Unconventional Ways to Land Your Next Role in the Beauty Industry
BEAUTYHIRED 2024
You Have to Shoot Your Shot
Some of the best career opportunities I’ve had didn’t come from an Indeed or LinkedIn ad. They came from networking and connecting with leaders in the beauty industry through previous roles or direct outreach online.
I believe that many people wait for an opportunity to appear, like an online ad, but then they compete against hundreds of other candidates. While that can work, some of the most effective ways to land your next role come not from waiting or relying on opportunities, but creating them.
Today, I’ll share my favorite ways to land your next job in the beauty industry.
Follow Your Mentor
After working at the Spa at Equinox in NYC, I saw that my previous Director of Operations had moved to Skin Laundry, a rapidly expanding laser + light studio. I reached out on LinkedIn to reconnect, and a month later, I was running their Flatiron flagship location.
Tip 1: Connect and stay in touch with industry professionals, especially those familiar with your work ethic. This keeps you top of mind for future openings and expedites the interview + hiring process.
Tip 2: Don’t hesitate to reach out, even if there’s no job posted. Hiring managers often make room for good candidates or may have upcoming roles that they haven’t posted about yet.
Before SKINNEY Medspa, I interviewed and accepted three positions that all started on the same day. While I don’t recommend that you do that in today’s job market, here are 3 unconventional ways how I found those roles:
Unconventional Job Hunting
The first role was at The Organic Pharmacy in the West Village.I connected with the regional manager through a colleague who knew I was job hunting and was then introduced to the hiring manager.
The second role was at Exhale Spa. I met Founder and CEO Annbeth Eschbach when she visited Skin Laundry. I had no idea who she was, but her email address indicated she worked at Exhale. I mentioned collaborating on partnerships, impressed - she gave me her business card and told me to email her. A week later, I was discussing job opportunities with her COO, Julia Sutton at their corporate office in Midtown.
(Side note - Julia tragically passed away earlier this year, she was an impressive and admirable woman in the beauty industry, she did, and still inspires me to continue to strive for success.)
Tip 3: You never know when you’ll meet an industry leader. Always be ready to network and exchange contact information. You have nothing to lose by putting yourself out there and making a possible personal or professional connection.
Reaching Out Proactively
My current job at SKINNEY Medspa came from submitting my resume, even though we weren’t hiring at the time. SKINNEY had never hired an operations manager or even a spa manager before. That said, founder Adriana Martino called me within days to set up an interview, was impressed with my experience, and the rest as they say, is history.
Tip 4: Reach out to businesses, hiring managers, or founders even if they aren’t hiring. Great candidates with a strong cover letter and resume can often create opportunities for themselves.
If you are a great candidate with an excellent cover letter and resume that express your passion for joining the team, you can captivate a hiring manager so much that they may try to make room for you, even if there isn’t an immediate need.
Qualified and passionate candidates make some of the best hires I've ever had the pleasure of working with. The combination of their eagerness and enthusiasm are contagious, inspiring and motivating everyone around them.
I hope these examples and tips inspire you to reach out to a company, hiring manager, or founder this week and shoot your shot. Don’t wait for an opportunity—create one. It could change the whole trajectory of your life—it did for me.
If you missed it, last week I shared my very best tips on “How to Get Discovered By Recruiters in The Beauty Industry.” Link here: https://bit.ly/4cc1Aam
Next week, I’ll share more of my favorite tips on how to land your next job in the beauty industry.
Cheers,
Lindsay Malachowski
