manager

retail assistant manager

sales lead

assistant manager

sales associate

Icing By Claires

This company has many expectations and hats required to maintain employment. A store manager is expected to dedicate their life to the company first before themself on a hourly salary under 40 paid hours and 10 unpaid as well as the team that consists of mainly key holders who are paid .25 cents more than a sales associate and essentially assistants managers. the daily operations are more than just service engagement but a full days worth of expected duties listed on 7 todo list pages. Normally such as merchandising hundreds of thousands of units, cashing to exceed LY KPI and sales goals, extensive cleaning, report analyzing plus achieving. long story short every staff is mandated to run a moderately sized store, self sufficiently as if it were a super center with only 3-5 employees underpaid, overworked who are driven and motivated on fear tactics and harmfully degrading criticism from district managers and regionals. this company installs a very negative competitive energy between stores to battle each other instead infiltrating a positive narrative of team work or commodity. what is very sad is this company is very open in employing naive or the least experience type of worker - non go getters and employees that do not know their self worth vs the job obligations and expect so much from them and pretend to be surprised by the very hyper-turnover they have. I was fortunate to be trained and promoted to a senior leadership position which was nothing very special. work place culture is non existent than instituting a ridged to-do list, multitasking and mandatory DTY competing in 'employee appreciated contests' of doing 1 hours worth of makeup to buy your own costume to wear to work and win the big lottery pot of a $5.00 gift card. I had the honor to meet many staff and work with them. some great, a lot not so great and when asked by my regional how to create a impact of change to this company, my ideal of instituting a new store level position dividing the intense obligations of sales and merchandising was scraped for trash, I knew that there is no hope for this company.  I wish everyone the best and not to give up on their dreams. 

Working at Claire's is generally a pretty nice experience working in retail. I loved interacting with the kids, getting to pierce their ears for their first time is very fun, and the products you sell are easy to keep up with and be able to tell your customers about. Pay is good considering my area, you're not required to wear a uniform, and unlike some other jobs I've had you can rest assured that you will almost always get your break and to leave on time.

You will quickly learn a lot about freight, planogram ( displays ), customer service, computer work, and much more, and some of the best customers I've had have been at Claire's. Claire's is mostly labor work ( keeping the store and merchandise stocked and tidy ) aside from sales, so little is unachievable even for somebody brand new. This makes it a great first customer service experience, and I'm genuinely glad it was my first in retail.

However, this can all stand in the balance of how much effort your coworkers give. Even just one person not taking care of their housekeeping, not giving customers full explanations on purchases and piercings, not pushing your promotions can result in a lot of tension between team members, scrambling to maintain a messy store, dealing with upset customers, and a severe drop in sales. 

I enjoyed the work I've done at Claire's, but I've witnessed first hand how easily and how hard everything can come crashing down when even just one person is unwilling to work with the rest of their team, and in my experience little help was given by district managers when asked for assistance.

Working at Claire's is fun and a very rewarding personal growth and learning experience, but I'd recommend asking several employees about the environment before applying at any specific one. Once wrangled into the kind of mess that can form when a Jenga block is pulled out, you might just get stuck under the whole tower crashing down.

This job got me through college. A typical day as a Store Manager is going to the bank to get deposit slips. Conference calls for 30min. Monday mornings. Before the store opens you change store signs. Working alone while helping customers & rearranging displays & picking up small merchandise & making schedules & planning store goals & doing ear piercings on babies, toddlers, kids, adults & reviewing resumes & possibly interviews & cleaning. At busy times though there are other employees working. Then after store closing you take out the trash & go to the bank and make a deposit. 
The week is a mix of working mornings/afternoons & evenings/nights. 
If you like cosmetics, jewelry, & kids you might like working here! It's a lot of hard work with no commission though. The pay is on the lower side compared to other sales jobs.
If you're a good sales person you can move up from associate, key holder, assistant manager to store manager, but I think that's about it. There are very few higher positions so that's about it for company advancement.
A very bad experience with the management while working as an associate in Dallas, TX is my store manager worked in a mall that was close to shutting down & almost all the stores had closed. But the management didn't care & still expected her to make store sales plans as usual & even yelled at her on the phone & made her cry. Upper management visited the store & didn't even talk to me. Management didn't tell us the stores where closing until a week before, we didn't even know if we'd have jobs.
While working as an assistant manager in Fort Worth, TX in 2013, I had a Dr. note for a medical condition & couldn't make it to work & the District manager yelled at me on the phone and told me I needed to be dying or have broken a limb to not come in to work & I think she still works there so I wouldn't work for her in Fort Worth!! (I tried to contact Claire's HR Dept. about it, but it was hard to contact them)

