Every salon at some point needs to hire a new stylist or two, the burning question how do I find the right talent for our salon?

STEP 1: DETERMINING THE HIRING PROFILE RIGHT FOR YOUR SALON

Are you hiring for new talent or experience? There are pros and cons of both.

New Talent can be molded, shaped and often conforms to your culture quickly, yet they can be a drain on payroll as they build a clientele and they need a mentor to help develop their skills. Do you have the time? Do you have a structured training plan and a clear vision of what it takes to be ready to service clients at your salon? Need ideas explore our CREATING YOUR TRIBE seminar.

Experienced Stylists with or without a clientele have experience and established ways of doing things. Your role will be to effectively integrate them into your system. A solid audition process can help you see if their style fits your culture. When you find a stylist that fits, you’ll need a solid plan to support them in building a business and/or transition existing clients to your salon.

STEP 2: BUILD AND EXECUTE AN ON-GOING NETWORKING PLAN

Network every day, it’s the only way you’ll find the talent you need when you need them. The key is continuously building a relationship with stylists, salons and other industry professionals. A few of our favorite ways to connect; social media and referrals.

Social media makes us a click away from everyone in our community. YELP makes it easy to see what clients say about stylists and Instagram makes it easy to see their work and introduce yourself to working stylists.

As for Referrals never discount who you know. Tell everyone what you do and what you’re looking for, we found 80% of our team through friends, colleagues or vendors.

STEP 3: HAVE SOLID INTERVIEWING AND ORIENTATION BEST PRACTICES

It’s critical to have a solid legal interview process. Your goal is to know if they have the business, communication, teamwork and technical skills to be successful in your environment. We use a standard verbal interview and technical audition process with every applicant. It helps us draw out their behavior in key situations, keeps us away from illegal questions, and allow us to objectively compare applications as well as benchmark results and retention against our hiring practices.

Once we’ve made the hiring decision, our orientation process helps us consistently teach them our culture and expectations. Our biggest learning the more focus we give to their 90-day orientation the better long-term success we have with our team’s performance, retention and overall happiness.