussion: 美商雅詩蘭黛股份有限公司台灣分公司

None at all

I interviewed for Estée Lauder-owned La Mer. When they called me, they immediately scheduled the interview for the next day at a Starbucks. They didn’t even leave me the interviewer’s phone number; they called from the counter’s phone, so when I arrived and faced a Starbucks full of customers, I had no idea who the interviewer was. Then, as with other jobs, they asked me to introduce myself and asked me several utterly baffling questions.

Because I had previously started my own business, she asked, ⌜What’s the difference between running your own business and working for someone else?⌟ Of course they’re different. One makes you the owner—you have to bear all the costs, pay employees’ salaries, plan activities, and find vendors to work with. The other makes you an employee, so you don’t have to worry about any of those things; your responsibility is simply to achieve good sales results. How could the two be the same?

Next, she asked me whether I had submitted résumés to other companies.

Of course I had. Did she naively think that La Mer was the only company in the entire world I had applied to? The interviewer even asked me to name every cosmetics brand I had applied to because she wanted to know which other companies I had applied to. After I finished, she said coldly, ⌜Oh! So you don’t screen the companies you apply to?⌟ I applied to cosmetics brands across the board. I didn’t understand what she meant by “screen,” but because I didn’t have any particular favorite brand and therefore wasn’t set on working for one specific brand, I replied, ⌜That’s right, I don’t really screen them. At least all the companies I applied to are in the same industry.⌟ Then she started talking about the salary, and the whole thing was a chaotic mess. She said there was a three-month probation period, with no performance bonuses and only the base salary; days off were not fixed because they had to comply with the government’s Labor Standards Act (so did that mean two days off per week?). She then said I would be assigned to a counter only after passing the company’s internal exam. In other words, the first three months would be spent entirely in classes and training, with no practical experience. Then she vaguely mentioned bonuses for the three major holidays, employee trial products, free products, and so on. After all that talking, I still had no idea how much the base salary was or how many days off there were.

Then she asked me, ⌜How much do you know about cosmetics? Why do you think salaries in the cosmetics industry are all about the same?⌟ I said that I genuinely thought they were more or less the same, because the base salary for cosmetics counter staff is generally NT$24,000–25,000. The rest comes from commissions, which are divided into individual and team performance. As for sales performance, it really depends on the salesperson’s own ability, their luck while working, and how good or bad the counter location is. Of course, every company has a different commission system, but when it comes to base salary, days-off policies, and the things you normally have to do, the differences are basically not that significant. So I asked her, “Or is your base salary NT$30,000? If so, then that really would be different.”

From beginning to end, I didn’t know what position the interviewer held. She didn’t introduce herself, and I didn’t even know her surname.

The interview lasted only 20 minutes, but her attitude was extremely condescending—she seemed like the type who wouldn’t even look at my résumé. To put it bluntly, the interview felt a little arrogant. The atmosphere was highly pressurized from the moment we sat down. I don’t think I’ll get a call for a second interview, but even if I do, I won’t go to work there. I finally understand why the Estée Lauder Group is always hiring; there’s a reason for it.