Never ask “what's the pay?” again

The jobs page for your city

Every city with open chairs has a jobs page. Anyone can look. You don't need an account or a sign-in. Posts are listed newest first. Salons that boosted their post sit at the very top, and those posts are marked. Each post is a card with the role, the schedule, how it pays, the tips range, and the salon. Here's what the page looks like.

The filters along the top match what's on every post. Use them to cut the list down to the jobs you'd really take.

• Pay structure: 60/40 commission, 70/30 commission, booth rental, or hourly plus tips.
• Tips a day: the salon's average, in ranges from under $50 to over $200.
• Schedule: full-time or part-time.
• Role: nail tech, receptionist, manager, or other.
• Posted: how new the post is. There's also a switch to see verified salons only. Those are the salons whose owner has claimed the listing.

How to read a post

An owner makes a post by tapping a few answers, and those answers are what you see. Every post tells you the role, full time or part time, how the job pays, the salon's average tips per day, and the services the chair does. There's a title and a description, and often a photo of the salon. Read two lines together: the pay and the tips.

• 60/40 commission: you keep 60 percent of what you bring in. 70/30: you keep 70.
• Booth rental: you rent the chair and keep your clients and your money. The post is marked as a contractor position.
• Hourly plus tips: the only one with numbers on it. You'll see a low and a high, per hour, week, or year.
• Tips a day: a 60/40 split at a salon with $200 tip days is a very different job from the same split with $40 days. If the tips say Varies, ask.

Every post has its own page, and that page opens with the work coming out of the salon. You'll see photos from the salon's listing, and sets with a tech's name on them that link to that tech's profile. Below the post are the salon's hours, its services, and a button to call the salon, for when you'd rather talk than type. How a profile gets on a salon's page.

Where else openings show up

The city page is the main spot. The same post can reach you four other ways too.

• The salon's own page, under Now Hiring.
• The state and national jobs pages, newest first. These show posts from salons whose listing is mostly filled in.
• The feed in your dashboard, once you're signed in. You can sort it by what's closest to you. How the feed works.
• The Thursday email. Sign up with your city, and each week you get the newest openings there, up to three. If there are none that week, you get nothing.

The email is the least work if you just want to keep an eye on a city. You don't need an account for it. Get the Thursday email.

What happens when you apply

There's no apply-by-phone and no outside link. You tap Easy Apply on the post and sign in if you haven't yet. Then you send two things: three to five photos of your own work, and a note to the owner that's 10 to 1,000 characters long. That's the whole application.

1. 01Your application starts a message thread with the owner in your dashboard inbox. Your photos and your note sit at the top. The owner gets a notification as soon as it comes in.
2. 02The owner replies in the thread. You talk about the chair, the hours, and a time to come in. Nobody shares a phone number until one of you wants to.
3. 03If you have a profile, the owner also gets a link to it. They'll see your sets, your rating, and the salons your reviews come from. That link is what gets you a reply.

You can apply to each post once, and only that owner is told. Your current salon isn't notified, and nothing shows on your public profile. Licenses aren't part of the application. An owner who wants to check one uses the license lookup, which reads the state board directly.

Before you apply

An owner reading applications is choosing between three or four techs in one afternoon. The tech whose work they can see wins. Five minutes of prep before you apply matters more than the note.

• Build your profile first. It takes a few minutes, and it's the link the owner opens before they reply. What's on it.
• Have five photos of your best sets ready on your phone. Good light, close up. The application asks for three to five, and they're the first thing the owner sees.
• Read the salon's page. The hours, services, photos, and reviews tell you if it's a chair you'd want, before you use your one application on it.
• Check the pay against the tips. If the post leaves something out, ask about it in your note.
• Write your note for that salon, not for every salon. Two lines about why you want this chair and what you do best beat a paragraph about yourself.

Posts last 30 days

A post is live for 30 days from the moment the owner publishes it. Then it comes off every page and its link stops working. An owner who fills the chair early can delete the post sooner. So any post you can see is a chair that was open within the last month, and the newest posts are your best bets. If you're going to apply, do it the week you see it.

Owners who are still hiring on day 30 post again, and the new post goes back to the top of the page as the newest one. If you see the same chair twice, it's still open.

Job search checklist

1. 01Create your profile and add 5 photos of your best sets.
2. 02Open the jobs page for your city and filter by the pay structure you want.
3. 03Read the salon's page before you apply. Call if you'd rather talk.
4. 04Apply with a note written for that salon, then watch your inbox.
5. 05Sign up for the Thursday email so you hear about next week's chairs without checking.

You don't need an account to look, and applying is free. See the jobs in your city. Know an owner who needs a tech? Here's how salons post a job.