Hi!
My name's Alice, as you may have guessed from the blog title. I'm 20 at the time of writing this and I live in the South West of England.
A few months ago I decided I wanted to pursue hairdressing as a career, and I'm going to use this blog to document the progress I make.
The first obstacle I found when I decided I wanted to do hairdressing, was finding an apprenticehip. It seemed to me like there were so many places hiring that I'd be bound to find a placement within the space of a few weeks. Well, that wasn't the case. And it still isn't!
As I live in the UK I used the Government Apprenticeship Service, which is a website set up to list local apprenticeship vacancies. Which sounds great, right? The issue I found was that several of these apprenticeships listed either were already filled or didn't exist at all! This doesn't mean I don't reccomend using it - because I totally do. It's a fantastic resource; just remember you need to double check some vacancies.
The best tip I can give to anyone trying and struggling to find an apprenticeship is to reach out to the employer directly. This means for starters that you'll know for sure that the apprenticeship vacancy actually exists.
Quite often you'll find on the .Gov website that the applications are processed by a training company. This means that sometimes your application won't reach the employer. The best way to contact an employer would, ideally, be by phone. But if the company have a Facebook page it can be quicker and easier to contact a number of employers just by sending a message to them. Don't be disheartened if it seems as though they've seen the message and ignored it - quite often they're very busy and just waiting for enough time to reply to you.
If there's a few salons local to you that aren't advertising but you're wondering if they have a vacancy, definitely give them a ring. I phoned 2 salons in my area and although one didn't have a vacancy, another did. They took down my details and said they would contact me in a couple of weeks. Remember - the more salons that you approach, the more likely it is you'll find a placement.
Even after all of this, I still have struggled to find an employer. However, I did manage to contact Toni & Guy, who have been looking for apprentices for a while now. I first approached them via Facebook, and was asked to email a CV. I did that, and after 6 days hadn't heard anything. As I happened to be in the area recently, I popped into the salon just to ask when to expect a response.
The receptionist actually remembered that I had Facebook messaged them, and they offered me an interview slot then and there. This totally proves it's worth it just to suck it up and approach an employer you're interested in, even if it makes you nervous! I very nearly didn't go in to the salon because I felt too nervous, but I believe if I didn't I probably wouldn't have been interviewed.
Remember, looking keen will always be attractive to an employer. It shows you're motivated and you're not going to waste their time if they'll be investing in you as an apprentice - this particularly will apply to those over the age of 19 where the government will no longer fully fund you. You have to make yourself seem worth the money a company will need to pay to educate you.
And that's as far as I've got so far! I'm yet to hear back from Toni & Guy after my interview - although I felt that went really well. I'm also waiting on a response from the local hairdresser I phoned, and there are several other applications I've made too. Probably about 15.
I hope this post helps someone, I know I certainly could have used a resource like this when I first started looking for my apprenticeship!
Thanks for reading,
Alice x x x
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