Recruiting is the thing you hear everyone talking about.
Well, almost everyone. Despite the easy assumption that “EVERY SALON is struggling to recruit”, it’s just not true. Some salons have the opposite reality and say “We have tons of applicants coming in.”
If you think this sounds crazy, I promise it can be you. I’ve spent the last 5 years studying, teaching, and working on salon recruiting.
Another myth? That recruiting challenges are a result of the pandemic, also not true.
In research being conducted by Talent Match– a salon recruiting company- it was in 2018 that the data shifted for the first time. “Finding staff” took first place as the thing keeping salon owners up at night. Before that, first place was always held by “keeping staff”. I imagine if you reflect back on your own salon business you will find cues that things were changing as well.
How can you move from “I can’t find staff to I have the staff I need”?
- Identify your “recruiting team”
- Identify “why” someone should work for you
- Get consistent
Recruiting in salons is a business operation other businesses have struggled with for years.
In the salon industry, it feels hard because it is new. New things are hard.
Can you think back to when balayage became “the color service” and you had to learn how to paint on color instead of doing a head of 1000 foils? More than likely it felt hard, and it took you more time until you had enough practice.
Recruiting is the same. You need to find out who on your team can do the work with you and then you all need to get ready to take action.
There are three elements you are going to need to tap into to find success
- Social Media
- Presenting
- Interviewing
A core requirement for all of these responsibilities is organization.
Some salons might have one very organized person who handles all three areas of recruiting and other salons might have team members that can focus on just one. If you want to be a salon that doesn’t have a problem recruiting, get busy identifying who is going to be on your recruiting team.
Once you know “who”, you need to dive into “why” someone should work for you.
You need to know this with extreme clarity so that you can tell the world. If you are struggling to articulate this, then you know that no future artist would know this- and it is THE MOST important thing to recruiting success.
You have to help talent know why they should work for you. It’s pretty simple once you know that.
When you can confidently say that you have your recruiting team (even if it’s a team of 1) and that you know why someone should work for you, you can start sharing your why where talent is looking. This is where consistency comes in. You must regularly post on social media, and you must regularly visit the schools.
If you do this, you’ll find yourself interviewing before you know it.
Recruiting does not have to be hard. It’s just new and you can do new things.
PS. You can also do hard things.
