As a retail salesperson, articulating your specific sales achievements without coming across as boastful can be a significant resume challenge. Our guide offers strategic advice on balancing your accomplishments with humility, ensuring your resume impressively reflects your sales expertise without overstepping.
- Utilize real-life examples to refine your retail salesperson resume;
- Effectively write the experience section of your retail salesperson resume, even if you have minimal or no professional experience;
- Incorporate the industry's top 10 essential skills throughout your resume;
- Include your education and certifications to highlight your specific expertise.
If the retail salesperson resume isn't the right one for you, take a look at other related guides we have:
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- Clothing Store Resume Example
- Retail Sales Executive Resume Example
- Sales Cashier Resume Example
- Solar Sales Resume Example
- National Sales Manager Resume Example
- Sales Trainer Resume Example
- Jewelry Sales Resume Example
- Business Analyst Retail Resume Example
- B2B Sales Resume Example
The importance of format and layout in your retail salesperson resume
Consider you're an HR professional at company X, evaluating two retail salesperson candidate resumes. John Smith presents a simple, traditional, and easy-to-read resume. Edward Price, however, uses a non-conventional, often illegible format. Whose resume would you spend more time on to understand their experience? This scenario underscores the importance of your retail salesperson resume’s design. It should be simply formatted and clearly communicate why you are the ideal candidate for the role.
Achieve this balance by:
- Listing your experience, beginning with the most recent and relevant, in reverse chronological order;
- Ensuring your header contains essential information, such as contact details, a headline, and a portfolio link. Include a professional photo in the retail salesperson resume header if you have one;
- Including only the most important and relevant resume sections to showcase your expertise and stand out from other candidates;
- Editing your retail salesperson resume to be no longer than two pages if you have extensive relevant experience. Use your limited resume space judiciously.
Also, remember that your retail salesperson resume might initially be scanned by an Applicant Tracker System (ATS).
When it comes to ATS:
- Opt for simple and legible fonts like Raleway, Rubik, Lato, etc., making your experience easy for the ATS to scan;
- Use serif and sans-serif fonts, both of which are ATS-friendly;
- Avoid overused options like Arial and Times New Roman, which, while suitable, may lack personality.
Contrary to a common myth, our recent study shows that the ATS can effectively process both one-column and two-column resumes. Learn more about this in the ATS myths guide.
Finally, when submitting your retail salesperson resume, always export it as a PDF to ensure all information remains intact, making the document easier to print, read, and scan.
Think about the location of your application – Canadian resumes, for instance, might follow a different structure.
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PRO TIP
If you're in the process of obtaining your certificate or degree, list the expected date you're supposed to graduate or be certified.
Retail salesperson resume sections to answer recruiters' checklists:
- Header to help recruiters quickly allocate your contact details and have a glimpse over your most recent portfolio of work
- Summary or objective to provide an overview of your career highlights, dreams, and goals
- Experience to align with job requirements and showcase your measurable impact and accomplishments
- Skills section/-s to pinpoint your full breadth of expertise and talents as a candidate for the retail salesperson role
- Education and certifications sections to potentially fill in any gaps in your experience and show your commitment to the industry
What recruiters want to see on your resume:
- Proven track record of meeting or exceeding sales targets
- Experience with point-of-sale systems and transaction handling
- Strong communication and customer service skills
- Knowledge of inventory management and visual merchandising
- Flexibility with work hours, including weekends and holidays
Creating your retail salesperson resume experience to catch recruiters' attention
Remember that for the retail salesperson role, hiring managers are looking to see how your expertise aligns with their requirements. Here's where your resume experience section can help out. Make sure you:
- Include mainly roles that are relevant to the retail salesperson job you're applying for;
- Don't go too far back in your experience - recruiters will only care what you did a decade ago if it's really important for the retail salesperson role;
- Each bullet you include should say what you did, followed by the skills you used and the actual end result of your efforts;
- Quantify each of your achievements with numbers and possibly the overall effect it had on the organization;
- Highlight transferrable skills - or personal skills you've attained thanks to past jobs - that could be applicable within your potential workplace. This would showcase your unique value as a professional.
