Salon Recruitment 101: How to Actually Find Good People in 2026

Finding good people for your salon might feel impossible right now. Maybe you're putting ads out, getting zero applications, or you're getting applications from people who ghost you, or they show up for one day and never come back. I get it. Recruitment is brutal in 2026, but it's not impossible. Here's what's actually working. Hello, hello, hello, my salon friends. Phil Jackson here, your queen of salons, coming all over the internet with another dose of my Wise Owl Wisdom. How on earth are you? Achingly well, I hope, on a kind of gloomy Monday here in the UK. I hope it's not gloomy for you. I hope that the beginning of 2026 is everything you wanted it to be. And maybe, for some of you, recruitment is part of your plan for 2026. Perhaps you're looking to grow your team or replace some pain in the arse, pain in the arse stylist or therapist, and it's time to actually take the bull by the horns and get some people that actually want to work for you. And the reality is that since I spoke about recruitment properly last time, of course, we've had a big shift post-COVID. People have reassessed what they want from work, and just a job is not enough anymore. People want flexibility. They want development. They want to buy into a culture and a business that they can believe in. The power dynamic has shifted because the recruitment market has become very, very competitive indeed. There are so many people now who don't want to work for anybody that actually the pool of talent that we can fish from as prospective employers and recruiters is getting smaller and smaller. And also, we've got Gen Z, who don't read newspaper ads, obviously. They're researching you before they apply. They want much clearer career progression, and they will walk if the vibe is off. You see, the thing is, what's shifted over my lifetime is that it's not normal to work for one employer for the entirety of your career anymore. Heck, it's not even normal to have one career at a time anymore. You've got people who are what we call portfolio workers. They're working in lots of different places, lots of different spaces. They're moving from one career to another to another during their working lifetime. And also, we've got other salons that are desperate too. It's not just difficult for you in your town, your county, your country. This is a worldwide phenomenon. And we've got other jobs, non-salon jobs, offering better pay, better hours. We've got an apprenticeship program here in the UK that is not feeding the pipeline like it used to.

It's too expensive for people to take apprentices on. So if your recruitment strategy... Sorry, this is a bit gloomy, isn't it? Isn't it a bit gloomy? What a dismal start to an episode, Phil Jackson. Come on, put some pep in your pencil and cheer us all up. But what I want to put out there is that if you're feeling that it's tough and you feel that you need a different approach, you're absolutely right. You definitely do. But there are some places where I think your recruitment might be failing. A few common mistakes that I think we could possibly avoid. And the number one is that you're only recruiting when you actually want to recruit. And I know that makes no sense. But you wait until someone hands their notice in and then you're panicking trying to find a replacement. And you'll take anyone with a pulse. It's reactive recruitment and it doesn't work. What works better is what we call always-on recruitment. So you are always continually building a pipeline, making contacts, reaching out to people who you would love to work with and who would love to work for you. Mistake number two, your job ads are boring. And I've seen so many salon job ads that just list a load of requirements. They want someone who's level three qualified, three years of experience, must be able to work Saturdays. Well, bugger me backwards if that doesn't get me panting to throw a CV in your direction. You've told me nothing about why I should work for you instead of the salon down the road. You've given me no reason to work for you instead of working for myself. You're not selling the opportunity. And that's what you need to be selling. What am I going to learn? Who am I going to work with? What's the culture like? What are the clients like? Why is your salon different? And mistake number three is that you're invisible to your potential candidates. If they don't know you exist, if they don't know your vacancy exists, they can't apply. And if it looks like your social media is dead or your Google reviews are all dated, they're not going to want to apply. Now, I don't think that social media is a good place to advertise vacancies because you've built your profiles to attract customers, not to attract stylists or therapists. But it doesn't mean that those potential stylists and therapists aren't going to look at social media to research who it is that they're considering working for.

