Hairdressing as a Career

Hairdressing can be a lucrative and fulfilling career, if you genuinely like working with other people and you don’t mind being run off your feet from time to time, hairdressing may be a suitable option for you to look at. Many people get into hairdressing when they are still at school. Most busy salons require shampoo staff on a Saturday and this is a good way to try out the business and see whether it really is a career that would suit you.

Many hairdressers start out as an apprentice at a large salon, but it is possible to get into hairdressing by doing your training at the local technical college, where you will need to pass NVQs in hairdressing. You will need to complete the required levels of the National Vocational Qualification before you become a certified hairdresser. The requirements for hairdressers may vary from place to place; if you don’t live in England then you need to check requirements for your country of origin.

Most hairdressing salons experience periods where they don’t have time to turn around between customers, and other times when they are twiddling their thumbs for most of the day. What sort of business, and what volume of business a salon attracts may depend on a number of external factors, including the salon’s location. If you decide to go down the apprenticeship route to take up hairdressing as a career, then it may be a while before you actually do any hairdressing as such. Your role as an apprentice will be to watch and learn, to take customers coats, to sweep up and to make tea and occasionally shampoo a customer’s hair. You can work through your NVQs while you are working in the salon as an apprentice, this means you get on the job training to go with your theory and you get a wage, albeit a low one.

In larger salons when a junior has finished their apprenticeship, they are often taken on as a member of staff. Hairdressers may decide to set up their own salon if they have the money and some of them will set up a mobile hairdressing business styling hair in the customers’ homes. One of the best things about mobile hairdressing is the fact that you don’t have the same kind of overheads you would have if you were running your own salon. Whatever path you decide for your career, you will be working with members of the public every day of the week and you will need to be cheerful with all of them if you want to build up a loyal customer base. If you intend opening your own salon or you want to set up as a mobile hairdresser then keeping your customers will be even more important than it might be if you were working at a large salon with plenty of passing trade. Providing you are friendly and do your best to achieve what a customer wants, you should be able to enjoy your career in hairdressing.