Formatting the experience section of your resume doesn't have to be an over-the-top deep dive into your whole career. Follow the retail salesperson resume examples below to see how industry-leading professionals are presenting their experience:
- Exceeded monthly sales targets by an average of 20% each month by applying upselling techniques and in-depth product knowledge.
- Managed a personal client book of over 200 recurring customers by providing personalized follow-ups and product recommendations based on purchase history.
- Participated in quarterly inventory management projects, contributing to a 15% reduction in inventory discrepancies.
- Pioneered the establishment of an in-store personal shopping experience, leading to a 35% increase in customer satisfaction scores.
- Developed and delivered product knowledge workshops for new hires which improved the team’s average sales by 25% in the first quarter post-training.
- Collaborated with store management to realign product placement, boosting high-margin product sales by 30%.
- Implemented a customer loyalty program that enhanced customer retention rates by 40% within the first year.
- Orchestrated in-store events that increased foot traffic by 50% during promotional periods.
- Achieved the highest annual sales volume in the district, grossing over $500,000 in sales.
- Leveraged social media platforms to build rapport with customers, resulting in a 20% increase in online sales inquiries.
- Spearheaded a team-driven visual merchandising initiative that amplified store aesthetics and product visibility.
- Conducted weekly competitive analysis to stay ahead of market trends, leading to the introduction of profitable niche product lines.
- Revamped the customer feedback system to better capture client satisfaction, leading to the store winning the company’s ‘Best Customer Service’ award twice.
- Championed a cross-selling strategy that increased accessories sales by 43% within the fiscal year.
- Facilitated seamless POS system migration which resulted in a 90% decrease in transaction time.
- Cultivated an in-depth understanding of electronic goods, positioning as the go-to expert for customers and driving a 60% repeat customer rate.
- Coordinated with the online team to optimize the click-and-collect process, cutting customer wait times by 50%.
- Organized weekly staff training to enhance cross-selling skills, elevating average transaction value by 22%.
- Proactively engaged with customers to tailor solutions to their needs, achieving a top salesperson award for 4 consecutive quarters.
- Launched a community-based marketing initiative to promote new products, increasing local market penetration by 18%.
- Monitored and reported on buying patterns to inform stock levels, ensuring a 98% availability rate for popular items.
- Designed and executed a training program for junior sales staff that increased departmental sales efficiency by 30%.
- Mastered inventory software, contributing to accurate stock control and enabling on-the-spot product recommendations to enhance the customer experience.
- Negotiated with suppliers to secure timely product restocks, avoiding potential sales losses from out-of-stock situations.
The following content includes information from "O*NET OnLine" by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. The data represents the top responsibilities present on the task lists for retail salesperson professionals.
Top Responsibilities for Retail Salesperson:
- Greet customers and ascertain what each customer wants or needs.
- Recommend, select, and help locate or obtain merchandise based on customer needs and desires.
- Compute sales prices, total purchases, and receive and process cash or credit payment.
- Prepare merchandise for purchase or rental.
- Answer questions regarding the store and its merchandise.
- Maintain knowledge of current sales and promotions, policies regarding payment and exchanges, and security practices.
- Demonstrate use or operation of merchandise.
- Describe merchandise and explain use, operation, and care of merchandise to customers.
- Ticket, arrange, and display merchandise to promote sales.
- Inventory stock and requisition new stock.
Quantifying impact on your resume
- Include the percentage by which you exceeded your sales targets to demonstrate your ability to drive revenue.
- State the exact number of customer interactions you handle on an average day to showcase your customer service skills.
- Mention the amount of revenue you generated for your store, reinforcing your contribution to business growth.
- List the number of products you are familiar with, underlining your extensive product knowledge.
- Quantify the size of the inventory you managed to exhibit your organizational abilities.
- Specify the rank or percentile you achieved in sales performance within your team or company.
- Include the number of new accounts or clients you secured to highlight your business development capabilities.
- Detail the percentage increase in customer satisfaction or loyalty scores due to your efforts.
