Examples & writing guide
Hairdresser CV example and writing guide
Updated 8 July 2026
A good hairdresser CV should feel as polished as the service you give a client: clear, considered and suited to the salon. This guide explains how to present your consultation skills, technical range, client care and commercial results, with practical wording you can adapt using figures and details you can defend.
Examples by experience level
Junior Hairdresser
TemplateAshford1 / 5
Why this works
This hairdresser CV sample pairs practical salon experience with clear evidence of client care, technical development and dependable commercial results.
Continue writing your CVExperienced Hairdresser
TemplateNavy Atlas4 / 5
Why this works
This hairdresser CV sample combines a loyal client book, varied technical services and clear commercial results without overstating seniority.
Continue writing your CVSenior Hairdresser
TemplateTeal Signal2 / 5
Why this works
This CV gives a salon clear evidence of Riley's technical range, loyal client book, commercial results and team leadership.
Continue writing your CVJunior vs senior: what changes
| Aspect | Junior | Senior |
|---|---|---|
| Personal statement | Lead with training, transferable customer service and the techniques you have practised. State the kind of salon role you are seeking without presenting supervised work as independent experience. | Open with years of experience, service strengths, leadership scope and a measurable client or commercial result. Make the scale of responsibility clear within the first few lines. |
| Technical evidence | Show sound foundations in consultation, shampooing, cutting and finishing. Draw examples from practical training, placements, supervised services or early salon employment. | Show a broader service range and consistent delivery across varied client requirements. Use selected examples to demonstrate judgement, complex work and responsibility for service standards. |
| Achievement metrics | Use modest, verifiable measures such as clients or models supported, appointments assisted, punctual completion or products sold during a placement. | Prioritise defensible measures such as rebooking, client retention, revenue, retail performance, column utilisation or improvement over a stated period. |
| Client care | Give specific examples of listening, explaining a service, protecting privacy and helping clients feel comfortable. Evidence matters more than a list of friendly-sounding adjectives. | Show how consultation and client care supported loyalty, resolved concerns or improved the service delivered by colleagues. Separate personal results from team-wide outcomes. |
| Commercial contribution | Mention suitable product recommendations, service promotion and support for salon goals. Be precise about your contribution and avoid claiming sole responsibility for team results. | Quantify responsibility for retail selling, service promotion, pricing input, client development or team targets. State the period and scope behind every percentage or monetary figure. |
| Leadership and safety | Show consistent use of safe working methods, infection-control routines and incident-reporting procedures during practical work or employment. | Add evidence of coaching colleagues, monitoring working methods, responding to incidents and managing workplace risks. Describe the team, frequency or improvement so the claim has weight. |
How to write a hairdresser CV
Use reverse-chronological order, beginning with your current or most recent role. A clear structure works well: contact details, personal statement, employment history, skills, education, then relevant extras. Keep the design professional and straightforward, with a readable font, consistent spacing and enough white space to separate sections. Save the finished hairdresser CV as a PDF unless the vacancy requests another format.
Aim for one page if you are entering the trade with limited experience. Two pages are reasonable when you have several roles, a broad technical background or management evidence worth retaining. Do not squeeze the text simply to hit a page count. A hiring manager should be able to find your level, specialisms and recent results within seconds.
| Section | What to include | What to leave out |
|---|---|---|
| Header | Name, UK location, mobile, professional email and optional profile link | Photo, date of birth and full street address |
| Personal statement | Experience level, relevant specialism, evidence of results and the role you want | Generic enthusiasm that could describe any applicant |
| Employment history | Recent roles, service range, client care, achievements and measurable outcomes | Long lists of routine duties without context |
| Skills | Technical and people skills that match the vacancy | Unrelated abilities or unsupported claims |
| Education | Qualification title, provider and completion date | Lengthy module descriptions unless directly relevant |
| Extras | Relevant awards, languages or other useful evidence | Hobbies that add nothing to the application |
Tailor the content
Match the tone of the advert and salon without copying its wording wholesale. A fashion-led studio may care about creative work and varied looks, while another employer may place more weight on consultation, discretion, repeat bookings or retail performance. Use the vacancy to decide which truthful evidence appears first. This is where a flexible hairdresser CV template helps: keep the layout, but rewrite the content for each application.
