So You Want to be a Fashion Buyer

If you’re a recent college graduate and you’ve been scouring the newspaper want ads, job websites, and Craigslist for fashion buyer jobs, you can expect a long period of unemployment. The first thing you should know is that the best jobs aren’t advertised. Second, there are probably 20 applicant’s for every decent buyer job. Want to improve the odds for getting in? Some suggestions:

Know Your Buyers

As a retail fashion buyer, you have to know who’s buying what, for how much and when. “A retail buyer needs a clear understanding of the customers they're buying for, the prices they're willing to pay and the likely demand for products,” said Jane Rexworthy, Head of the National Skills Academy for Retail. “Reacting to, and most importantly, forecasting market trends and changes in demand, are key aspects of the job.” On your resume, phone interview and face-to-face interview, you need to make the interviewer aware of your fashion acumen. You should also be poring over issues of Women's Wear Daily (WWD), regarded as the bible of fashion.

Know Your Company—and its Competition

It’s a given that you should have studied up on the company and its latest offerings. “With most retailers now boasting a web presence, there's no excuse not to know basic details on a potential employer,” said Rexworthy. “Is the company independent? Is it part of a larger group? Who's on the board? What's the annual turnover? What are the key challenges for that business?” You should also know their competitors and their rankings in the fashion world. “It’s typical that graduates will research the history of a company but won't be up to date with commercial aspects,” said Georgina Cleife of UK’s Graduate Recruitment Bureau. “Gaining employment experience or a placement will also really help job applications.” Pore over sites like WGSN and Stylesight to get up to speed on online trend analysis and research.

Know More than Buying

Shelle Orlansky, one of the country’s top retail executive recruiters and president of Retail Top Talent notes that today’s retailers want the “complete buyer.” That means, they’re looking for someone who understands the process from conception to sell through, someone who can tell the vendor or factory it has to be this way, this color, this price point and delivered by this date. Her best advice is learn as much as you can. To those who have landed a job, her advice is to travel overseas, learn CAD, be up on the latest style trends. Work with design, product development, vendors and factories. In short, educate yourself. 

Breaking into retail fashion won’t be easy. Let your indefatigable passion drive you—to do what you can and must to succeed.

Image courtesy of stockimages/FreeDigitalPhotos.net