Action verbs for your retail salesperson resume
Retail salesperson resume without experience: a walk-through guide
If you don't happen to have any relevant experience yet, you can substitute this with:
- Short-term gigs and stunts - like month-long internships, that you have done during your university days
- Contract work - be specific about the relevance and outcomes of each role you include
- Resume format that prioritizes your skills - the functional-skill-based format or hybrid format could work
- Research roles - feature those especially prominently if you've participated in a noteworthy project or your role was of utmost importance to the project's success.
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PRO TIP
Always remember that your retail salesperson certifications can be quantified across different resume sections, like your experience, summary, or objective. For example, you could include concise details within the expertise bullets of how the specific certificate has improved your on-the-job performance.
The heart and soul of your retail salesperson resume: hard skills and soft skills
If you read between the lines of the retail salesperson role you're applying for, you'll discover that all requirements are linked with candidates' hard skills and soft skills.
What do those skills have to do with your application?
Hard or technical skills are the ones that hint at your aptitude with particular technologies. They are easy to quantify via your professional experience or various certifications.
Meanwhile, your soft skills are more difficult to assess as they are personality traits, you've gained thanks to working in different environments/teams/organizations.
Your retail salesperson resume skills section is the perfect opportunity to shine a light on both types of skills by:
- Dedicating a technical skills section to list up to six technologies you're apt at.
- Focusing a strengths section on your achievements, thanks to using particular people skills or technologies.
- Including a healthy balance of hard and soft skills in the skills section to answer key job requirements.
- Creating a language skills section with your proficiency level - to hint at an abundance of soft skills you've obtained, thanks to your dedication to learning a particular language.
Within the next section of this guide, stay tuned for some of the most trending hard skills and soft skills across the industry.
Top skills for your retail salesperson resume:
Point of Sale (POS) systems
Inventory management software
Customer relationship management (CRM) tools
Microsoft Office Suite
Barcode scanners
E-commerce platforms
Retail analytics software
Payment processing systems
Visual merchandising tools
Sales tracking software
Communication
Customer service
Teamwork
Problem-solving
Time management
Adaptability
Sales skills
Attention to detail
Empathy
Conflict resolution
Next, you will find information on the top technologies for retail salesperson professonals from "O*NET OnLine" by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Top technologies for Retail Salesperson’s resume:
- Database software
- Microsoft Access
- Google Docs
- Microsoft Word
- Plexis Software Plexis POS
- TokenWorks Magnetic Card Reader
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The more time and effort you've put into obtaining the relevant certificate, the closer to the top it should be listed. This is especially important for more senior roles and if the company you're applying for is more forward-facing.
The basics of your retail salesperson resume certifications and education sections
Improve the education and certification sections of your retail salesperson resume by:
- Dedicating more prominent space to certificates that are more recent and have helped you update your skill set
- Keeping all the information you list to the basics: certificate/degree name, institution, and graduation dates
- Writing supplementary information in the details of your certification or education section, only if you lack experience or want to show further skill alignment
- Including your credential or license number, only if the information is valid to your application or certification
Within retail salesperson job adverts, relevant education, and certification are always listed within the key prerequisite for the role.
Ensure you meet all job requirements with some of the leading certificates in the industry:
The top 5 certifications for your retail salesperson resume:
- National Professional Certification in Retail Management (NPCRM) - National Retail Federation (NRF)
- Certified Sales Professional (CSP) - Manufacturers' Representatives Educational Research Foundation (MRERF)
- Retail Management Certificate (RMC) - Western Association of Food Chains (WAFC)
- Certified Retail Analyst (CRA) - Retail Category Management Online Training Suite
- Retail Operations Certificate - National Retail Federation Foundation (NRFF)
The content below includes information from "O*NET OnLine" by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. The data represents the top associations for retail salesperson professionals.
Top US associations for a Retail Salesperson professional
- National Automobile Dealers Association
- National Retail Federation
- Retail Industry Leaders Association
- Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union
PRO TIP
The more time and effort you've put into obtaining the relevant certificate, the closer to the top it should be listed. This is especially important for more senior roles and if the company you're applying for is more forward-facing.