So you've got to build your brand. And this needs to be part of your marketing strategy. But what I want you to build into your marketing is a little bit of content that would appeal to people who might want to work with you. So don't just talk to your customers. Show behind the scenes. Show off when you're doing some training. Make people want to work for you. Showcase your team so that when they do that research, you've got some positive stuff that you're sharing. So step number one is to build your pipeline. Always on recruiting. Don't wait until you're desperate. Start building relationships. Keep a spreadsheet of people that you meet at industry events or people that you used to work with. When someone impresses you, note it down. When you hear about a competitor that's closing down, do the research. Find out the names and then check in with those people every few months. How's it going? Are you still happy where you are? Are you ready to make a move yet? Because then when they are ready to make a move, they're going to think of you first. When you do need someone, you might then already have a list of people to call who know you're a great salon and you've got some beginning of a relationship with them too. Step two, make your salon visible. Look at your marketing. Most salons are doing a dreadful job of marketing anyway. It's no wonder that their recruitment marketing is failing on its ass. People need to see what it's like to work for you. So go back to that Instagram or TikTok strategy. Show me behind the scenes. Show me your team having fun, training days, celebrating someone's birthday, nights out. Showcase the team, not just the work, the people. And also show off progression. So if you've got somebody who's been working with you for a couple of years and their work's improved or they've managed to move up a rung on the ladder or they've managed to increase their prices or they're learning a new service, show it off. But be honest about your culture. If you're not a small, close-knit team, don't pretend you are. Find the thing that makes your team unique and advertise that instead. Those Google reviews matter, but they matter for everything. Potential employees are going to do their research. If clients are saying that the team is lovely, that helps attract applications. So if they're saying things like rushed service or stressed staff or it feels like nobody wants to work there, then guess what? No one's going to want to apply either. Get a careers page on your website. It doesn't need to be fancy, just honest. Make it easy for people to leave their details if they're interested.

And make sure your job ads don't suck ass. Let's make sure that we're not listing requirements. Start selling an amazing opportunity. Get me panting, excited to apply to work with you. So talk about the kind of salon that you are and the kind of person that you're looking forward to, but what's in it for them. You wouldn't necessarily advertise to, or at least I hope, my darling, after listening to your Uncle Phil for all this time. I hope you wouldn't be reaching out to potential customers just listing a load of features of your products or services. I'm hoping you'll be talking about the benefits. That's what we need in our recruitment marketing as well. And talk about what you're especially good at, because there are people who love a particular sort of service. So rather than emphasising that they're going to be doing a bit of everything, lean into the stuff that they might be passionate about too. And make it super, super easy to apply for your job as well. If you're advertising on social media, which, as I've said, I don't think is an amazing alternative, but if you are, well, you've got to be OK with taking DMs. You can't expect people to see something on social media and then write out a CV, stick it in an envelope and post it to you. Make it simple for people to start a conversation. We can always ask for more details later. Make sure that your interviews are on point. Tell me about yourself. When can you start? Great, you're hired. Well, you can't be surprised if you're bringing people in who are a terrible fit. Start with a quick chat on the phone just to clarify the job that they're applying for. You're much more likely to get people actually turning up for your interviews then. As far as a trade test or a trial shift is concerned, well, it depends. If it's really important to you that you've got team fit and actually it doesn't matter whether the interview is any good as long as they're good at their job, well, that tells you the order you're going to do these things in. For me, I want people who are nice. I want people who are going to enjoy their company. So I always do the interview first. The skills, I can teach you. Can't teach you how to be nice though. But don't skip a trial shift. Make sure you're paying them for their time as well. Yes, I get you might need to be a bit discreet if they're already working somewhere else. Now, the big one, and I think this is the biggest shift over my lifetime, is you've got to show some flexibility. Can you offer a different working pattern? Can you offer three-day or four-day work weeks? Can you offer longer shifts but less of them? Can you accommodate childcare schedules? Can you offer term time only or different timings for school holidays? It's really important that we show that flexibility, otherwise people are going to want to work for themselves where that flexibility is taken as read. So here's what you can do. In January, I want you to have a look at your social media.

Make sure you're emphasising how amazing your team is. Get that career section on your website. Start sharing behind-the-scenes stories on Instagram and TikTok. And then maybe just start putting that little black book of people together. Reach out to a few people in your pipeline or a few people that you might want to work with and just touch base. See how they're doing. See how it feels in their life right now. So recruitment doesn't have to be desperately scrambling. Every time someone leaves, there is a better way, a calmer way, and actually a much more productive way. But I don't have all of the answers. So why not reach out and let me know what I've missed? My email address scrolling at the bottom of the screen now, phil at buildyoursalon.com. I would also love to hear from you if you would like me to interview you. If you've got a recruitment success story, reach out and let me know. I'd love to be sharing your story with my gorgeous Build Your Salon podcast listeners. If you need my help, I've put my details in the description box underneath. My web address is buildyoursalon.com. Book a call. Let's have a chat. Let's see whether I can help you with your recruitment needs in 2026. Just a few short days until I'm coming all over the internet again. And until then, my darlings, please take care.