How To Write a Retail Resume
Your resume has one purpose: to help get you interviews for the retail jobs you want. You can ensure your resume serves that purpose if you focus on your most relevant skills, from customer service to communication and sales, and display them as clearly as possible. The section-specific tips below will help you give your resume the focus and clarity it needs to move your retail job search forward.
- Entry-Level
- Mid-Career
- Senior-Level
1. Create a profile by summarizing your retail resume qualifications
A strong profile section draws the hiring manager’s attention to your unique strengths. It should be a brief paragraph that summarizes your overall experience and record of success.
The profile is also a great place to mention your communication style or other soft skills. For instance, retail positions are usually service-oriented, engaging with various customers to help them find their desired products. If this describes your retail experience, consider using your resume profile to show how you’ve excelled in a customer-facing role.
(Note: it’s usually easier to write your profile after you’ve built the other sections of your resume.)
Example
Retail customer service representative with nearly five years of experience. Dedicated to finding creative, practical product solutions for customers based on an understanding of their needs and priorities. Naturally curious and committed to gaining and applying new work skills.
2. Create a powerful list of your retail resume experience
Your resume shouldn’t describe your past work in general, but that career timeframe as it is relevant to the job you’re now after. You can and should omit any/all work details that don’t somehow overlap with your target job. By focusing your information this way, you can give hiring managers a quick sense of how your background applies to their business needs.
For instance, say you have a background in restaurant hospitality. On prior versions of your resume, you may have job descriptions with details specific to that industry:
Example
Waitress, Bucky’s Bar & Grill, San Francisco, CA | February 2017 to February 2020
- Maintained high service standards at this popular local restaurant
- Took orders and delivered various food and beverage items to guests
- Proactively learned new seasonal food and cocktail menus and ingredients
- Anticipated customers’ needs by promptly refilling drinks, providing extra napkins, and clearing away empty plates
- Gained a strong foundation in effective customer relations and product upselling
But delete those industry-specific details if you’re now after a retail job. Removing irrelevant info lets you focus a hiring manager’s attention on the skills you’ve gained that would carry over to a retail setting, as in:
Example
Waitress, Bucky’s Bar & Grill, San Francisco, CA | February 2017 to February 2020
- Maintained high service standards in a dynamic and fast-paced work environment
- Gained strong foundation in effective customer relations and product upselling
3. List your education and certifications relevant to retail
For retail jobs, education requirements can vary. A direct customer-facing role may require no formal education (with on-the-job training), while a management role may require an associate or bachelor’s degree. Additionally, you’re more prone to encounter education requirements for retail jobs selling complex or high-priced products like cars or jewelry. Look closely at each job posting to ensure you meet their education requirements and are documenting them properly on your resume. Following are templates and examples to help you format your pertinent education and certifications:
Education
Template
- [Degree Name], [School Name], [City, ST] | [Year – optional]
Example
- Associate of Arts — Retail Management, Bay Community College, San Francisco, CA | 2019
Certification
Template
- [Certification Name], [Awarding Organization] | [Year – optional]
Example
- Service Excellence Certificate, VCU Advanced Solutions | 2023
4. Make a list of your retail skills and proficiencies
You can give your retail resume a big boost by adding keywords. That’s because most employers (and virtually all large retailers) now use an applicant tracking system (ATS), which scans each submitted resume for keywords relevant to the job opening at hand. When the ATS finds a resume with many relevant keywords, it flags the document for the hiring manager.
Add a keyword-rich skills or expertise section to make your resume ATS-friendly. In most cases, add this section right below your profile summary, as in the resume examples on this page. Here are some common keywords for retail resumes:
| Key Skills and Proficiencies | |
|---|---|
| Client relations and support | Customer service |
| Employee engagement | Inventory management |
| Procedure improvement | Process streamlining |
| Product upselling | Retail sales |
| Retail store management | Revenue and profit growth |
| Sales management | Task prioritization |
| Team collaboration | Team leadership and motivation |
| Time management | |
How To Pick the Best Retail Resume Template
For jobseekers in retail, a straightforward resume template is usually best. Choose a template that lets the hiring manager quickly and easily take in relevant information about you and your background. Your resume template should highlight your career details only and not call undue attention to itself with elaborate visual elements.
