How to Hire a Hair Stylist?

Knowing how to hire hair stylist is vital for any salon owner. Why? Well, statistics show that the rate of stylist turnover in US hair salons is surprisingly high, with stylists spending an average of 3-5 years in a salon before moving on. Statistics also show that 1/3 of new hires will leave their jobs within the first six months.

So, as a salon owner, you’re going to have to deal with stylists leaving as the years go by. And you’ll need to be able to effectively bring new stylists on board to replace those who leave. But what is the best way to manage salon recruitment? And how can you make your salon more attractive for prospective stylists? This guide will cover all you need to know.

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1. How to Start Your Search for Salon Staff?
2. Where to Find Hair Stylists to Hire?
3. How to Attract Hair Stylists to Your Salon?
4. How Do You Recruit a Hair Stylist?
5. Conclusion

How to Start Your Search for Salon Staff?

Know What You’re Looking For

In order to bring in the best salon employees, you need to actually have a clear picture of what you’re looking for. Make sure that the hair stylist job description posts you share include plenty of detail, covering the skills, education, experience, and personality traits you’re looking for.

Analyze Your Brand Identity

Think about the identity of your salon’s brand, too. Every salon has its own brand and vibe to appeal to its clients. The right salon employees can help to enhance your brand, but if you pick the wrong people, your business may suffer.

Make Sure It’s Justified

Don’t just bring additional salon employees on board for the sake of it. Make sure you actually have a purpose behind each new employee. Think about whether you actually need a new employee. Hiring may be required if:

• you’re often overbooked

• you need to replace someone

• you’re expanding

• you’re looking for a professional for a particular new service etc.

Where to Find Hair Stylists to Hire?

Recommendations

Salon owners can often rely on recommendations and word of mouth to find out about a potential employee. Speak with your staff and colleagues. They might spread the word about good stylists they know who are looking for a new position. This can be one of the most reliable ways when it comes to how to find hair stylist to hire.

Social Media

How do I advertise a hairdressing job? Do it on social media! You can post job ads in relevant groups or use your salon’s own Facebook and other social pages to spread the word and find a hair stylist for hire. You can make a post talking about any new job openings at your location. You can also ask staff members or even customers to share the post on their pages.

Recruitment Websites

You may need to spend some money on this hiring technique, but it can provide good value in the long term. Many modern professionals use recruitment sites such as Indeed, Craigslist, and Facebook Jobs to find new positions in the industry.

Professional Events

Consider attending networking events, workshops, job fairs, and so on. There are many events like these that are specific to the salon industry, perfect for meeting new people, making more contacts, and enhancing your existing roster with good-quality employees.

Hair Stylist Schools

You can also get in touch with stylist schools and propose a hiring system, bringing some of their students on board as trainee stylists in your own salon. Employees from schools will probably need training and mentoring, which will take time and effort. But it also allows you to train them to meet your salon’s service standards. Plus, the starting salary can be quite low for someone who is still in school.

Your Website

Just like social media sites, your own salon website can be a great salon employment tool for sharing a job advert or blog post for recruiting candidates. This is especially relevant for salon owners who are already running successful businesses and get a lot of website traffic from prospective customers, existing clients, and interested hairstylists.

You may be interested also in Salon Employee Handbook | The Reasons Why You Need One

How to Attract Hair Stylists to Your Salon?

Write a Detailed Job Description

Make sure that any job ads you write feature detailed descriptions. This can be key for your hiring process, helping to attract the best candidates and turn away those who won’t fit. Be sure to include key info like job title, requirements, information on the salary, experience, skills and so on.

Establish Your Brand

Another way to bring in better people to your business is to simply work on building up your brand through good service and smart marketing. If you run a successful, established salon, then everyone will know about your business and want to be a part of it. Create a great image for your brand with the best online marketing and high customer retention.

Work on Your Reputation

These days, the average person looking for a salon job cares a lot about workplace culture and reputations. They want to work with friendly, approachable employees and in welcoming environments. So make sure you think about what sort of image you are presenting to your current employees and local customers.

