Retail Associate Resume Example & Writing Guide

Retail associates are the face of their company, responsible for interacting with customers and making sure they have a great shopping experience. They stock shelves, ring up purchases, and answer questions about products. But retail isn’t just an entry-level job; it can be a career for many people because it offers so much variety.

Here are some tips and an example resume to help you write an effective retail associate resume that will land you an interview.

How to Write a Retail Associate Resume

Here’s how to write a retail associate resume of your own.

Write Compelling Bullet Points

Bullet points are the most important part of your resume because they’re the first thing recruiters and hiring managers will read. And they’re the best way to showcase your experience and qualifications.

But many job seekers make the mistake of using generic bullet points that don’t really tell a story or provide any context about their experience.

Instead, you should use your bullet points to tell a story about your experience. And that story should be about how you helped a company achieve its goals or overcome a challenge.

For example, rather than saying you “managed inventory,” you could say you “managed inventory for new store opening, reducing inventory by 15% in first month and contributing to record-breaking sales during holiday season.”

Related: What Is a Retail Associate? How to Become One

Identify and Include Relevant Keywords

When you apply for a job as a retail associate, your resume is likely to go through an applicant tracking system (ATS). This system will scan your resume for certain keywords related to the position you’re applying for. If your resume doesn’t have enough of the right terms, the ATS might not forward it to a recruiter.

To increase your chances of getting an interview, make sure to include relevant keywords throughout all the sections of your resume. You can find some of the most commonly used retail associate keywords below:

Related: How Much Does a Retail Associate Make?

Remember The Basics

As you draft your resume, you’ll want to keep a few basic guidelines in mind.

Create Scannable Sections

There are a few things you can do to make your resume more readable and easy to scan. This includes using left-aligned text, a standard font size and type, and bullets instead of paragraphs. You should also try to keep your bullets to 2 lines or less, and use digits for numbers. Finally, leave some white space on the page to make the document less overwhelming.

Be Concise

There is no set length for a resume, but a one or two page resume is most common. When trimming down a resume, remove any irrelevant information, filler words and unnecessary details. font type and size, margins and line spacing can also be tweaked to save space on a resume.

Proofread

Proofreading your resume is important in order to make sure it looks professional and error-free. Spell checking is a must, as are punctuation and grammar checks. It is also helpful to have someone else proofread your resume for you, as they may catch mistakes that you have missed. Beware of easily confused words, and make sure that your tense is consistent throughout the resume.

Consider a Summary

A resume summary statement is an essential part of your resume. It provides context for your experience and allows you to highlight your best skills and traits. When writing your summary, be sure to play up your relevant soft skills, mention your most highly transferable experiences, and clearly state your intentions. Keep it to just a couple of lines, and you’ll be on your way to a more effective resume.

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