Retail Text-Only Resume Templates and Examples
- Example #1 — Customer Service
- Example #2 — Sales
- Example #3 — Management
Ann Lee
(123) 456-7890 | [email protected] | San Francisco, CA 94567 | LinkedIn
Profile
Retail sales associate with over three years of experience in the fine furniture industry. Natural collaborator who builds productive relationships with diverse team members.
Key Skills
- Consultative sales strategies
- Cross-functional coordination
- Customer service
- Inventory management
- Process streamlining
- Product upselling
- Retail sales operations
- Revenue and profit growth
- Team collaboration
Professional Experience
Sales Assistant, Morris & Sons Fine Furniture, San Francisco, CA | March 2020 to present
- Build rapport with customers to clarify their needs and show them high-quality furniture options
- Consistently generated over 100% of sales goals by building and applying expert product knowledge
- Ranked No. 3 on a 15-person team for customer satisfaction, with 94% and up rating on post-sale surveys
- Revamped merchandise display to create a more appealing sales floor that motivates customers to buy accessories in addition to large furniture items
Waitress, Bucky’s Bar & Grill, San Francisco, CA | February 2017 to February 2020
- Maintained high service standards in a dynamic and fast-paced work environment
- Gained a strong foundation in effective customer relations and product upselling
Education
Associate of Arts — Retail Management, Bay Community College, San Francisco, CA | 2019
Select Coursework:
- Business communication
- Display and visual merchandising
- Principles of sales
- Retail management
Frequently Asked Questions: Retail Resume Examples and Advice
What are common action verbs for retail resumes?-
Retail jobs typically focus on serving customers, selling products, and supervising franchise operations. You can capture these and your other work areas on your resume by referring to the verbs list below. Consider using any of these as the first word of your bullet points in your resume’s experience section:
| Action Verbs | |
|---|---|
| Assist | Collaborate |
| Coordinate | Create |
| Decrease | Enhance |
| Generate | Improve |
| Increase | Lower |
| Market | Monitor |
| Organize | Oversee |
| Produce | Promote |
| Raise | Sell |
| Serve | Strengthen |
| Supervise | Support |
| Upsell | |
Note: The above verbs are all in the present tense, which you can use to describe your current job duties. But use the past tense (e.g., “Generated,” “Improved”) to detail any completed projects or achievements in your current job. Also, use the past tense to describe both duties and achievements in all your previous jobs.
How do you align your resume with a job posting?-
Between now and 2031, retailers will need to fill nearly 600,000 sales positions per year on average, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts.
You can get interviews for more opportunities in this field if you tailor your resume for each application you send.
For example, if the retail facility is seeking someone with a strong collaborative streak, you may want to call out that aspect of your experience in your profile and key skills sections. Or say the facility has many non-English speaking customers. Also, you may wish to emphasize your foreign language skills both within your profile and in a separate section of your resume.
With adjustments like these, you can make your resume much more relevant to each opportunity in your job search.
What is the best retail resume format?-
In nearly all cases, opt for a Combination or Hybrid resume because they are the easiest for hiring managers to learn about your pertinent skills and experience — it’s also easiest for you to modify based on your job goals.
With the Combination format, you highlight your most relevant skills and experience in your experience or work history section and an intro section. (This combination of work history and intro content is where the format gets its name.) Your resume intro may take the form of a profile summary, key skills section, and/or career highlights section. By carefully choosing the details for these sections, you can (a) position yourself for your target job and (b) give hiring managers a clear, quick view of what you offer them.
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Craft a strong cover letter to increase your chances of landing an interview. The key to optimizing your cover letter is to customize it based on each employer you apply to. Read our Retail Sales Associate and Retail Manager cover letter guides to learn how.