Make Your Offer Competitive

A person looking for a job in the salon industry may have lots of options available. You need to compete with other salons around when it comes to hiring the best employee. So you have to make your offer as attractive as possible. This can include a good salary, but it may also involve extras and benefits like education, bonuses, social security, maternity leave, insurance, etc.

Do not miss our post about salon staff interview questions to use when interviewing job candidates - stylists, managers, assistants, and receptionists.

How Do You Recruit a Hair Stylist?

Conduct a Selection Process

The first part of hiring top talent for a salon business is to narrow down your candidates. You may receive a lot of applications for each job opening you post online, on social media, or elsewhere, but not everyone will be a good fit for your business. Many salon owners start hiring by looking through applications and eliminating candidates who don’t appear to have the necessary skills or experiences to work as part of their team.

Ask for References and Do Your Research

It’s a good idea to carry out some research on any person who you might be thinking about bringing in as an employee at your salon business. It’s wise to ask for some references from previous employers or look them up on social media.

Have a Face-to-Face Interview

It’s vital to have a face-to-face interview with each candidate too, especially in the salon industry. Communication and people skills are a huge part of the job of hairstylists. So you need to use interviews when hiring salon staff. Look at key aspects like:

• Communication skills: Salon professionals need to be able to communicate effectively and in a friendly, clear manner. Pay attention to things like eye contact and tone of voice when looking for the best talent. Good eye contact is a sign of a confident communicator.

• Passion for profession: Any professional salon talent should be passionate about their job and truly love working in the industry.

• General attitude: Is the person positive, upbeat, and fun to be around? Or do they have a more negative vibe that might not fit with your team? Pay attention to their body language and vibe.

• Appearance: Appearance matters for salon professionals, because people want to have their own hair and style looked after by people with an attractive style of their own.

• Ambition: Is the person ambitious and ready to work hard to succeed?

• Connection: Is the person a good fit for you? Do you like them and feel that the contact works between you? This can be really important when looking for hair stylist to hire.

Ask Right Questions

During the interview process with a candidate, you’ll need to let them know about the details of the job and their duties. But you’ll also need to ask the right questions. Here are a few salon-related questions to bring up with your prospective employee:

• What do you expect from this job?

• Why did you apply?

• What did you like about your previous job?

• Why did you decide to leave?

• What drives you in your profession?

• Do you prefer working alone or as a team?

• What are your weak points you’re working on improving?

• Do you have any questions for me?

• Describe a challenge you faced at work and how you overcame it.

• How do you imagine a typical day at the salon?

• How would you respond if a customer made a complaint about your work?

• How do you deal with difficult clients?

• Do you have plans to open your own salon in future?

There are also some questions to avoid during the interview, either because they are not legal to ask or because they are not relevant to the process and could give the person a bad impression. Examples include:

• Do you have children?

• Do you smoke/drink?

• What is your height/weight?

• Are you married/single?

• Are you planning to get pregnant soon?

Set a Trial Period

You can also bring in a new hire on trial for a while to see how they work, or set them a task and watch how they perform. This will let you see their skills in action.

Conclusion

Just like managing clients and offering the best levels of service, knowing how to hire the top talent will be key your salon’s growth and success in the future. Hopefully, this guide has shown you some key tips and techniques for bringing in the best people and making your salon as attractive as possible, not only to clients, but also to future team members.

Always remember that recruiting new people for your staff isn’t something to take lightly. One team member can make or break the vibe of your business and have a real impact on things like profits and customer retention. So be careful, take your time, and follow all of the key tips for how to hire hair stylist.

Citations

New hire perceptions of their own and their employer's obligations: A study of psychological contracts
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/job.4030110506

Indispensable employees: How to hire them, how to keep them
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SaB2DwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg

Creating commitment: How to attract and retain talented employees by building relationships that last
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=uUE3VHG6rR