Max

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the recruitment hackers podcast. I’m your host, Max Armbruster. And for my first guest of 2023 I’m delighted to welcome Gustavo Serbia who is the head of talent – correct me if I’m wrong. Yes, I got that. Head of talent at Haircuttery, one of the leading salons. I mean, beauty and hairstyling salons nationwide. Please –  Actually I’ll let Gustavo introduce what the group does but they do a lot of haircuts; I know that much yet. 

And so we’re gonna get into the art of hiring stylists and understanding the art of recruiting hairstylists and stylists in general. What can you do to attract this particular audience and to avoid making hiring mistakes? And talk about how that practice may be disrupted by technology, of course. Gustavo, thanks for joining. And – yeah, please; what did I get wrong? In my intro?

Gustavo

Well, I’m the head of HR for Haircuttery. And I oversee the entire HR function, including recruiting. I have a wonderful team that works day in and day out to try to find a stylist. Yes, we are a salon chain. It’s a privately owned salon chain in the US – 500 salons in 10 states and about 5000 employees as a whole. And, you know, I like to also give a little bit of framework that while we’re in the business of finding stylists, some of the audience may not necessarily find that relatable because they’re not looking for stylists, because it’s so specialized. 

But we’re really in high volume. So we are in the high volume business of hiring. We just happen to be hiring – 99% of our hires are really stylists that are working at the salon, cutting hair, colouring hair, etc. And as you can see, hair is not required to work in the company. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.

Max

For those audio listeners here, Gustavo has a very shiny cranium.

Gustavo

Yep, yeah.

Max 

Probably set up the lights just so you have a third eye.

Gustavo

Exactly. Yeah. So it looks like a halo effect.

Max 

Right? Well. So, to put us in the mindset of what a hairstylist is, and does, I mean, we are talking about somebody who is holding a knife next to someone’s face for 8/10 hours a day chatting… And so it has to be – I mean, these are skills that are sort of interpersonal communication skills, character skills that are very hard to capture in the written form, right? So a resume is not going to tell you that much. So what are you looking for? Exactly?

Gustavo 

Yep. So it’s a combination of number one, you got to have a license, if you don’t have a license, we can’t consider  you. You have to be licensed in order to perform what we need. And number two, we’re looking for personality, we know that they’re going to be behind the chair interacting with a guest, so they have to have personality that allows them to connect with the with the with a guest. Give me a second. Give me a second hold on the recording. Got it? Go ahead. Okay,

Max

so he asked me the question. Yeah. So you said you’re looking. So I’m gonna ask the question again. We’ll take it from the top. Yeah. So yeah. So hiring hairstylist, who we looking for? I imagine that the skills necessary you remember the question, I asked her the question about blah, blah, blah. It’s not something you can get on paper. And then you started your answer. And we’ll start over again from there. So I don’t have to ask the question again. Are you looking for scanning now?

Gustavo

Yeah, so number one thing we look, obviously you got to have a license. In the US, you have to be licensed in order to cut hair. So that’s number one thing. You don’t have a license, it’s going to be hard for us to consider you. After that –

Max 

Hold on; if I’m a – if I wanna be a hairstylist and get the license, how long is that process? Is that something you can just apply online or how does that work?

Gustavo

No, you have to go to school. You have to go to cosmetology school. There are a number of hours that have to be completed depending on the state. Some states have 1000 hours, others have 1500 hours. Yeah, and they have to pay.

Max  

It’s a higher bar than getting a driving license.

Gustavo

Yes, yes, definitely. Well, you know, obviously, we want to protect the consumer. But each state does it slightly differently on how they go about it. Like there’s not a consistent application across all 50 states. So we have to understand what the requirements are in some states versus others. So, once you have a license, or if you’re in school, and you’re going to graduate, let’s say, within 90 days, you’re going to obtain your license, we want to talk to you. And then the second thing is personality, right? You know, a lot of the stylists that go into the industry, some of them do it because they’re exploring what they want to do. 

Others like the whole idea of the creative process. But regardless, if you’re the creative kind, or the one that is looking for a job, or the one that is exploring what to do in the future, you’re going to be talking to people. And because you’re going to be talking to people, we give you commissions, in our case, but in the industry, it’s very common for you to get commissions out of product sales, you have to have the ability to interact with the client.

Max 

Yeah, it must be the nicest people in the world who want to work in that profession. Because, you know, as you said, like you’re interacting nonstop, although, I mean, you have to be able to read the room, sometimes I go get a haircut, and I really don’t want to talk to somebody, but they still chat me up.

Gustavo

Yes, we tell our stylist, you gotta read what the guests want, right? Some, this is a very intimate interaction, if you think about it, I’m in your space for at least 20 to 30 minutes, perhaps longer. I’m touching you. So you have to be conscious of the space, you have to be conscious of the body language that the person is giving you. But it’s also a relationship that can be lasting years, because you may decide to go to the same stylist; my mother went to the same stylist, I mean, since I was nine years old, until a couple of years ago when her stylist passed away. 

That’s the type of relationship that we’re hoping our stylists are going to create with a guest. So that guest comes back to us instead of going somewhere else. But outside of that; obviously, we’ll look at availability, where can you work? Because you know, we need to accommodate when the guest is there. We don’t look at work, where have you worked, to make a decision. It’s really irrelevant for us, your work history, from the standpoint of: you have a license, you have the capability? Let’s put you behind the chair.

Max

Yeah, see if that works. And are there some – you talked about character being important. So I gather from that, that you don’t want a hardcore introvert for a job like this. You want somebody who’s able, who enjoys interacting. What are some other sort of personality traits that you’d be particularly on the lookout for? And follow-up question, …