If you are looking into the available jobs for beauty therapists, there are many places you can find vacancies as well as many ways to improve your chances of being hired. South Africa is a country rich with opportunities for those in beauty therapy or care and you will undoubtedly find an opening that suits you skills, experience and job desires.
What is beauty therapy?
A beauty therapist generally specialises in face and body care. This includes treatments, massage, cleansing, beautifying through make up, waxing and plucking and whatever else is needed to make clients look and feel beautiful and healthy. Treatments that a beauty therapist might have to do include the following:
- Manicure
- Pedicure
- Facial (of all kinds)
- Waxing (of several areas)
- Plucking
- Massage (of whole body or parts)
- Sea weed or mud wraps and other skin treatments
- Treatments involving machinery like permanent hair removal lasers and the like
- Fake tan application or tan bed administration
There are a myriad of other treatments that beauty therapists could potentially be expected to give, but the other major area service they provide is advice. A beauty therapist must have a good knowledge of the body in order to offer advice on how the client should best take care of it, what they should avoid and what they should do more of. They should also be able to advise clients on which beauty products would work best for them.
Most salons offer several products for sale and beauty therapists might be expected to act as sales people to move the products. Clients and employers also expect that their beauty therapists have good interpersonal skills because they will be required to interact with clients and help to put them at ease. Treatments are generally meant to be a pleasant experience and often clients will come to see beauty therapists for a bit of pampering. Because it is a treat for most people, beauty therapists must know how to make their clients enjoy the experience.
Beauty therapy in South Africa
South Africa is one of the most popular, most beautiful and most exciting tourist spot in the world. Because of the high volume of tourists that visit our country yearly, there is a large amount and variation of holiday accommodation throughout the country. There are thousands of bed and breakfasts, lodges, self-catering chalets and apartments and of course, luxury hotels. Most of the larger places, like the hotels, will have a spa or salon within the building.
There are also, of course, many stand alone salons and spas throughout the country. Because South Africa has a warmer climate than most, many tourists and citizens alike want to look their best so they can show off their bodies in swimming costumes or summer wear. Waxing, pedicures, manicures, plucking and fake tanning treatments are just some of the popular summer treatments that are considered a necessity by most people who frequent salons and spas.
Finding jobs for beauty therapists
With the huge amount of websites advertising job opportunities in South Africa, you are unlikely to have much trouble finding an opening that suits you in your area. Some of the websites that offer jobs for beauty therapists include:
- Job Rapido
- Career Jet
- Careers 24
- Indeed
- Job Mail
- Spa Jobs
- Simply Hired
- Beauty Warehouse
- Job Food
- Wow Jobs
- Ananzi
- JobisJob
- Jobs.co.za
- Hospitality Jobs South Africa
It is important, of course, to survey the jobs very carefully before making your decision. It is likely that you would like a job in a well-known reputable spa or salon where there is opportunity for growth of skills and experience and where there is a system in place for staff movement and growth.
In the hospitality industry there is much opportunity for travel as well. If you are interested in working about a luxury ship, for example, there are many that require beauty therapists on their staff. This would give you the opportunity to gain experience, make money and travel.