Most of the time we are there by ourselves. As of now we only have 4 people working there and we rotate shifts. Only on weekends do we work with someone else. It gets overwhelming sometimes. When someone wants their ears pierced and someone else wants to check out at the same time. We can't multitask. Other than that it's pretty laid back and reasonable

How to be a cashier, it's been almost 2 years since I've been behind a register. I've learned time management too, I like to come to work early. I learned how to drop deposits off, we do that when we close. I learned how to properly open a store in the mall also. 

My manager is almost never there with me, but it feels as though she's watching, so I don't slack off or do something I'm not supposed to be doing. She's very sweet and understanding.

It's a very small store unlike the last job I worked at. Everything is basically together so it's not hard looking for something a customer wants.

Being alone, we have people stealing all the time! Company policy says we're not allowed to confront them, so it's almost as if we're letting them steal. Being by ourselves means we can't watch the whole store. When it gets busy people get irritable because you can't help everyone at once.

I like the atmosphere. We don't do ridiculous things, our main job is to make sure the store looks presentable and ring up customers. It's a nice job for college students. The hours are nice. On average I work around 6-8 hours a shift. They fly by because its a nice job.

Health benefits way too expensive for what they cover

-Payroll hours nonexistent ~103 hours allotted for an entire week. Manager uses 40, ASM uses 35, only leave 28 hours to split 3 ways for other employees, but expected to have triple coverage on Saturdays, Mall is open 80 hours per week.

-No training hours for new employees.

-Often work alone with no chance of a break.

-Planograms (floor sets) are to be done while the store is open.

-Expected to pierce ears, prevent shoplifting, complete planogram and markdowns, work out shipment, greet customers and answer their questions, run the register, and answer the phone all while being the only person in the store. If you fail you are told you are not managing your time.

-Corporate is disconnected from stores, sets unreasonable goals.

-Almost impossible to be promoted after reaching store manager level.

-DSM has favorites and doesn't hide that fact. Also likes to single out stores and hound them until management is ready to crack under the pressure.

-Store managers have no power in disciplining their employees. Must go through DSM, who can take weeks to get in touch. Also, cannot reprimand the same employee twice within 30 days, even if they skip work.

-Very "catty" people who gossip to and about each other.

-All black wardrobe makes employees seem unapproachable to guests.

-No work/life balance whatsoever. Managers are on call 24/7 and if they don't answer they catch it from the DSM.

A typical day at work would be greeting and assisting customers with their needs and wants. Recovery and stocking of store merchandise daily. As well as daily/nightly paperwork. Such as, during the day keeping track of an hourly income for the day, keep credit cards slips seperate, filing any ear piericing forms in alpahbetical order and record any damaged merchandise on file and in computer. At night, print all register information for the day, record total income for the day and input all credit card slips to he register they were made on to make sure we have all, put all paperwork into envelope for that day and drop nightly deposits off to the bank. I learned how to supervise, open/close the store, ear pierce, do inventory and how to enter shipped/recieved merchandise into he the computer. I pretty much knew how to do everything else. My co-workers some were nice and easy to get along with, some didn't talk much. The hardest part of this job was keeping up wih recovery because the company is an accessory store and the little kids would like to touch everything and not pick up the merchandise when it fell on the floor. The parts I enjoyed most was working on the register, plan-o-gramming and stocking because they kept me busy.

