Rapport de stage esthétique en Corée du Sud (anglais)

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ANALYSIS

The encountered difficulties Lack of communication.

In Korea, relations and respect between colleagues and superiors are influenced by the Confucian principles, and, unfortunately, put a brake on communication in the workplace, especially when it comes to communicating with a superior. This blatant lack of communication has been the biggest source of misunderstanding in my workplace. Employees do not dare to contradict their boss and change their working methods. Also if there is a problem nobody dares to take the lead to solve it which often results in the worsening of the problem.

Fatigue was one of my worst obstacle during this internship, the working schedules exceeded 10 hours a day, with short breaks, and I could take time to relax during the evening because I often went to bed directly after working.

The meal break, which was very short or sometimes non-existent, obviously did not help either. Despite having discussed this fact with the boss, the customer is king and the meal breaks have to be done according to the schedule.

Misunderstandings:

Several aspects of my work during this internship were difficult to understand and accept. The fact that I was not allowed to speak in Korean to customers was a source of frustration for me, who spent so many years and put much effort into learning that language. I tried to remedy this by talking to my boss because I really did not see any interest in speaking French to Korean clients who did not speak that language and it she decided that I could eventually greet customers and talk to them in English, although I answered the phone and made appointments in Korean ...

What the internship has brought me

This internship has been a source of misunderstandings and relational difficulties, but it has also brought me a lot of personal and professional experiences. Firstly it helped me to feel more comfortable speaking in English and Korean, indeed if the first appointments in Korean through phone calls frigtened me at the beginning of the internship, then this task became something natural I would gladly do.

The fact that my colleagues did not speak English and the various meetings I attended also greatly helped me to enrich my business related vocabulary and helped me to familiarize with the South Korean company's culture.

I have also learned many things about the complicated interpersonal relationships in a professional environment exclusively composed of female coworkers. Learning to manage the character of each person and to ease the tensions through mediation has not been an easy task, but these experiences have made me much more mature and objective.

CONCLUSION

To conclude, I would like to say that this internship allowed me to discover the world of work in a South Korean company and taught me how to deal with the cultural and hierarchical differences. I am glad that I have been able to work in this institute as I wanted to have professional experience in cosmetics in South Korea for several years.

Thanks to this internship, I was able to learn a lot about the South Korean business environment, as opposed to what I saw in France. This internship made me change my way of seeing the company and understand the stakes of this very competitive market. As the beauty and wellness sector in South Korea continues to be at the forefront of innovation, I have learned a lot of new things and I have been able to work independently to promote skincare and cosmetic products. I was also able to familiarize myself with South Korean social networks like Naver in order to participate in the shop's customer development. I also acquired new organizational methods by learning how to juggle my work on the Internet, assisting my colleagues during skincare and managing clients. I was lucky to work with very patient colleagues who have kindly explained to me the tasks to be done and have put me at ease from the beginning of the internship. I have also improved my Korean language skills by talking to my colleagues, writing articles in Korean on social networks or attending company meetings.

However, I were not been able to achieve all my goals. Indeed, the busy schedules and fatigue did not allow me to invest in the company and develop the site of the Institute as much as I would have liked. Interpersonal relations in an exclusively female working environment was quite a challenge to me.

Despite the good points of this internship, I realized that if cosmetics and aesthetics interests me on a personal level, and although I have already worked in this environment in France, the unpleasant experiences I had to face during this internship in South Korea made me reconsider my professional choice.

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