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Adding a summary or objective to your retail salesperson resume
One of the most crucial elements of your professional presentation is your resume's top one-third. This most often includes:
- Either a resume summary - your career highlights at a glance. Select the summary if you have plenty of relevant experience (and achievements), you'd like recruiters to remember about your application.
- Or, a resume objective - to showcase your determination for growth. The perfect choice for candidates with less experience, who are looking to grow their career in the field.
If you want to go above and beyond with your retail salesperson resume summary or resume objective, make sure to answer precisely why recruiters need to hire you. What is the additional value you'd provide to the company or organization? Now here are examples from real-life retail salesperson professionals, whose resumes have helped them land their dream jobs:
Resume summaries for a retail salesperson job
- With eight years of thriving in high-volume retail environments, I bring expert knowledge of customer service protocol and proficiency in sales management systems. Recognized for exceeding sales goals by 20% for three consecutive quarters, I am eager to leverage my proven track record and dynamic relationship-building skills to drive success in a reputable retail organization.
- Dynamic retail sales associate with a 5-year track record at a leading fashion outlet in New York, my expertise in visual merchandising and my dedication to creating a compelling shopping experience have consistently elevated store ratings. Spearheaded a customer loyalty program that increased repeat business by 30%, illustrating my commitment to fostering brand loyalty and boosting revenue.
- As a former hospitality professional with a decade's expertise, I am transitioning to the retail industry with a fresh perspective and unmatched zeal. My customer service acumen, paired with an aptitude for quick learning and a penchant for meticulous inventory management, sets the stage for excelling in retail sales and creating outstanding shopping experiences.
- Passionate about transitioning from a successful 7-year career in the tech support sector to retail sales, my strong analytical skills and exceptional problem-solving abilities are assets. I aim to utilize my customer interfacing experience and in-depth understanding of consumer behavior to effectively cater to diverse customer needs within the retail landscape.
- Eager to embark on a retail sales career, I am determined to apply my keen enthusiasm for fashion and technology, bolstered by a recent Retail Management diploma. While new to retail, my commitment to excellence and eagerness to learn are geared toward achieving measurable results and contributing to your store's success.
- Recent business graduate with a passion for customer interaction, seeking to enter the retail sector. With theoretical knowledge of marketing strategies and consumer relations, I aspire to apply my robust academic and extracurricular record in a practical setting, aiming to provide unparalleled service and meet ambitious sales targets.
Average salary info by state in the US for retail salesperson professionals
Local salary info for Retail Salesperson.” Source: My Next Move, National Center for O*NET Development. Accessed 10/15/2024
| State | Average Salary (in USD) |
|---|---|
| US National Average | $33,680 |
| California (CA) | $36,240 |
| Texas (TX) | $29,760 |
| Florida (FL) | $30,980 |
| New York (NY) | $36,040 |
| Pennsylvania (PA) | $30,180 |
| Illinois (IL) | $34,100 |
| Ohio (OH) | $30,070 |
| Georgia (GA) | $29,020 |
| North Carolina (NC) | $29,910 |
| Michigan (MI) | $31,490 |
Beyond your retail salesperson resume basics - extra sections
Ensure your retail salesperson resume stands out from the crowd by spicing it up with a couple of supplementary sections that showcase your:
- Prizes - as a special nod to what matters most in the field;
- Projects - ones that would really further support your application;
- Hobbies - include only if you think they'd further your chances at landing the role with personality
- Community impact - to hint at the causes you care about.
Key takeaways
- The layout of your resume should take into consideration your professional background while integrating vital sections and design elements;
- Highlight your most pertinent achievements for the role all through different sections;
- Be very specific when selecting your certifications, hard skills, and soft skills to showcase the best of your talents;
- Include within the top one-third of your retail salesperson resume a header and summary to help recruiters understand your experience and allocate your contact details. A skills box is optional, but it will help you align your expertise with the role;
- Detail the full extent of your professional experience with specific bullets that focus on tasks, actions, and outcomes.
