Recruiting salon stylists or any salon talent takes a new level of effort from salon leaders.

Making it more critical than ever that you remove every possible barrier for the talent which makes it to the first interview. The last thing you want is to spend time having an interview that you think went great, only to have them ghost you for the second interview. This happens all the time to salon owners. 

Why do we think the interview went well and they don’t?

The answer is more simple than you might think. It often is because the key information they wanted to gain from the first interview- the information that felt the most valuable to them- wasn’t provided. Adding value makes something “sticky”. Sticky means you want to continue engaging with it. In technology, we consider an app “sticky” if a user continually goes back in to check their notifications or use a new feature. Well, you want a candidate to leave your first interview and feel excited that you invited them back for interview two, not thinking about all the ways they can politely decline that invite. (Which sadly many don’t end up doing, they just don’t show up.)

How can you jam-pack that first interview with value- for you and for the salon candidate? 

• Make the experience about them! Use the first interview to give them a chance to weed themselves out. This might sound a bit crazy at first because our natural inclination is to find out if they are a good fit for us, BUT we know how to do that much better than they know how to discern if we fit them. Long-term employees are a fit. And you want long-term salon employees. However, the only person who can determine if the fit feels right for the candidate is the candidate- so help them do just that by covering the topics they care the most about.

If you’re still not convinced and are afraid of wasting your time on a candidate for the first interview then go back one more step and ask yourself how you can ensure that your application process helps weed out a bad fit. In the Salon Recruiting Bootcamps, we run at Talent Match we work with the salon to do just that. In fact, we take it back to your brand awareness-building activities so you rarely find yourself interviewing a bad fit. 

• Talk about the #1 thing stylists and other salon roles care about first in their first interview: Schedule Expectations. Whether you are interviewing for a stylist position or a front desk role they want to know what the schedule looks like.
  
   
• Talk about the #2 thing that stylists care about in their first interview: The training. Today’s talent wants to know what kind of training program you offer so they can determine if it’s what they are looking for. 
  
  
• Talk about the #3 thing that stylists care about in their first interview: The team. Be ready to help them understand a bit about your team so they can get a sense of whether it’s the type of salon family they are looking for. 
  
  
• Talk about the #4 thing stylists care about in their first interview: The performance expectations. Salon applicants want to know “What are my goals going to be?”
  
  
• Talk about the #5 thing stylists care about in the first interview: Compensation. Money matters to any job applicant so don’t skip over this important part by staying with old-school practices of not offering up compensation numbers until the job offer. If you do this you will likely lose a candidate in the process. 

Today’s salon applicant wants to be efficient with their time and I know all of you salon leaders do too. To make sure this is happening in your business, have a look at your interview questions and give it a little overhaul. If you need help we are here for you. We’d love to have you in one of our Salon Recruiting Bootcamps! You can find out more by visiting talentmatch.biz.

Don’t forget to head over to the Youtube channel for a short VLOG on this topic and while you are there give it a like!

Happy Recruiting.