Your hairdresser personal statement should cover your level of experience, strongest area, one credible result and immediate career direction. New entrants can draw on supervised practical work, training and transferable customer service. Experienced candidates should state their specialism and the value they have delivered.
Under each job, use three to seven concise points. Lead with achievements where possible, then cover responsibilities that matter to the vacancy, such as consultation-led services, client care, safe working methods, teamwork or product promotion. Use only booking, retention, sales, service-volume or satisfaction figures that you can verify.
Build the skills section from the role itself. Combine relevant practical know-how with communication and service skills, but avoid padding it with fashionable terms you cannot demonstrate. List education compactly and place recent, relevant study ahead of older schooling. Add awards, languages or other sections only when they strengthen your suitability. If your experience is mainly in treatments such as facials, waxing or massage rather than hair services, the beauty therapist CV guide is a closer fit.
Personal statement examples
Client-focused hairdresser with five years of salon experience delivering consultation-led cutting, styling and finishing services. Built a loyal appointment book while supporting product recommendations and maintaining careful client records. Now seeking a busy salon role where thoughtful consultations, reliable service and a calm manner will contribute to repeat business.
Friendly and creative person looking for a hairdressing job. I work hard, enjoy meeting people and can do many different hairstyles. I would like a role where I can learn more and become successful.
Writing your experience
Employment history is strongest when it shows what changed because of your work. Use a simple pattern: action + scope + result. The action says what you did, the scope makes the example believable, and the result explains why it mattered. Metrics might cover repeat bookings, rebooking, retail sales, appointment volume, client feedback, service time or junior-team development. Include them only when they come from records or evidence you can explain.
A weak point often names a duty and stops there. A stronger version keeps the duty but adds the context and outcome:
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Cut and styled clients' hair | Delivered an average of 28 cutting and styling appointments each week, with 71% of clients rebooking before departure |
| Sold salon products | Used consultation notes to recommend suitable aftercare, increasing personal retail sales from £650 to £840 per month over one quarter |
| Helped junior staff | Coached three junior colleagues through weekly practical sessions, helping each reach the salon's service sign-off timetable |
Those figures are illustrative. Replace them with your own defensible evidence rather than estimating or copying the hairdresser CV sample.
Choose examples that fit the vacancy. For a client-facing stylist role, write about comprehensive consultations, agreed services, comfort, privacy and repeat custom. For a broader technical post, show the range of looks you have completed and the tools or methods you used. If the job includes commercial duties, give proportionate evidence of product recommendations, promotions or appointment-book performance. Senior applicants can add risk assessment, incident reporting, staffing, targets and coaching where those responsibilities were genuinely theirs.
Useful opening verbs include consulted, created, cut, styled, finished, advised, recommended, retained, increased, coached, scheduled, resolved and maintained. Vary them because the work varied, not merely to avoid repetition. Keep each point to one or two lines and put the strongest evidence first.
Do not turn every point into a sales claim. Hairdressing also depends on careful service: safe working methods, infection control, confidentiality and respectful client care can be credible achievements when you give them context. For example: "Introduced a documented tool-cleaning handover across six stations, reducing missed end-of-day checks from five in one month to zero in the next two." That is clearer than "Responsible for hygiene" because it identifies the action, scale and recorded result.
Key skills & ATS keywords
Hard skills
Soft skills
ATS keywords
Education & certifications
List qualifications in reverse-chronological order with the full title, training provider and completion year. If you are still studying, give the expected completion date and describe the practical work completed so far without implying that you already hold the award. Keep older education brief once salon experience has become the stronger evidence.