A typical day at work ranged from slow to fast. It was a small shop full of accessories located in the mall. I started work when the business with at it's worst. The shrinkage was at an ultimate high, the storage area was a death trap, and it was filthy and dusty. I turned the store around once it was organized and cleaned. It made customers comfortable once in the store where they can walk and move around easily. I trained my co-workers on how to spot shoplifters and the protocol. After a couple of months, we brought the shrinkage back down under the safety zone. We realized that we were the number one shop in the mall for shop lifters. By us catching the shop lifters it made are revenue increase and we all got more bonuses and prizes later in the year. It made our team bond and the atmosphere of the store was great. We gained more customers and the district manager moved us into a larger area in the mall which was AWESOME. :) The hardest part of the job was re-organizing the walls which we kept all the jewelry. We had to literately change the whole store look in one night. I use to be at work until 3am and have to be back at work at 7am. Thank God there was a Starbucks next door. The most enjoyable part of the job was moving into a larger area to do more and have more space for our customers. It made the atmosphere more enjoyable.

Absolutely no work/life balance unless you're under 18 because the law at least saves you from being overworked. There's never anyone to cover a shift, and doesn't matter how sick you are, you'll still get a write up if you're not there. You will never use your sick time. My team was wonderful and amazing to work with, the only plus side was making connections with my co-workers, but management will beg and plead for you to show up on off days and won't ever do the same for anyone else. The insurance is decent with some good benefits, but it's hardly worth it when you're working doubles, extra shifts, and over hours. Corporate expects you to accomplish a whole store change in a single night, or "at least the walls" which says a lot for an accessory shop with plenty of small things to move around. Ear Piercing training is barely a week and the company has 16 year olds piercing with only training videos and a foam ear to practice on. During the pandemic, there was instruction on how to keep the store sanitized but there was consistent beratement over lack of sales, despite the fact people were CLEARLY not getting their ears pierced in any crowded places for a year. This job will push you to the brink and then wonder why turn over rates are so high. 

It was a very enlightening learning experience. The company has some major problems that it should really consider fixing, to help management staff in the stores do what is needed. 
Be prepared to work till exhaustion and receive no help.
They want you to run the store as if it's your own business, you will be required to use your personal email for company matters. 
Training is wholly inadequate and you won't learn half of what you need to know for when you get into your store. You will then be expected to find and learn it, all while working 60+ hours a week, with no staff.
Compensation is also below what it should be considering all you are required to do and put up with.
It could be really great , but it just isn't. No support from upper management and I would say that's because they are in the same boat as you when it comes to support.
You will work open to close, hours before and hours after. You will have to find your own coverage for days off, even if you don't have staff and are working everyday all day. You will also be responsible for recruiting , even though you can't leave your store due to not having staff. 
It's more than a lot of work, it will take over your life. You will learn your strengths and weakness as a manager and you will quickly learn whether or not you're willing to continue working for them.
 

I have over a decade of retail experience, have worked for a dozen companies, and this one was the worst. They lied about compensation, they lied about benefits, they lied about job security. I was hired as the Assistant manager. I requested $15 per hour, my hiring manager said that was too much for the company to pay. we settled on $14, and I was told that I would start at 12.50 per hour and after 90 days my benefits and raise would kick in. LIES! After 3 months with this company I was told that I was lied to by my hiring manager and wouldn't receive the pay amount I was promised. Not only that, but I was also informed that company policy says you have to apply for benefits within 30 days of being hired or you have to wait for open enrollment (Another 2 months). I'm a good employee, I try to make due, even when furious as I was. So I stayed. I waited nearly half a year to get the health benefits I was promised, then not even 2 weeks after finally being accepted, they announced my store was closing! At first they told my team we would all still have jobs, but that was a lie too. Within 3 days of being informed of our closure we were told the only person who would have a job was our store manager, and she would be taking a demotion, and pay cut to stay employed. The rest of us? Oh they gave us one weeks pay, and a pink slip.

WORST JOB EVER!

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