Polish Your Glamorous Resume

We often find clients drafting their resumes need a little direction when it comes to the placement of information in the document. Understandably so, after all, what is the difference between highlights of qualifications, transferable skills, and technical skills?

Creating your resume is easy once you understand the difference between these categories.

Highlights of Qualifications

Like movie highlights show the best parts of a movie, your resume highlights your top achievements. This category is where you put any experiences that make you stand out. For example, a Hairstylist that wants to highlight their impressive amount of experience might say, “Licensed Hairstylist with 15+ years of experience in high-end salons.”

On the other hand, a Hairstylist with less experience cutting hair but very skillful in selling product might say, “Recognized for increasing retail product sales by 40% through personalized recommendations.”

Transferable Skills

In the beauty industry, transferable skills are soft skills that apply across various roles in salons, spas, retail, or freelance beauty work. In other words, these skills are useful regardless of the environment/job setting.

A common example that are very valuable in the beauty industry include Customer Service skills. This is the ability to build trust with clients. Examples include learning the name, story, and preferences of each client.

Another common example is Time Management. Arriving to work and starting the appointment on time shows the client respect. The ability to manage appointments efficiently is very important in the beauty industry.

Technical Skills

Technical skills are specific, hands-on skills and certifications relevant to beauty services. Depending on the type of resume you choose, technical skills can be placed under the “education” category, or can be placed in a category of its own.

Examples include Haircutting and colouring techniques, Skincare treatments (facials, dermaplaning, chemical peels) etc.

While product knowledge is not technical in nature, it is considered a technical skill as it is a job-specific and individuals often receive training in specific product lines. Examples include Dermalogica, Matrix, etc.

Another example of technical skills includes the use of equipment such as microcurrent devices, and the correct disposal of waste materials, such as dermaplaning blades.

Good luck!

EXECUTIVE SPA GROUP

Why is it so hard to write a resume?

Writing a resume is difficult when you lack work experience or the training required to do a specific job. However, even when you have experience and/or training, putting the words down on paper can still prove a challenging task.

We recommend breaking down your resume-writing into two components:

• Prep Day
• Typing Day

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Prep Day

What is your job goal? Have you narrowed this down to the industry? The particular employer? The more research you do, the better your resume will look.

Now that you’ve thought about your goal, allow yourself some time to think about the skills you think you need to have for your goal. For example, if you want to start at a “ABC Salon and Spa” as a receptionist, ask yourself, “what skills does that receptionist need to have?”

Let’s brainstorm…a good receptionist…

• has a friendly demeanour and a welcoming smile
• knows about services and products sold
• is able to answer questions from clients
• needs to work well with people
• knows basic math
• is able to use point of sales and booking systems
• has good phone manners
• ensures the clean maintenance of the facility
• supports the team

Now that we’ve thought about the skills you would need for that particular position, ask yourself:

“What skills do I have that relate?”

Don’t focus so much on your duties at your previous job, as much as the skills you applied there.

If you have little to no work experience, think about skills you may use on your free time. What are your hobbies? Do they include particular skills?

Now that we have a list of your skills to pick from for later, our second task is to think about the personality traits required for your goal.

For example, a good receptionist has the following traits:

• friendly
• punctual
• organized
• intuitive
• research-oriented

Now that you’ve thought about the traits you would need for that particular position, ask yourself, “what traits do I have that relate?”

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Typing Day

Now that you have well-though-out ideas, organizing them into a resume will be a breeze!

Types of Resumes

1. Chronological resume- your best bet if you have sufficient experience and the training required for your objective
2. Functional resume- an excellent choice for those with little to no work experience
3. Combo resume- best for those with skills from another industry not related to your job goal

Visit our job bank.

Visit our job bank for beauty industry jobs. It is Alberta Beauty Industry- focused and contains up-to-date job listings in Alberta. 

EXECUTIVE SPA GROUP

Beauty Industry Resources

(780) 604 2772