What you should know about airside duty free jobs

• Standout experience
• Set the stage!
• Interview success
• Training excellence

With its buzzy atmosphere and fast-paced surroundings, no two days are ever the same when you work in an airport duty free job. If you’re passionate about customer service, love to travel, and have an extrovert personality, a travel retail job could be perfect for you! We’ve put together our top tips on the real benefits of working airside and explain how the variety and constant change make it one of the most exhilarating environments to work in today.

Standout experience

Airports are hives of activity from the moment you step in and working in a travel retail job gives you the opportunity to experience this every day while you’re at work. It  is completely different to working in a standard high street store where you will tend to see the same faces from week to week. With airside working, you will get the opportunity to work with high profile,  luxury brands and meet people that you would never dream of meeting on the high street. These are people travelling from country to country on business, leisure and pleasure and it will be your job to engage with them on behalf of the brand you are representing as quickly as possible as they are often in a hurry to catch a plane!

Set the stage!

You’ll see first hand the excitement of a high end retailtainment promotion or product launch as many of the premium brands use the airport environment to test new products or showcase a prototype. These in-store experiences are sometimes worthy of the London stage and use sight, sound and emotion to draw customers in with their interactive lifestyle elements in order to inspire and encourage them to purchase. Lucky you! Because you’ll have the opportunity to work with exclusive products like these which aren’t available on the high street and even better, you’ll be entitled to discounts on a wide range of products from World Duty Free as well. If you’re a plane buff, don’t forget that you’ll have the excitement of watching planes landing and taking off while you work too!

Interview success

From application to interview, Artisan People will be by your side to guide you through the process. Due to the secure nature of airport locations, there are strict security measures that we have to follow. We will apply for your airside pass on your behalf and once you’re through security, it’s a busy time with forms to complete and checks to do. We will want to see your references and a detailed work history so don’t forget to bring them, along with your passport or working visa documents. The exciting thing is that once you pick up your pass from the airport ID Centre, you already feel like you belong to the team!

Training excellence

With Artisan People as your airside recruitment agency, you will be certain of thorough training from the start in two parts. Firstly, we will cover everything you need to know about working with World Duty Free including selling skills, business building and basic language skills so that you can greet customers of different nationalities. We will also teach you about the  different sales techniques to use for different customers including behavioural gestures as what is correct for someone from the USA is very different to what is acceptable for a passenger from China or the UAE. Customers appreciate this attention to detail and enjoy the effort made to communicate with them so this will make your job as sales person all the easier.  Secondly, you will also receive specific training from the brands that you’re working with. This could be a morning or half-day spent with them, perfecting your skills and increasing your knowledge on anything from luxury products to fashion, make up, skin care and fragrance and liquor brands. With the training all done, you’ll be job ready when you step onto the sales floor and ready to strut your stuff!

If you think working in a travel retail environment is perfect for you, you can see the current vacancies on our website where there’s also a helpful FAQs section to help you to prepare for those interviews.