Working at a Franchise Membership Spas: Things to Consider

At the end of your esthetics school journey you might be baffled by the lack of esthetics jobs available to recent graduates. Many industry jobs will require one to two years of direct experience as an esthetician. This can be a major blow to you when you just graduated and you are excited that you can finally work, but no one will hire you.

You might have noticed that there are plenty of jobs available at membership spas, and many don't require any experience. This is a great place to get your esthetics career off the ground. While I think these franchise-membership spas can be a great learning opportunity for you, and a great resume booster, you want to educate yourself about these places before jumping in.

I believe having as much information as possible will help you decide what is the best career path for you. I am not here to tell you to work for these types of places or not, in the end, you need to decide what is best for your own career path. Here are some things to consider before you accept that job at the franchises-membership spa.

(1) Franchises can be owned by non-spa industry people--regular people purchase franchises and open them and cannot identify with estheticians, or other industry employees because they've never worked in the field.

(2) Many of these places expect estheticians to sell, sell, and sell some more of both their product lines and memberships. Depending on the franchise, it can be upwards of 30%  which means out of every 3 clients you need to sell memberships and products. You might be told that there is no sales quota, but if you investigate a little further, you most likely will find that this is a play on semantics...many of them call the sales quota a sales target which is basically the same thing. The wording is used to make you more comfortable with sales, and instead of coming out and saying you must push their memberships and products they call it targets. One esthetician I knew, worked at a franchise place that actually recorded her at the front desk area to evaluate her sales technique.

(3) In some of these franchises, even as an esthetician they will expect you to help in housekeeping like changing toilet rolls, and refilling paper towels etc. They pay you by the hour as an esthetician, but they are trying to get every penny out of you. So, let's say you have down time and there are no clients, they absolutely expect you to fill that time with some type of work even if it is not working on esthetics.

(4) Most of these places are volume businesses, which means they are more about getting in as many clients as possible instead of building real relationships with clients. I call this the fast food of the spa industry. You might not have regular clients.

(5) Many of the facials are not necessarily based in what is best for the client, but a more one-sized fits all approach. These places tend to only offer a very limited choice in facials, or they only offer waxing.

(6) BENEFITS FOR WORKING FOR THESE PLACES-Great place to jump start your career; sometimes they offer benefits; usually get paid by the hour so if you have no clients you still get paid; and they normally hire estheticians fresh out of school.