Pros
- Encourages the Brightness of Future, with lots of career progression and opportunities. You can be promoted to leadership positions within a year or two if you work enough for it. - A work hard play hard culture. Depends on your team and the leader. I love mine and I know they will always be on the look out for me. - Training is great. You can get your cert III and cert IV in the first two years on the job. And there are always lots of product training and sales/management training courses available. - Familiarisation trips! This will depend quite largely on your team leader and team. I was given my first big FAMIL a few months into my role to the other side of the world! But many others may not get it until a couple if years into the job. - Unlimited commission. Which is very important to the low base pay we get as it determines whether I can afford anything or not... But if you have the right mind set, it's not very hard to earn just above average total income, which can push the total earnings to well above 50k per year. This also can be heavily dependent on your store location (north shore and country stores generally fare much better in comparison than the rest of Sydney). - Looks great on your resume if you'd like to venture out to the travel industry later and work for wholesale/corporate/any travel related jobs outside of FC Group. - Great sense of achievement if you consistently over-deliver, and your efforts won't go unnoticed. - New changes to negatives. The consultant will no longer need to bare the negative within their commission if things go horribly wrong. Although you will still need to spit back out any mark up you've had on the booking. But at least you will still earn the normal commission you will get if you did not mark up and nothing went wrong. - Cost of Seat (KPI target) has a lower and upper limit. Which can be bother a pro or con depending on your store. If your store is in a rich area, this is a good thing, this means you will most likely average well above the higher limit of the COS, and raking in lots of money. If your area is a "price beat central", then chances are you may be struggling to meet or are just a little above the lower end of COS. Oh and if your store is constantly making high profit, the COS will increase. There is a cap to the COS, so it's actually very beneficial to those working in rich areas.
Cons
- Can be long hours, and hard work. Depending on your store, you may be required to do a 7-day rotating roster. Monthly outside of work hour events are also compulsory to attend -- unless you're working part time and have worked here for years... With a nice team leader. - Base pay is low, even after the recent adjustment in pay (slight increase since August). - The COS if you're not in a wealthy area. - Lots of responsibilities over your own work and can be very, very, very time consuming and expensive if you make a small mistake. And some airlines also like to blame travel agents for mistakes they have done. - Turnover rate is high. Most training groups average around 8-10 people in the induction week. And by the 3rd month of employment, you can expect the number to drop by half. By 6th month, only very few remain. But generally if you can get past 6 months without quitting, you will usually either stay with FC for a very very long time or find a new job in the same industry after 1-2 years. - In general, the experience an individual will have working at FC will be highly dependent on your team and team leader. I was lucky to be in a great team, with a great leader who supported me the whole way. I have learnt a lot from working here, and loved some of my clients to pieces (some are so lovely!!) and while hated others (but had to pretend I still liked them...). This is challenging, and will take a big portion of your life. Do not expect pay to be great for the first 6 months or so. It will be minimal wage. But once you get it above a certain magical number, you'll love it... If you are still wiling to put in the same effort months on end.