75 Jobless Get Uplifting Hairstyles at No Charge : Economy: Salon offers the make-overs to help laid-off professionals in their search for employment.

For a few hours Monday, about 75 jobless people were treated to free hairstyling they hope will give them a competitive edge, whether their job searches take them to managerial interviews or fast-food restaurants.

The free make-overs, most of them simple haircuts but some including color treatments and makeup advice, were provided all day at Angles Salon in the North County Fair shopping mall.

The owners of the Escondido salon said they wanted to help raise the self-esteem of those without jobs, in particular professionals who are now forced to consider lower-paying employment.

“I’m probably going to have to take anything just to get in somewhere,” said Laura Miller of El Cajon, who has been looking for work since being laid off from her accounting job in early July.

The 24-year-old mother of two said she hopes her dark brown hair’s new short, slightly curly style, which typically would have cost her about $30, will help her in a job interview she has later this week. Like others, she knows the competition is stiff.

Unemployment in San Diego County is running at about 7.3% as of the end of September, according to Steve Olsen, manager of the state’s unemployment office in Escondido. The state’s jobless rate for the same period, he said, was about 9.3%.

Many of those at the salon said they don’t have interviews lined up but that the make-overs lifted their spirits and self-esteem.

“If you look better you feel better, and you act better, I think,” said Dori Regulski of San Diego, who was laid off from her hotel sales job when the company relocated to Texas in July. “There’s a lot of people looking. . . . Just sending out resumes is pretty dismal. Most times I get a response back. (But) it’s not the right one.”

Regulski is holding out for a job in her field that pays close to her previous salary. “I think I could find a job real fast if I wanted to be a secretary. I’ve done that before. Maybe by the time my unemployment runs out I might do that.”

Kim Van Pelt, a 28-year-old San Diego woman hoping for a publishing or library clerical job, joked: “Well, if I don’t find something, I can always go back to Del Taco. I think I can still flip hamburgers.”

William Brown, the stylist who cut Van Pelt’s mane of auburn curls to a more manageable fullness, quickly added, “And look good doing it.”

Van Pelt graduated in June, 1991, from UC San Diego with a bachelor’s degree in history, which, she added over the hum of a dozen blow dryers, “is not real useful.”

She has worked for a publisher and in bookstores, and wants to get a master’s degree in library science, but must work to save money for school. She had left a part-time job assembling circuit boards for a better-paying medical transcription job that she found so stressful she quit.

As Brown cut several inches from her long, outdated ringlets, Van Pelt said she had been told she was overqualified for some of the clerical jobs for which she had applied. “One lady asked me: ‘Why are you applying?’ I said, ‘I need the money.’ ”

The competition is so stiff in her desired field of corporate library work that as many as 70 people have applied for positions she’s tried for. “Everywhere I’ve sent my resume, I got, ‘Please come in.’ I’ve got to get the hair. The interview obviously hasn’t been up to par.”

Van Pelt, who walked into the salon wearing no makeup, left sporting fashion model cheeks and eyes and soft, curly hair full of mousse and gel. She was excited about her new look but skeptical that she could reproduce it herself, as Brown reassured her, “Just a little bit of foam and a little bit of mousse and a big, round brush.”

Organizers had originally targeted unemployed professionals looking for increasingly competitive and scarce middle-management jobs, but provided the freebies to both out-of-work executives and welfare recipients.

“We didn’t turn anyone down,” spokeswoman Marni Respicio said.

The free offer, announced through local media as well as the Escondido unemployment office and Palomar College’s outplacement service, provided the salon with some good publicity, Respicio acknowledged, but that wasn’t the main reason it was done.

“It’s really generosity,” she said. “It’s not publicity for publicity’s sake.” It cost the salon about $9,000 in promotion expenses, labor and supplies, she said.

Salon owner Richard Ouellette said he came up with the idea because he wanted to help the long-term unemployed who may be close to giving up looking for jobs.

He said he had also been struck by the magnitude of the local unemployment problem when at least 300 people applied for one salon manager position he advertised.

“We couldn’t possibly interview them all,” he said. “So many people were overqualified. Some were making $50,000 to $60,000 a year, here for a job that pays less.

“I’ve been through recessions,” he said, “(but) I’ve never been through anything like this.”