Career Development Assignment: Reflection On The Profession Of Beauty Therapist

Question

Task: THE CAREER DEVELOPMENT ASSIGNMENT TASK – WHAT YOU ARE BEING ASKED TO DO You are required to identity an area of graduate employment that you would consider for when you leave university. This could be EITHER a profession (for example marketing/Finance/Accounting/HR) OR an industry you are interested in (for example retail, sports & leisure, public sector, not-for-profit, travel and tourism.) Your research should be either in an area you aspire to work within or maybe an area that you want to understand more about.

-Your research in your chosen profession/industry should include likely future trends in graduate recruitment, and should equip you with the knowledge to write a summary of the key skills, knowledge and experience expected from graduate applicants.
-You are encouraged to use both primary and secondary research for this assignment. Primary research might include attending events run by the careers team, and/or events run by the professional bodies, or else through personal contacts. It might also include information from the guest lecturers for the module. You could consider talking to managers at work, if you have a parttime role, or else friends and family to enhance your understanding. Include in the appendix a log detailing who you contacted for primary research.
-Having identified the profession/industry, you are then required to identify one current job being advertised that you would be interested in applying for in the future. This will form the basis of the second assignment. The advert should appear as an appendix, which you should refer to as necessary within your report. It is important that this is a graduate level job, and not one for an individual with many years’ experience.

Answer

Introduction
As evident in the career development assignment, the current business environment has become very competitive in nature. Industry has become very volatile therefore, organizational leaders are focusing on adopting strategies that help the firm to experience radical changes (Lozano, 2015). Corporate leaders from different parts of the world are constantly focused on hiring fresh graduates and young minds in order to sustain in the competitive industry. Since, I am studying about business management therefore, I am focused on developing my skills and abilities that can be further aligned with the trends of the industry. The aim of this reflection report is to analyze the profession, “beauty therapist”. The report will also focus on skills and knowledge that I must develop to become an effective contributor in the beauty and wellness industry.

General trends influencing the chosen industry or profession
The profession that has been chosen is Beauty Therapist. Professionals who analyze skin of their client and give beauty advices so that the client can have flawless skin are known as beauty therapist. Beauty therapists tend to focus on providing beauty tips and treatments to its client (Liao, 2016). As mentioned earlier, the business environment has experienced various changes in recent years. There is no exception in case of beauty therapist or beauty & wellness industry. One of the recent trends that has been witnessed by the beauty therapists working in the beauty and wellness industry is initiation of digital solutions in the core activities of the industry. Clients can consult with their patients with the help of various online platforms. Furthermore, social media platforms have helped beauty therapists to communicate the changes in beauty standards to the global clients (Kaur and Kumar, 2020). Information can be shared to wide range of clients via social media at low cost. Furthermore, initiation of GDPR is one of the latest additions in the list of trends. This also has an impact on the beauty and wellness industry. The personal data of clients who are visiting beauty therapists should be confidential and it should not be shared to any individual without permission (Professional beauty, 2022). Clients also have rights to erase or add data according to their own wish.
In addition to this, apart from advanced technology, various concepts of globalization also have an impact on Beauty therapist. There are various factors that drive the concept of globalization. The factors include global cost forces, market forces and many more. Global market forces have increased the competition of foreign companies in various local markets. This has further given rise to the concept of diversity management (Saranya and Asok, 2019). Globalization has also changed the beauty industry in significant way. The beauty industry has become modest instead of dramatic due to various aspects of globalization. Previously, beauty was measured in terms of skin colour. Currently due to initiation of globalization and diversity, the standards of beauty have changed. This also has relevant impact on the beauty therapists. Beauty therapists are currently focused on making clients glow instead of changing their skin tone. The concept of globalization has also initiated international level beauty courses. There are various international beauty schools like London School of beauty and makeup and many more. These schools offer a wide range of beauty therapist courses to students across the world.

The required skills, experience and knowledge
Results from secondary research
Organizations across the world often post ads that aim at hiring beauty therapists. In the following part of the report, the required beauty therapist skills, knowledge and experience are discussed, after analyzing these advertisements. The primary skills that are highly demanded from beauty therapists is excellent communication skills. Beauty therapists often treat patients who are suffering from insecurity and inferiority complex. Thus, effective communication skills can help beauty therapists to communicate various elements of pure form of beauty (Sampurno, 2019). Furthermore, another important skill that are highly demanded from beauty therapists is customer service abilities. Customers often meet beauty therapists to transform themselves so that their body, skin and face become desirable. A huge section of teenagers often feels insecure about their looks. They actually experience a force of feeling beautiful (Kassimbekova, Tulekova and Korvyakov, 2018). Thus, it is believed that effective communication skill can help beauty therapists restore confidence among these teenagers that can further enhance their customer service abilities. In addition to this, while researching various secondary sources it has been found that skin analysis skill is the most demanding skills for beauty therapists. Skin analysis help beauty therapists to focus on skin-based treatment. Once, the skin of the client is perfectly analysed by beauty therapists then it can automatically help them to provide correct moisturizer and sun-screen (Ganesan and Choi, 2016).

