It was pretty straight forward. The interview was held at a hotel because the store wasn't finished yet. At least 40 girls were there when I arrived (an hour early). This was a career call type interview, so it was open to whoever showed up. They had a sign in sheet and paper applications for you to bring in along with your resume and portfolio if you had one (I had mine loaded on my phone but was so nervous that I forgot to even show her). There were three people conducting interviews and they would come out and call people on the list. It was a little annoying because you are in one room with three other people who are all talking at the same time, and the more nervous girls were VERY loud, I had a hard time hearing myself think. I was interviewed by the recruiter for the area and she was super sweet. She asked me a few questions like why MAC, what experience do I have, and how I would handle a situation where someone was unhappy with the makeup I did. Also, I don't know if the other interviewers asked, but I wasn't asked anything about the company more than "why MAC" and when I said the culture she asked me what the culture was. So I didn't get grilled on the owners or the history at all. Afterward she asked if I had any questions for her and then invited me to the second portion, the makeup demo.
The makeup demo was fun and terrifying. There were 11 people doing makeup on 11 clients at the same time. Of course they had you bring a model and of course they switched them so you were working on a stranger. They brought all of the artists in first and taught us basic sanitizing techniques and what they are looking for (more how you interact with your client rather than skill, but they do want to see beautiful faces). While they did that one of the three who did the interviews slipped out and told all of the models that they were to ask for a neutral eye, full coverage foundation, brows, and a bright lip. This is like, my go to so I was so stoked when my 'client' asked for that.
I am very experienced in working with makeup and selling at both Sephora and Ulta so the talking to the client bit came really naturally to me. Just keep asking them questions, chatting when you aren't concentrating so hard you go silent (I did that a few times) and having them take peeks. Be sure to hand them that mirror! And always get their permission before you touch their face with your hands. They prefer that you don't at MAC but I like getting that verbal if there is something that just won't blend and needs a little help.
They had a selection of products in the tiny room for you to use and you were expected to bring your own clean brushes. Now, I just moved here and EVERYTHING was in storage and I panicked. I literally only had about 6 brushes that I use every day and was stressed that they were looking for a 'professional' set or something, definitely don't worry about that.
They had us select the products we needed, putting creams and liquids in a little petri dish. I sanitized everything straight away just to make sure it was done and to save time but I ended up re-sanitizing everything during the demo to make sure they saw me doing it (in case someone didn't see me in the beginning). We had 30 minutes and I felt that that was a good amount of time. My model was sweet and reminded me that I forgot mascara (I had finished with a minute to spare and was freaking out).
After they took pictures of us with our models and said they would be giving us a call by Tuesday if we made it (this was on a Thursday). If we didn't receive a call we were to try again.
There was a second round of people for the demos waiting when we left.
I got a call from the recruiter who interviewed me on Monday and she offered me a part time retail artist position (not full time but a step above freelance!). I go in to do paper work on Wednesday and then basic training in August :D
