As a junior stylist, you’re still undergoing some training while you work with your clients to get each cut and color just right. You perform styling tasks under supervision from more experienced hairdressers, alongside assisting them with tasks like shampooing and conditioning, tool preparation, and station cleanup.
But you might not know how to write a cover letter and highlight the key components of your resume as well as you know what to bring your senior stylist for a color correction!
That’s where we can help. We’ve spent years guiding hair stylists of all levels throughout their careers and have for 2024 come up with these three resume templates and handy resume tips. So, get ready and get started!
Related resume examples
What Matters Most: Your Skills & Experience
Recruiters read through resumes at quite a pace! So it’s important to sum up your abilities as concisely and effectively as possible, and show them that you’re already good at what you do as a junior hair stylist— that you’re eager to learn and do better.
Your skills should relate closely to your profession instead of vaguely stating general qualities about you, even if those qualities are great. For example: “Personable” is an excellent trait to have, but something like “Patience” or “Active Listening” would relate more to how you interact with clients and senior hair stylists.
Make sure you really hone your skills on your resume, too, just like you do each day in the salon! Specify what you do as a junior hair stylist, like station prep or fashion colors.
9 most popular junior hair stylist skills
- Color Preparation
- Active Listening
- Attention to Detail
- Cleanliness
- Adaptability
- Shampoo/Conditioning
- Style/Trend Knowledge
- Blow-Drying and Styling
- Station Cleanup
Sample junior hair stylist work experience bullet points
Looking good! Now that you’ve shared your skills, you can show recruiters your ability to apply them with style. Past examples of how you’ve created success with the skills on your list will reinforce your credibility and demonstrate your established skill level.
Just like your skills, each example should relate directly to the junior hair stylist role. Even if your previous jobs weren’t directly relevant to a salon setting, you can comb through your history for examples of great customer service or flexibility.
And always measure your impact! Your experiences need numbers like quantifiable personal ratings and customer satisfaction or profitability percentages.
Here are some nice samples:
- Upsold products to over 210 clients, increasing salon revenue by 37%
- Scheduled and updated calendars, confirmed client appointments, and processed client paperwork and payments with a 98% accuracy rate
- Created lasting bonds through a friendly attitude and active listening, boosting engagement and earning a personal rating of 4.8/5.0 stars
- Attended regional events to obtain products at a 20% discount, saving the salon $1,821 per month
- Introduced additional amenities like complimentary hair care guides, increasing client return rates by 22%
Top 5 Tips for Your Junior Hair Stylist Resume
- Angle your experience
- See how even experiences from totally unrelated jobs (like childcare or receptionist roles) can be spun to boost your credibility as a junior hair stylist? Things like client booking, active listening, and relationship building all apply in the salon setting, too!
- Use thoughtful language
- Think of how you broke broader interpersonal skills into abilities that just say “junior hair stylist” and take the same approach with your experience points. Word each point in a way that emphasizes its relevance to your field.
- Don’t ignore that ad!
- Circle back to the original job description for each application so that you can tweak your resume to mirror their specific requests. You don’t want to over-emphasize your soft skills if you’re applying for a role that’s all about honing your techniques, and fast!
- Show learning and growth
- Since you’re in a junior role, you’ll want to demonstrate your ability to adapt to your environment and learn as you go. Reinforce your ability to learn incredible hair styling skills by arranging previous experiences with increasing complexity over time.
- Avoid weak metrics
- Sometimes metrics can be tricky, but there are a few you should always avoid. If you have any “floating” numbers that don’t connect to your main success point, ditch ’em! For example: It doesn’t really matter how many appointments you completed unless the time frame or client satisfaction increase was extra impressive.
Always include your high school (or higher) education that’s prepared you for your next dream role. And don’t forget the cosmetology license that qualifies you to work in a salon—especially state-specific licenses, if you’re applying locally.
Don’t worry: You don’t have to! While you need to limit yourself to a one-page resume, don’t add any fluff just to fill space: Quality is more important than quantity.
If you have more fresh information to add about your qualifications but your thoughts don’t quite work for an experience point, you can always add an objective statement to your resume. And if you have a few more impressive points, consider including a cover letter!
