Before you march down a career path into the grooming industry you must make vitally important decisions which will affect your entire career. The all important question for career seekers entering the industry is, “What is your plan for grooming education?” Our best assistance is to share the common options.
 

Some career seekers take the easiest path. They need a job quickly and accept minimal education. That's understandable. It's important they don't forget continuing education opportunities online, onsite at seminars and workshops and home study material such as DVDs. Other career seekers secure the best educational opportunities beforehand and plan on more continuing education. Most career seekers fall somewhere between these two extremes.

What's important for you to know now is this, every career seeker requires continuing education for years ahead. Therefore you have immediate need for educational opportunities to get started, and several years of continuing to achieve the level of excellence you demand for yourself and the owners and pets you serve.

Cost is certainly a factor when choosing an educational path. Unfortunately, the cost of education leads many career seekers to acquire inadequate education taking the shortest program possible. It often shows. Experienced pet groomers watching you groom can easily decipher how much education and experience you have behind you.

Pet grooming school tuition may sound expensive, and without cash or credit, seem all the more expensive. However, let’s be fair and accurate. “Expensive” is not the correct word to use when the cost is out of your reach. Most programs cost about $8 to $20 an hour and last 600 or less hours. In fairness, compare the cost of a grooming education to the cost of a 4 year college education. Wow! Your initial grooming education is reasonable! Consider this amazing fact. Many graduates of college earn far less income than skilled groomers too! We’re not done with this comparison yet. You also didn’t invest 4 years of your time, you can be out of school in 2 to 4 months and earning an income!

How many other professions can offer you $1 million gross incomes over a 20 year period for an $8,000 grooming school education and about “one semester” of your time compared to college? Not many.

Grooming schools are not “expensive.” Certainly tuition may be out of reach, and financial aid is then your solution. Some schools offer financial aid. It may be from a private arrangement or associated with government programs. Ask schools about their financial aid opportunities.

Here is another interesting experience to share with you. Veterinarians have contacted our PetGroomer.com consultants about hiring groomers for the first time. Their alarm was obvious. They didn’t know how to explain to veterinary school graduates that their groomer employees were going to be earning higher wages.

If you don’t go to school you may find an apprenticeship. Most apprenticeships cost you nothing; you may need to provide your own toolkit. Your biggest investment is time, and every experienced groomer knows that time is money. An apprenticeship may take years. Compare that to a school education over within weeks.

There are risks with apprenticeships. Just as there no commonly adopted formats for educating pet groomers by state licensed schools, there is even less formalization with apprenticeships. Your apprenticeship is only as good as the groomer teaching you. We've known hundreds of groomers that did apprentice, and some worked for us after they apprenticed elsewhere. Most needed plenty of correction and more continuing education before they met our standards. Apprenticeship is a viable route, but you must realize there are no guarantees as to what you will learn.

Don’t expect a large number of apprenticeships to be awaiting your interest. Do you know how many times apprentice groomers have quit on employers as soon as they figured out they had learned all they could? The number is similar to how many grains of sand make a beach. It’s rampant. Not many employers are willing to be burned by apprentices that won’t stay on for at least a year or two in respect. Don’t give up on apprenticeships, we still see them being offered in the PetGroomer.com Help Wanted Ads. Training opportunities are also available with the corporate chains but they are certain to have some stipulations in return for training you.

We suggest you write an educational plan now. In fact, we're going to help you write one in the next section of this chapter.

Click the Next bone to start your educational plan.