I am a doer, a crafter, and a maker of things.
Rather than be judged solely on the merits of my abilities to motivate staff and generate income as a salon, I would prefer to be recognized for my technical merits as a stylist.
I am a listener and a thinker, and I have a strong rapport with people sitting in my chair... they tell me what they want, and I give it to them, often exceeding their expectations.
I am an alchemist. I turn lead into gold, ash into cream, mouse into merlot, straw into silk, straight into curl, and vice versa.
I am a creator and a skilled artisan. My medium is hair. I cut and sculpt and design. I color and retexturize. I curl and straighten and coif using a variety of tools available to me.
However, I find myself being assigned a skill-set based solely on the places I have worked, as opposed to an expansive and diverse skill-set built on years of experience and education from a variety of sources.
The artistic creative director of a well-known international haircare line taught me, hands-on, how to cut an entire seasonal collection's worth of styles.
I have taken cutting and trend classes from at least a score of acclaimed stylists and educators working for well-respected companies in my industry.
But, I have been boiled down to a chain-salon hack by two little words: Hair and Cuttery.
And two scathing more: Ulta Salon.
And probably even these accursed three: Department Store Salon.
Oh, and we mustn't forget the crippling status of SALON MANAGER.
I pass out my resume left and right, and the few interviews with which I have been begrudgingly given invitation to attend have made me feel very discouraged.
The Aveda salon at which I have interviewed would want me to completely quit cutting hair the way I have learned to do over the past decade-plus, forgoing the use of clippers and razors and whatnot for the pure, unsullied use of shears.
It absolutely used to boggle my mind at the inability of people graduating from Aveda schools to cut mens hair shorter than a couple of inches in length. That's because they only teach them how to cut hair with one tool: the shears basic to our trade. No experimentation with other methods of cutting are required or desired.
Now I understand.
And, because I have no experience with Aveda color, despite specializing in color and years and years of working with oodles of different color lines, many of which I have had to use pure extrapolation to convert formulas from one brand to another - with great success mind you, I would not be allowed to do color on clients for a couple of months until I had taken a series of color classes and then gone through a monitored probationary period of color application to mannequins and models until deemed fit to work on paying customers.
Oh, and that's only if they call me back in the next couple of weeks for a technical interview, and want to then offer me employment.
I also interviewed with a Bumble and bumble salon. Prior to even interviewing me, they had determined by reading my resume that I would have to go through at least 4 to 6 months of junior stylist training and classes before being allowed to work on the client floor, because of my limited skill-set.
Also provided that they invite me back in the next several weeks for a technical interview, and still want to hire me.
I honestly believe that they would rather take fresh grads and bend them to their will through a year or so of intensive training, than give someone like me a chance.
Speaking of fresh grads, did you know that in the state of Illinois, you graduate with 1500 hours of academic experience, the majority of which is theoretical and untested?
The beauty school attendees graduate, take a standardized knowledge-based test on a computer, and enter the workforce.
Stylists fresh out of school can't cut hair. Seriously.
Most of them also don't understand color theory, or have a very limited knowledge or understanding of how to perform chemical services.
They either enter an apprenticeship or junior stylist program with a fancy salon, or they go to a chain salon and learn by experimentation on clients, watching other stylists work, and from being taught behind the chair by their managers and coworkers, or taking basic cutting/coloring/styling classes provided by the company.
Hell, most of them don't seem capable of curling someone's hair with a curling iron, much less pinning it up into a hairstyle.
The only thing newly graduated stylists seem to uniformly be capable of doing is a decent blow dry.
Oh, and they all seem to think that they have mastered the art of using a flat iron.
By the way, many of the educators at schools like Pivot Point have been doing hair less than two years themselves, and some of them have NO actual salon experience. They go through the curriculum, graduate, get licensed, and then turn around and learn how to teach the curriculum to new students.
In Iowa, you go to school for 2100 hours. The last 4 - 6 months of school is almost exclusively spent on the client floor, getting a shitload of experience working with hair and refining techniques, under the supervision and tutelage of practicing cosmetologists who are also instructors.
I graduated school, went to state boards for both practical and knowledge-based testing*, and then went to work for a private Aveda salon.
For the first 3 months, I was an apprentice, only allowed to work on the hair of request clients, or to provide manicures, pedicures or facials to anyone who wanted them. I learned a lot through observation, unlearning a few stupid things I'd been taught at beauty school, and did a lot of scalp massages and washing of client hair as a shampoo girl. Oh, and I ran a lot of errands.
After 3 months, they decided my talents were better spent behind the chair working on paying customers because I was good at doing hair. That isn't to say I didn't spend some time being an aesthetician and nail tech, because no one else would do it, but I was an actual, licensed, business card-carrying stylist.
Not once, in the last 15 years, has any salon ever questioned my ability to perform my job without compromising the integrity of my client's hair, regardless of salon business model or designated time allowance.
I need a job, you need experienced stylists... how about giving me an opportunity to shine for you, instead of treating me like an undesirable idiot?
...
*Now in Iowa, much like here in Illinois, you can't graduate from school until you are capable of passing what would have previously been the practical portion of the state board test. And then you take a standardized knowledge-based test on a computer.
I went to school with people that graduated school, went through state board prep, were deemed ready for state boards, and still never passed the practical portion of testing, thusly never becoming actual hairstylists.
I don't trust the quality of stylists graduating from either Illinois or Iowa schools anymore.
