Do you dream of a career as a fashion sales associate or merchandising specialist? While superb communication skills and knowing how to use a cash register will take you a long way, there are other additional steps you can take to impress the hiring manager everywhere you apply.
A powerful fashion retail resume is about showcasing the unique benefits of what your work experience can bring to the table. Because fashion is an artistic field, you don’t necessarily have to feel restricted while presenting yourself on paper during your retail job hunt. Your resume format can serve as a reflection of your ingenuity as a clothing sales associate.
This article will provide easy-to-follow strategies for making your fashion retail resume stand out from the crowd and offer tips on how to feature your customer service skills to the best advantage.
Even for an entry-level sales associate job, a resume that reflects professionalism and personality is a must. To secure any of the highest-paying retail jobs out there, a stand-out resume is the first of several steps to ensure success. You may have questions about how to structure your fashion retail resume in a way that is both professional and performative. Everything starts with clean, proper formatting. Follow these key steps to start:
- Choose a simple, readable font in an 11- or 12-point size. Never lose sight of the fact that your resume should appear polished and be as easy to read as possible. Making fonts too small or big can diminish the professional appearance of your fashion retail resume, and employers will not bother reading a resume that strains their eyes or good taste.
- Ensure your resume has 1-inch margins on all four sides and is single-spaced. Your resume is a place for you to show off your organizational skills early. Even if you’re placing your information in a creative way on the resume, never abuse margins. There should be plenty of white space along all four sides of your resume so your personal information looks clean. Keeping to single-space formatting ensures that your sales associate resume doesn’t appear too long.
- Utilize bullet points to showcase soft skills like teamwork ability and general work ethic. Bearing in mind that many potential employers will gloss over your resume for a few seconds and then move on to the next, you want your best qualities to readily stand out. Bullet points help draw attention to key points that you want the reader to see and help you stand out in a highly competitive job market.
- Place headings that organize work experience by time period or type of work. Breaking up the text of your fashion retail resume ensures that the hiring manager doesn’t get overwhelmed by the information and can quickly find a particular section of interest.
- Highlight any work experience you have in visual merchandising or equivalent jobs centered on servicing customer needs. Since there is no template specifying necessary background to become a sales associate, utilize elements like font color or top placement to showcase any and all aspects of your work experience that directly relate to the job description.
- Place all work experience and educational background in reverse chronological order. List items backward from the most recent date, as this allows your sales associate resume to better feature your current strong suits.
- Save your resume as a PDF to ensure that your personal data stays in the format you have designed. Saving in Microsoft Word, Excel, or other programs can mean that your resume can be accidentally overridden, tampered with, or in other ways altered. PDFs ensure that what you originally wrote is what appears every time the file is opened.
It’s also advisable to create appropriate sections for your current contact information, accolades or accomplishments, and educational background. Many jobs in the retail environment can be obtained with just a high school diploma, but if you have any specific postsecondary training in sales or the garment industry, be sure to list that background in bolded font or highlighted segments. Taking a look at an online resume builder and asking to review the resumes of friends or family who’ve worked in retail stores can also be great preparation when creating your own fashion retail resume template.
Beyond listing your job history, do you have marketable skills in software programs like Microsoft, Excel, or point-of-sale (POS) systems that you can mention? Finding the right words can take your resume from ordinary to outstanding.
If you’re already familiar with the highest-paying clothing stores near you and plan to drop your resume off in person, you can have a bit more leeway with how you word your resume. However, if you’re among the ever-growing percentage of people doing the majority of their job searching on the web, using the right keywords can make a world of a difference.
In recent years, online job boards and career sites have dominated the way most job seekers meet recruiters. For this reason, it can be helpful to look at resume builder sites, such as Canva, which can assist you in controlling the language you put in your resume sample so it’s optimized for the market you’re trying to enter. Sometimes, job seekers don’t realize that the difference between writing “friendly” and “excellent customer service skills” can mean the difference between an online algorithm picking you up as a match for your job description of choice.
Resume examples that are successful typically keep sentences and information segments short. Use crisp, matter-of-fact language rather than flowery adjectives and descriptions. This ensures that your resume reads well both on paper and online.
Remember that a fashion retail resume is all about merchandising your best self, too. Do you have a proven track record of meeting or exceeding sales goals? A cool idea about how to more effectively run credit cards? How about an Etsy or social media shop you can share? Think about creative ways to let the hiring manager see your individualism. This could mean featuring a section on the languages you speak or placing your professional certifications in a bold color.
Hiring managers and recruiters want to know that you understand the basic responsibilities that go along with the job for which you’re applying. They also want to be able to get a read on your personality. Remember that your sales associate resume meets your potential employers before you do. That means it needs to announce more than just your work qualifications. Good resume examples often showcase a candidate’s military service or community commitments.
Don’t hesitate to include a cover letter with your sales associate resume. Cover letters give you more reign to discuss aspects of your past work experience and lend insight into who you are as an employee on a more detailed level.
Job seekers looking in retail know that competition can be steep. Reducing dead-end leads by writing a stellar fashion retail resume is the first step you can take to find your dream retail job faster. The next step is calling on Joblist to help you sort through the jobs you’re really interested in (pared down to those available in your geographic area).
Whether you’re looking for part-time retail work or hoping to launch a full-time career as a fashion sales associate, Joblist has personalized job matches. Check out Joblist today and be on your way to a fashionable new retail sales associate job in no time!
