Is Your Retail Resume on Target?

If you’re looking to land a primo retail job, you have to realize that you’ll be competing with hundreds of qualified candidates. They’ll be sending in resumes that pretty much match yours in terms of skill sets, education and experience. Your challenge is to make HR managers and recruiters stop on your resume and give it more than the perfunctory “once over.” This is no easy task, especially when you consider the sea of resumes covering an HR manager or recruiter’s desk. Some tips to put the spotlight on your CV:

Research to Ensure a Match. Do some research about the company and match your resume to their needs and culture. Miriam Salpeter, owner and founder of Keppie Careers, a coaching and consulting firm, advises candidates to study the company's web site and "look for repeated words and phrases, taglines, and hints about their philosophical approaches. Incorporate their language and values in your resume."

Descriptive Objective. A fuzzy or nebulous objective—like “Retail Professional—won’t cut it. You need to spell out what you seek in your retail career, e.g., Buyer, Merchandizing, Technical/Production, Wholesale, Marketing/PR, Distribution/Logistics, etc. One or two sentences should do it.

Human Readable. Don’t bury your experience in too many keywords. Granted, you want to pass the automated keyword search systems many of today’s resume programs use, but the fact remains, human beings will ultimately read your resume. Stay away from phrases and acronyms that are unique to a company.

Match Skills with Achievements. Instead of simply listing one skill after another, tie each skill to an achievement. Relate your skill sets in “Budgeting” or “Excel” to specific results achieved in logistics, management or store operations.

Use Meaningful Metrics. Avoid generalities. Go into the nitty-gritty with metrics that can be used as benchmarks in retailing. If you held the post of district manager, how many stores did you oversee? What was your geographic area? How big were your stores? What was your total sales volume? Did you manage a flagship store?

Promote Your Promotions. If you were promoted, provide some specifics. Provide the why, how and where. Promoted to turn around a lagging local store with $ sales. Promoted to a flagship store with $$$ sales. Promoted to open a store, which ultimately surpassed grand opening goals.

Highlight Math/IT. One skill many of today’s retailers look for in a candidate is the ability to analyze data. Drilling into and making retail sense of “Big Data” is fast becoming a real “saleable” asset, according to Angela Elder, Senior Director, NRF Foundation. If you’re eyeing a management or merchandising post, recruiters advise going into digital retail, loss prevention and IT.

Doing the upfront work to get your resume ready for keyword filters, HR managers and recruiters won’t be easy. But if you want that primo retail job, you’ll have to do everything you can to make your resume shine.

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