Industry Specific Resume for Retail Position
Conciseness and relevancy will play vital roles in your retail resume. This is not the time to try and impress the potential employer with a long list of experiences and accomplishments. They just want to quickly see if you are qualified and if you understand and are capable of what the job consists of. Therefore, whittle down your resume until it contains only the information that needs to be on there, and it will surely be considered for hire by your potential employer.

When applying for a retail position, the requirements you're expected to fulfill will vary drastically depending on the position you're looking to fill. For an entry level retail position a resume is not necessarily required. Some employers will throw away resumes that are not accompanied by standard job applications. If on the other hand you are applying for a higher level retail position, you will want to submit a resume along with any other paperwork you're required to fill out.

When crafting a resume for a retail job, you should focus primarily on your customer service skills because the retail industry is highly customer service-oriented. Convey details regarding situations where you have helped customers and colleagues in the past, and where you have gone above and beyond the call of duty to meet needs and solve problems.

You should also focus specifically on abilities that also showcase your capabilities as a customer service oriented employee. Some of these particular abilities may include quick learning or a willingness to take on new challenges, ability to multi-task, delegate projects, work as a team player, and so on and so forth.

Ultimately, your industry specific resume for a retail job should be quick, concise and to the point. You should only outline the background, experience and qualifications that apply directly to the job you are applying for. If you have a lot of retail experience and do not have room to fit it all on a single page consider only listing the experience that applies directly to the industry you are applying to work in. For example, even if you have worked in a dozen different retail industries in ten years, if you are currently applying for a retail management position in a women's department store, then your resume should reflect your department store or women's products experience, rather than experience relating to sporting goods.

Regardless of what the position is, it is important that you custom tailor your resume to suit the employer as well as the industry, rather than one or the other. If an employer can tell that you are focusing your resume specifically on their individual needs and requirements, your resume will stand out from the rest, even if competing applicants have more background or experience. If you are applying for a sporting goods store, for example, focus your resume on experience and skills that relate specifically to sporting goods and sporting goods retail outlets.

If a prospective employer wants to know more about your job history, qualifications, education and skill set, they will not hesitate to ask you for more information. For this reason, it would be wise to keep a master resume on file. Write out a master resume that contains all of this information, including a full background and a list of all of your past employment, skills, achievements and other qualifications. Include everything, even if it is not immediately relevant, when putting together a master resume. This way, if a prospective employer wants a more in-depth look into your experience and skills, you already have something you can provide them.

When drafting a resume, consider which information is your strongest suit. For example, if you are fresh out of college with a degree in business but do not have any real world experience, make sure that your Education background section precedes your Experience section. If you have been in the retail industry for a decade and your education isn't recent, make sure your resume reflects this, putting more emphasis on experience than on education.

Ultimately a resume for a retail position is one that is short and sweet, emphasizing a combination of customer service skills and communication skills and other skills that are directly applicable to the position. Experience and education do play heavy roles in standing out against competing applicants, but people skills and the ability to solve problems and satisfy customers will prove just as valuable.