Dog Groomer CV Examples & Writing Guide

This is a CV for a groomer with seven years in the industry who now runs a table in a busy salon and has her own book of clients. The person and the salons are made up. Notice that dogs per day, breeds and the safety record are all in the first six lines, because a salon owner is deciding whether you can be handed a table on Saturday.

Grooming is paid by the dog in most salons, so the owner is working out one thing: how much of the book can they hand you, and how soon. Four things answer that.

• Dogs per day and the mix. "8 to 10 dogs, 70% full haircuts" tells an owner your speed and your level in one line. A groomer doing 12 bath-and-tidies is not the same as one doing 7 full doodle haircuts.
• Breeds and cuts you can do alone. Name them. Poodle patterns, doodle work, hand-stripping, double-coat de-shedding, cat grooming and difficult ears are all separate skills, and salons hire for the gap they have.
• Your safety and handling record. Nicks, clipper burn, quicked nails, dryer incidents, bites. A groomer with a clean record and a calm way with anxious dogs is the one who keeps clients.
• Whether clients come back. Rebooking rate, size of your book, review score, and whether clients would follow you. This is the number that decides your pay.

“Tell me your dogs per day, your breed list and your rebooking, and I know your level before you ever pick up a clipper. Then I want the honest handling answer: what you do with a dog that snaps at the nail grinder, and when you stop and call the owner instead of pushing through a matted coat.”

Three or four lines with numbers: dogs per day, breeds, rebooking, qualification. If you are just starting, use a career objective built around handling experience and how far you got in training.

"Bathed and groomed dogs" appears on every grooming CV in the pile. Add the count, the breed or the standard and the same task starts telling the owner what you can be trusted with.

Twelve to fourteen skills, split between the cutting work, the handling and the business side. Being specific about coats and breeds is what separates a groomer's CV from a pet-lover's.

• Cutting and finishing: breed-standard patterns (poodle, schnauzer, cocker, westie, bichon), doodle and mixed-coat haircuts, teddy bear and kennel cuts, scissoring and blending, blade and comb attachment selection, hand-stripping and carding, de-shedding for double coats, hygiene and paw pad trims, cat grooming.

• Bathing and prep: high-velocity and fluff drying, cage dryer safety, medicated, flea and whitening shampoos, skin condition awareness, de-matting rules and owner consent, nail clipping and grinding, ear cleaning, anal gland expression only if your salon policy allows it.

• Handling and safety: reading stress signals, low-stress restraint, muzzle use and when not to use one, brachycephalic breed heat risk, senior and arthritic dog positioning, bite prevention, incident reporting, canine first aid.

• Business and salon: client consultations with photo notes, online booking software such as MoeGo, add-on and retail sales, pricing by coat condition, blade sharpening and clipper maintenance, hygiene between dogs, kennel management.

There is no licence to be a dog groomer in the UK, and no legal requirement to hold a qualification before you work. That makes a recognised qualification a real advantage, because it is one of the few things a salon can check before the working interview. A council animal activity licence can apply if the business also boards dogs or runs day care, and the rules differ across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, so check with the local council before you claim anything.

• City & Guilds dog grooming qualifications: a Level 2 certificate for grooming assistants and a Level 3 diploma for professional groomers. The best known route in UK salons.
• Other regulated Level 2 and Level 3 dog grooming qualifications offered through private grooming schools. Give the exact title and level from your certificate.
• Fear Free Certified Professional, a US-based online course on low-stress handling that some UK groomers and veterinary practices recognise.
• A canine first aid course, kept current. Cheap, quick and expected in most salons.
• Grooming school training: name the course, its length and the number of supervised grooms you completed. Use the school's official course title.
• In-house academies at large pet retailers. If you completed one, give the length and how long it took you to move from bather to stylist.

Almost every groomer starts as a bather, and the bather CV is a different document. Nobody expects haircuts. They expect you to be quick, careful, clean and calm in a loud room with wet dogs.

1. 1Lead with dogs handled per day, even if all you did was bathe and dry them. "14 to 18 dogs a day for two stylists" is a real number a salon understands.
2. 2List the prep work you can already do alone: brush-out, high-velocity drying, nails, ears, hygiene trim, de-shed treatment, kennel rotation.
3. 3Count your supervised grooms if you have trained: "120 supervised full grooms across 14 breeds" is worth more than a school name on its own.
4. 4Add any animal experience: veterinary care assistant, boarding kennels, doggy day care, rescue centre volunteer, dog walking, fostering. Give hours and the number of dogs.
5. 5Do a canine first aid course before you apply. It costs little and signals you take the safety side seriously.
6. 6Say your availability. Salons are busiest Thursday to Saturday and before Christmas and bank holidays, so weekend availability is a genuine advantage.
7. 7Keep it to one page and offer photos of any grooms you have finished.

One page, reverse chronological, plain layout. No photo of yourself, no date of birth, no full street address; your town or city is enough. This is the one job where a portfolio is close to mandatory, but it lives outside the CV.

• Add one line under your contact details: a link to a portfolio of finished grooms, on a simple site or a public social profile you keep for work only. Aim for 15 to 25 clear photos across different coat types, taken in the same spot with the same lighting.
• Mirror the advert's words: pet stylist, bather, brusher, full groom, bath and tidy, breed standard, de-shed, hand-strip, kennel, hygiene, health check.
• Say your speed honestly. If you need 90 minutes for a doodle haircut, do not imply 45. The working interview will show it, and being slow but clean is a better start than being caught out.
• If you are self-employed, treat it as a job entry: business name, years, dogs per day, client count, retention and whether you own your equipment or van.
• Send a PDF named for yourself and the role, such as brennan-dog-groomer.pdf, and take printed copies when you drop into salons on a quiet Monday or Tuesday.