The most common hair color in the world is black. Do you know who would know that? Hairstylists. With the majority of people coloring their hair nowadays, hair stylists are in more demand than ever.
It takes roughly three years to grow your hair out to your shoulders. And seven years to reach your waist. At that rate, we're guessing you've visited a hair stylist a few times during that period. A lot of hairstylists work in small businesses or even own their own shop. Some find work as teachers at a beauty school.
As you shampoo, cut and dye hair, you may be wondering about the hours. Generally, if you work at a small business, you probably will get to make your own hours. You'll get to work whenever it's convenient for you. It doesn't get any better than that.
Hair Stylist Overview
Hair Stylist Careers
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a hair stylist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $17.34 an hour? That's $36,073 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 8% and produce 63,900 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Hair Stylist Do
There are certain skills that many hair stylists have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed creativity, customer-service skills and listening skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a hair stylist, we found that a lot of resumes listed 40.9% of hair stylists included cosmetology, while 11.9% of resumes included communication, and 9.6% of resumes included new trends. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the hair stylist job title. But what industry to start with? Most hair stylists actually find jobs in the retail and hospitality industries.
How To Become a Hair Stylist
If you're interested in becoming a hair stylist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 7.0% of hair stylists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 2.2% of hair stylists have master's degrees. Even though some hair stylists have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a hair stylist. When we researched the most common majors for a hair stylist, we found that they most commonly earn license degrees or high school diploma degrees. Other degrees that we often see on hair stylist resumes include associate degree degrees or bachelor's degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a hair stylist. In fact, many hair stylist jobs require experience in a role such as cashier. Meanwhile, many hair stylists also have previous career experience in roles such as sales associate or customer service representative.
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Hair Stylist Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a hair stylist can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as certified nursing assistant, progress to a title such as team leader and then eventually end up with the title branch manager.
Hair Stylist Jobs You Might Like
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Average Salary for a Hair Stylist
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
Smartstyle Hair Salon By Regis/Gunbarrel Rd Cosmetologist/Hair Stylist Cosmetologist/Hair Stylist | Smartstyle Hair Salon By Regis/Gunbarrel Rd Smartstyle Hair Salon By Regis/Gunbarrel Rd | 06/29/2021 06/29/2021 | $18,78306/29/2021 $18,783 |
Cost Cutters Hair Salon Hair Stylist/Cosmetologist Hair Stylist/Cosmetologist | Cost Cutters Hair Salon Cost Cutters Hair Salon | 06/29/2021 06/29/2021 | $52,17506/29/2021 $52,175 |
Fantastic Sams Cut & Color of Phoenix Hair Stylist/Colorist Hair Stylist/Colorist | Fantastic Sams Cut & Color of Phoenix Fantastic Sams Cut & Color of Phoenix | 06/29/2021 06/29/2021 | $25,04406/29/2021 $25,044 |
Sport Clips Haircuts of Cheyenne Marketplace Hair Stylist Hair Stylist | Sport Clips Haircuts of Cheyenne Marketplace Sport Clips Haircuts of Cheyenne Marketplace | 06/29/2021 06/29/2021 | $37,56606/29/2021 $37,566 |
Sport Clips-Tx324 Hair Stylist & Manager Hair Stylist & Manager | Sport Clips-Tx324 Sport Clips-Tx324 | 06/29/2021 06/29/2021 | $37,56606/29/2021 $37,566 |
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Hair Stylist Resumes
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming a Hair Stylist. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
10 Best Resume Templates In 2021
Learn How To Write a Hair Stylist Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Hair Stylist resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationOnline Courses For Hair Stylist That You May Like
Creating a Customer Service advantage in Your department or business through communication and Customer Management...
For you and your team to be successful in providing great customer service, start by putting your customer first...
Top Skills For a Hair Stylist
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 40.9% of hair stylists listed cosmetology on their resume, but soft skills such as creativity and customer-service skills are important as well.
- Cosmetology, 40.9%
- Communication, 11.9%
- New Trends, 9.6%
- Makeup, 8.6%
- Retail Sales, 7.0%
- Other Skills, 22.0% See All Hair Stylist Skills
Best States For a Hair Stylist
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a hair stylist. The best states for people in this position are Idaho, Washington, Hawaii, and Maine. Hair stylists make the most in Idaho with an average salary of $45,001. Whereas in Washington and Hawaii, they would average $44,900 and $42,036, respectively. While hair stylists would only make an average of $42,025 in Maine, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Delaware
$40,899
Avg. Salary
2. Idaho
$45,001
Avg. Salary
3. Washington
$44,900
Avg. Salary
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