Salon Recruiting Secrets: Tips to Find & Keep Salon Professionals
I can remember a time when salon owners could sit back and filter through applications and resumes, selecting only those perfect candidates to work in our salons. These days, it seems like the salon recruiting secrets are held by a chosen few, leaving the rest wondering what they are doing right.
Salon hiring altered by Social Media
The internet and social media has totally disrupted the way we find and attract salon pros to our businesses. Even before COVID, many owners were struggling to compete with for the attention of pros.
Now we are all struggling to figure out WHERE the pros have gone and HOW to get them into our businesses.
Two key assets to find hair stylists
The two key assets any salon, spa or barbershop needs for ongoing hiring success are a strong focus on reputation and relationships.
What is a salon reputation?
A salon’s reputation is how your business is perceived. Your reputation from a customer’s and employee’s point of view.
Salon reputation affects not only your ability to gain new clients, it directly impacts your ability to find hair stylists.
People talk, especially salon professionals. Salons with great reputations are talked about in a positive light.
Salons with a toxic culture, unreasonable management or restrictions on growth are known throughout the salon pro community.
We help owners hire through our salon recruitment offerings. However, there is no job listing or social media post can outweigh a bad reputation.
What are salon relationships?
Salon relationships are the interactions and connectivity within your local salon community.
Salons who strive to create relationships, get to know pros while they are students and focus on being connected have far less hiring woes than salons that don’t. 60% of the salon professionals who quit a salon already have a few salons in mind to work in.
To find hair stylists or hire salon staff a prior relationship puts you ahead of the rest.
The idea behind strong relationships is to put your business, front and center on the list of their choices. Without familiarity or relationships, you are at a disadvantage in hiring.
Technology’s role in salon recruiting
As an owner of a salon, spa or barbershop we wear many hats. Adapting to technology and the modern way to attract applicants is a breeze for some of us.
For most of us, we just don’t know where to begin or where concentrate our efforts to create a great applicant funnel. Understand that 95% of any salon’s applicants go to your website and social media BEFORE you hear from them.
Owners need to focus salon recruiting efforts in house
Salonspa Connection is the best resource for finding pros to work in your business, but there is SO much more owners can do to help themselves.
Setting yourself up for effective applicant attraction and intake is where we start. Your online assets need to be working for you, funneling pros to your opportunities.
Recruit through online assets
Online assets needed to get pros to take action on your jobs and booth rental opportunities are:
- A well thought out WEBSITE, with functioning links, photos and a work with us page.
- Aesthetically pleasing SOCIAL MEDIA accounts that provide clear CTA’s to hire salon staff.
- Multi link bios in SOCIAL MEDIA accounts, providing links for customers and pros to find what they are looking for.
- SALONSPA CONNECTION salon applicant recruitment. This empowers both owners and pros to connect and find each other, seamlessly.
Find hair stylists: Send the right message and reach your target audience.
Have you posted and prayed? What about providing a phone number, email address or “send me a DM” on social media when advertising open positions?
How is that working for you? Salon Recruiting Secrets is a process, not an actual secret!
Clarifying and sending a consistent message to find hair stylists is an important piece of your recruiting system. You CAN market to both potential clients and pros by telling your story.
Great impressions are key
What do salon pros see when they visit your website and social media accounts? If they can’t see what you and your team are doing, they will not contact you.
To build a salon team you need to demonstrate who you are and what goes on in your salon. Hair stylists, nail techs and estheticians are all visual creatures.
Pros take action on opportunities that “feel” good to them. Identify your top culture attributes and let pros know you mean business!
Provide a clear call to action
When you get pro’s attention, where do you send them? If you don’t spell out where they need to go, and what they need to do, you risk losing them to the owner who does.
Hire salon staff through ethical engagement
Practicing effective and ethical engagement creates a following. A following is an applicant funnel that will be fruitful for many years to come.
The secrets to ethical engagement and ongoing hiring success are found in our salon recruitment guide.
Consistency, clarity and effort make ongoing salon recruiting a breeze.
Once you get your online assets in place, create a branded message and practice ethical engagement. Soon, recruiting will become second nature.
Retraining our brains to think and act in a proactive manner concerning recruiting allows us to create a process. Pros are not going to guess that you are hiring or that you are wonderful.
Recruiting is marketing
Marketing and recruiting is an artform that ANY motivated owner can achieve.
We take classes on technique, business and salon management. Salon Recruitment Consulting is the next step in successful ownership.
Grow your business and get quality, long term employees and booth renters coming to YOU for opportunity.
Check out our online salon recruiting secrets mini course. If this just isn’t enough to help you understand the most effective way to hire & recruit, I offer one on one consulting.
Book time for help with salon recruitment, I look forward to chatting with you, soon!
Susan Wos, Founder of Salonspa Connection