A trainee hairdresser may learn while working, with an employer expecting a part-time course at a college or its training school. Present that route plainly: name the course, provider, dates and current status, then add one or two relevant practical details if they support the vacancy. Do not describe an unfinished programme as completed.
For the Hairdressing Level 3 apprenticeship framework in Northern Ireland, the route requires a listed combined competence- and knowledge-based qualification. Two listed options are the City & Guilds Level 3 Diploma for Advanced and Creative Hair Professionals 603/5495/1, issued by City & Guilds, and the VTCT Level 3 Diploma in Hairdressing 610/4309/6, issued by VTCT. This is route-specific guidance for that Northern Ireland framework, not a universal entry condition for every hairdressing vacancy. Include either title only when it is the exact qualification you hold or are taking.
Business qualifications are optional, but they may help hairdressers whose aim is to manage or open a salon or barbershop alongside their hairdressing experience. Place them after your main vocational education unless management is central to the vacancy.
Avoid a loose catalogue of workshops. Give space to education that supports the advertised work and state attendance-only training accurately. A short, honest entry is better than a named credential whose level, issuer or completion status cannot be checked.
Common mistakes to avoid
AvoidListing services without explaining the result, leaving the reader with no sense of client response, rebooking performance, retail contribution or workload.
InsteadTurn duties into concise evidence. State what you did, the scale of the work and a defensible result. Use only figures you can verify through booking records, sales reports, feedback or other reliable records.
AvoidSending the same generic hairdresser CV to salons with different clients, service menus and working styles.
InsteadAdjust the order and wording of your evidence for each vacancy and salon culture. Give the most space to the services, client groups, client-care examples and commercial results that match that employer.
AvoidWriting a hairdresser personal statement that says only that you are creative, friendly and passionate.
InsteadName your experience level, strongest service areas, one credible result and the kind of role you want. Keep the tone friendly and professional, and make every claim specific enough to support elsewhere in the CV.
AvoidFilling the skills section with broad claims or unrelated abilities while leaving out practical hairdressing techniques.
InsteadChoose technical and interpersonal skills that fit the vacancy and that you can demonstrate through employment, training or supervised practice. Reuse the vacancy's wording only when it accurately describes your experience.
AvoidUsing an elaborate hairdresser CV template that is difficult to scan, with cramped text, inconsistent spacing or important details buried in decorative elements.
InsteadChoose a simple, attractive layout with a readable font, clear section labels and sufficient white space. Check the exported PDF on both a computer and a mobile before sending it.
AvoidAdding hobbies, short courses or awards simply to fill space, even when they add nothing to the application.
InsteadKeep an extra section only when it gives the salon useful evidence, such as relevant language ability, client-facing volunteering or a directly applicable achievement. Otherwise, use the space to strengthen your employment, practical training or results.
Frequently asked questions
Keep it concise enough for a salon manager to scan quickly, normally one or two pages according to your experience. Give recent, relevant roles the most space, remove repeated duties and retain enough detail to show your results.
Use practical training, placements, customer-facing employment and supervised work with clients or models. Describe the services you practised, the setting and the outcome, but use only numbers you can defend and make supervision clear.
No. A British CV does not normally include a photo or date of birth. Use the available space for relevant skills, employment, practical training and results instead.
Cover your experience level, main styling or service strengths, a relevant accomplishment and your next career aim. Shape these points around the salon's needs rather than repeating a generic introduction that could fit any vacancy.
Read the vacancy and the salon's public information, then move the most relevant services, client-care evidence and commercial results towards the top. Match the salon's tone while keeping the writing professional, friendly and straightforward.
Yes. Keep earlier roles when they demonstrate useful evidence such as client communication, appointment handling, retail selling, teamwork or reliability. Place your hairdressing training and practical experience prominently, and do not relabel unrelated duties as salon work.
From example to application
Turn this hairdresser example into a CV that sounds like you.
Keep the structure that works. Tailor the details around your experience, strengths, and the role you want.