I first received a phone interview with the Salon Manager. She asked basic questions like about my work experience and history. Asked me to tell her about myself in a summary and why I chose to apply at JC Penney. She then invited me for an in person interview the following week. She told me to come to the salon at the back of the store and introduce myself to the employees working in the front if they weren't busy and ask for a tour of the salon. The day came and I went to the store salon and introduced myself and was asked to take a seat and wait for the manager. There was one girl at the front that was busy with customers so I did not get a chance to ask for a tour. The manager came out and introduced herself. She asked if I got a tour and then took me around and gave me one since I did not get one. We then went into a back office and into an interviewing room. She asked pretty general questions and told me about the position. She said it requires some sales and that 10% of income was commission from selling salon products. We discussed my work experience in more detail than on the phone the previous week and after talking about my administrative assistant/receptionist background, it became pretty clear that this was not actually a "receptionist" position. It's simply what they call a Salon Sales Associate. She seemed pretty impressed with my responses to basic questions and scenarios she gave me and offered me a "2nd" interview with her boss right on the spot. Her boss then came in and asked all the the same questions and gave me the same scenarios to answer. I had learned a lot about the new Marketing Plan JCP has in place and knew all about their new CEO and talked all about that and they both seemed highly impressed. The final part of the interview is role playing. They had me go out onto the sales floor and go through different scenarios where they pretend to be customers and you try to help them and sell them products. This to me was probably the most difficult part. They really wanted you to know alot about the products and convince them to buy them and then also you must sell a salon service booking. At the end they said they would be making their decision by the following Monday. I never got a call back by then. Finally about two weeks later I did get a call stating while my skills were impressive, they decided to go with a candidate with more sales experience. I feel they misrepresented this position. They should not have advertised it as a receptionist position. I have an extensive admin/reception background and more than likely would have declined the offer unless I could have negotiated a decent wage anyway.

It was overall okay. Some of the stylist were nice but there is some politics on who gets the client. The managers i had were pretty reasonable the salary is minimum pay.