Posting on job sites like Indeed.com is the natural first step in a routine job search, but it seems tanning businesses have always been more successful at finding candidates through those alternative methods, and that’s even more true in today’s hiring environment.

Customers are always a source of employees for many salons who are clearly at least interested in tanning. Especially with regulars, staff members will get to know them to some degree and have some insight onto their potential value as an employee. In this day and age, promoting job opportunities can be just as important as promoting products and services. Some of your in-salon promotional “real estate” should now be dedicated to showing customers job benefits and why it’s a great place to work.

Salons are also having success leveraging their social media presence as a significant hiring tool. There are some unique advantages of hiring through social media. The same applies to your “in real life” presence in your community, but if you have a large following on social media and a good reputation, people that follow you should be familiar with your business and be likely to have some interest in applying or recommending the opportunity to friends. Having someone apply directly through Facebook also makes it easy to start your screening process by checking out their social media accounts.

Beyond the most common platforms – Facebook and Instagram – TikTok has now become an even more powerful promotional tool for presenting an attractive image to both potential clients and employees. The benefit of promoting job opportunities on TikTok is it’s something that’s highly relatable to the younger demographics. Current staff enjoy doing it in addition to appealing to potential hires. Posting TikToks with your staff makes you look like a fun place to work. In today’s competitive hiring market, that can carry a significant benefit against all the other types of businesses that can’t or won’t let their staff embrace their own skills and interests.

When it comes to crafting an attractive job posting, yes, you’re going to offer adequate pay and benefits, but you also have other strengths you can use. Tanning is cool. Your tanning and skin care products are cool. It’s not going to make up for paying a whole lot less, but free tanning and discounted products will mean a lot to the right people, and working in a tanning business will be perceived as a more glamorous role than fast food or other retail options in most cases.

One of your greatest inherent benefits is the ability to offer free tanning. That won’t appeal to everybody, but it will appeal to the people you want – people that are already interested in tanning. Then, when you’re outlining compensation in your job postings, focus on commission. Again, that will appeal to some and not others, but the ones it will appeal to are the ones you want anyway. In general, your commission program is the most important aspect that can set you apart from other retail or service jobs that are hiring.