Results from Primary research
Beaty therapists have been interviewed. The responses of the respondents have been presented in a table format at the end of the report (Appendix A).
The objective behind choosing these professionals is to get expert overview of the beauty and wellness industry. The responses of all the respondents have been further summarized. These respondents think that individuals who are wanting to work as beauty therapists in the current scenario, should have teamwork skills. Understanding the behavior of an individual and respecting each and everyone’s opinion are major part of team building and team work (Azizan, Mellon, Ramli and Yusup, 2018). They should be aware of team conflicts and the process that can reduce conflicts within the workplace.If the responses of the respondents are measured it can be also found out that beauty therapists must have sensitivity skills. Understanding the personal needs of the client and not judging them on the basis of their cultural or linguistic background is known as sensitivity skills (Tirri, 2019). Sensitivity skills among beauty therapists have the ability to restore confidence among clients. It further increases client satisfaction. Therefore, sensitivity skills are highly demanded from beauty therapists who want to start their career in the beauty and wellness industry. In addition to this, beauty therapists are also expected to have ethical knowledge while they are a part of beauty and wellness industry. When individuals have a shared perception regarding the right and wrong doings within the workplace it is known as ethical knowledge (Jha, Varkkey, Agrawal and Singh, 2017). Ethical knowledge can help these beauty therapists emphasize on diversity and it also help them to practice beauty treatment unbiasedly.

In addition to this, beauty therapists in the beauty and wellness industry should have enough knowledge about laser treatments and skin treatments. Beauty therapists who have the ability to analyse type of skin of the clients perfectly can become successful in this beauty and wellness industry in various ways.

Evaluation
In the appendices below a screenshot has been attached. The screenshot aims at displaying a job advertisement that has been posted by Therapie Clinic located in IL.It is one of the renowned firms operating in the beauty and wellness industry and also in the hospitality industry.The advertisement aims at hiring a beauty therapist (Appendix B). The screenshot of the advertisement has been provided at the end of the report.This advertisement has interested me because in this advertisement, each and everydetails regarding the requirement have been provided. I have chosen beauty therapist as my career option because I want to understand the agenda of people. If the job advertisement is looked at it can be seen that at the beginning of the advertisement a brief job summary has been provided. This job summary has helped me to understand how this role will satisfy my career needs and demands.I have also chosen this job advertisement because the remuneration has also been mentioned. This makes the advertisement transparent. Furthermore, I have chosen this job advertisement over any jobs because the perks associated while working in this company have mentioned clearly in the advertisement.

In addition to this, the job advertisement that I have taken into consideration has clearly mentioned the skills that the hired candidate must have. In my opinion, this job advertisement attracts me because this job can keep me motivated within the workplace and I can also develop my team building skills, sales skills in various ways. Moreover, I have always focused on undertaking responsibilities within the workplace that can further help me to gain enough job satisfaction. Work environment also plays an important role in attaining job satisfaction (Raziq and Maulabakhsh, 2015). The job that I have posted in the appendix expect employees to be people-oriented. From this it can be said that this workplace focuses on inclusivity and integrity that further has the ability to make the work environment positive.

Conclusion
The main aim of this report was to choose an industry or profession that I like to be a part of in my near future. The report concludes that I want to start my career as a beauty therapist in the beauty and wellness industry. From the report it can be found out that globalization has impacted this profession and companies are more intrigued towards diverse workforce. Along with that digitalization has an impact on the core activities of beauty therapist. Furthermore, while undertaking primary and secondary research it has been found that communication skills, skin analysis skills, customer service abilities, team work skills have major demand in the beauty and wellness industry. They should also have effective knowledge about ethical and technical knowledge that can further help them to advance their career in the global market.

Reference list
Azizan, M.T., Mellon, N., Ramli, R.M. and Yusup, S., 2018. Improving teamwork skills and enhancing deep learning via development of board game using cooperative learning method in Reaction Engineering course. Education for Chemical Engineers, 22, pp.1-13. Ganesan, P. and Choi, D.K., 2016. Current application of phytocompound-based nanocosmeceuticals for beauty and skin therapy. International journal of nanomedicine, 11, p.1987.
Jha, J.K., Varkkey, B., Agrawal, P. and Singh, N., 2017. Contribution of HR systems in development of ethical climate at workplace: A case study. South Asian Journal of Human Resources Management, 4(1), pp.106-129.
Kassimbekova, B., Tulekova, G. and Korvyakov, V., 2018. Problems of development of aesthetic culture at teenagers by means of the Kazakh decorative and applied arts. Opción: Revista de CienciasHumanas y Sociales, (85), pp.170-186. Kaur, K. and Kumar, P., 2020. Social media usage in Indian beauty and wellness industry: a qualitative study. Career development assignment The TQM Journal.
Liao, S.X., 2016. Precarious beauty: migrant Chinese women, beauty work, and precarity. Chinese Journal of communication, 9(2), pp.139-152.
Lozano, R., 2015. A holistic perspective on corporate sustainability drivers. Corporate social responsibility and environmental management, 22(1), pp.32-44.
Professional Beauty, 2022. Getting your salon ready for GDPR. [online]. Available at https://professionalbeauty.co.uk/site/newsdetails/getting-your-salon-ready-for-gdpr (Accessed 24 February 2022). Raziq, A. and Maulabakhsh, R., 2015. Impact of working environment on job satisfaction. Procedia Economics and Finance, 23, pp.717-725.

Sampurno, M.B.T., 2019. A case study of therapeutic process autistic children as performing art in Indonesia. Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, 277, pp.41-44. Saranya, R. and Asok, A. Globalisation and Its Impact on Human Resource Management. Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science, 7(4), pp. 21-24.

Tirri, K., 2019. Ethical sensitivity in teaching and teacher education. [pdf]. Available at https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/330367/ETHICAL_SENSITIVITY_FINAL.pdf sequence=1 (Accessed 20 February 2022).

Appendices

Appendix 1: Primary Research Evidence

Appendix 2: Relevant job advertisement