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How To Write A Stand-Out Retail CV

Wondering how to write a stand-out retail CV? 

Your typical CV objective is to be successful in landing you a specific job. When the goal is a retail job, it’s necessary to know how to write a retail CV.

A CV for a retail job differs from one for an office-based role, as it needs to be largely focussed on customer service skills and sales skills.

The retail industry is often quite competitive, with retail roles being highly sought after, especially in big cities. 

With COVID-19 resulting in the closure of thousands of stores, UK retail vacancies plummeted by almost 80% in the first month of the pandemic , and while recovery is making steady progress, there’s still an abundance of candidates vying for the same position.

Your retail CV needs to grab the attention of hiring managers and secure you an interview, where you’ll have the opportunity to show off your key skills.

Read on for how to write a good retail CV, including how specifically to write a retail sales assistant CV and a retail manager CV.

How is a retail CV different from a general CV?

Good retail CV examples will include a few of your hard and soft skills , while also focusing on your people skills and experience in the retail sector.

Depending on the retail position you’re applying for, the hiring manager will probably be looking for a retail CV that shows the candidate can handle the key responsibilities and technical skills that the job requires. 

Rather than qualifications, emphasise any relevant skills, key achievements, professional experience, or excellent customer service skills that you possess.

Qualifications can help, but it’s possible to work your way up in this industry. 

You need to catch the employer’s eye straight away, so a reverse chronological CV where your most recent experience is listed first may be best if your most recent roles are in retail.

Retail hiring managers tend to receive CVs in this format, so you’ll make it easy for them to read.

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Early career cv, next step cv, advanced career cv, specialist cv, what qualities do i need to work in retail.

The key skills you want to include in the skills section of your retail CV, include:

• Patience – Working in retail can mean intense contact with people on a daily basis. You’ll need patience to deal with repetitive customer queries and agitated clients.
• Resilience – You’ll need to be resilient to deal with trying interactions on the shop floor. 
• Adaptability – Retail environments often require a lot of moving around departments wherever there is demand.
• Problem-solving – One of the most essential skills, you’ll need to think on your feet to resolve problems and respond to questions from customers.
• People skills – You’ll need to be able to converse and communicate well with both customers and your colleagues. 
• Positivity – You’ll need to remain positive when responding to multiple demands and put on a happy face for customers, even when tired and stressed.
• Prioritisation – With multiple demands, you’ll need to be able to make effective decisions when prioritising tasks.

By carefully reading a job description, you’ll be able to identify the retail skills needed. Be sure to include some of those in your retail CV. 

Retail CV personal statement

Underneath your name and personal data (email, phone and address), you need a personal profile.

A retail CV personal statement is a few lines to summarise your relevant experience and employment history.  

Look at the job description of the specific role you’re applying for and ensure you mention a few of the points in your personal statement if applicable.

Good retail CV examples should give recruiters a basic understanding of who you are, your transferable skills and your career goals. 

For example, if the job advert mentions you’ll be working on the tills, try to mention any sales skills or previous sales associate experience in your personal statement. 

Remember, recruiters only look at CVs for an average of 7 seconds , so you need to catch their eye immediately.

Try to keep your personal summary to two or three lines of text to prevent waffling.

Sometimes it helps to leave the personal summary until last, when you’ve finished writing your retail CV, so you can pick out the strongest points.

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Applying with no retail experience

Although it can be tricky applying for jobs with no experience to show on your CV, becoming a retail sales assistant is a position you can easily work towards.

You need to think of skills you’ve gained in other areas of life that may be relevant to the role. 

For example, if you’ve done volunteering or extracurricular activities that involved interacting with people, this would be useful to note.

Simply volunteering as a sales assistant at a charity shop can go a long way. 

It looks great on your CV and demonstrates that you have experience relevant to retail, such as operating tills and working with stock.

If you have no previous experience in retail, ensure you express your genuine interest and willingness to learn on your retail CV and cover letter.

Remember to include the contact details of any of your previous employers for referral purposes.

How to show off retail experience on a CV – the power of numbers

If you do have retail experience – great! 

This will look even more impressive if you can back up your experience with some figures.

For example, rather than saying that you’ve trained new employees, mention how many employees you’ve successfully trained.

If you rearranged a store and sales subsequently increased by 50%, mention it.

How to write a CV for retail – the essentials

Keep your retail CV format clean and easy to read – use classic fonts like Arial or Verdana so that your CV looks professional and doesn’t distract from the content on it.

Present your experience in bullet points to keep your CV template efficient. 

Use ‘I’ and action verbs like ‘I accomplished’, ‘I managed’ and ‘I operated’ to show you had the agency when completing the tasks.

For example, follow the below retail CV template: 

Shop Assistant 

Waitrose  |  London  |  March 2019 – March 2020

• I operated the welcome desk at the front of the store, greeting customers warmly as they entered the branch, giving directions to parts of the store, and handling customer complaints and queries.
• I also managed the meat and fish counter. This involved setting up the display in the morning by portioning the products, disinfecting the surfaces and labelling the meats and fish neatly and clearly.

Don’t waffle – keep the CV down to two pages or less. Cut out unnecessary words or points that are weaker than others.

Cut out information that’s not as useful for the role you’re applying to.

Create your CV in Word format and either send the document as a Word file, or export to PDF format to ‘freeze’ your formatting in place.

Retail Assistant CV

Include your hobbies and interests on your CV if you think this shows off your personality, or if it matches the retailer you’re applying to.

For example, if you’re applying for an outdoor clothing shop, it may help to show you’re interested in camping and the outdoors. 

Retail Manager CV

In your retail manager CV, you’ll need to show you can manage people effectively, while balancing multiple tasks simultaneously.

Quantifying this will help if you can get some facts and figures from your work experience.

You’ll need to emphasise your people skills, problem-solving skills and traits that  show you can handle great responsibility.

Sales Assistant CV

Your CV needs to show that you’re persuasive, so you’ll need to sell yourself on your CV like you would a product. 

Your personality needs to shine through in your CV, so a template is not going to cut it.

Quantify your successful previous sales with figures. You’ll also need to show how you’ve met or exceeded sales targets in the past.

How to write CVs for retail jobs: Conclusion

Jobs in retail are often sought-after, so you need a CV that’s going to set you apart.

Showcase your key achievements, hard and soft skills, and show that you have what it takes to exceed in any role. 

From sales assistant jobs, to managerial positions – don’t shy away from your career goals. 

If you’re still unsure, look up different examples of retail CVs for more inspiration.

Don’t throw away your dream job by making the mistake of using a generic retail CV. Why not let us write you a bespoke professionally written retail CV ?

Your perfect CV is waiting for you!

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Sales Assistant Personal Statement

• CV Templates & Advice
• Customer Service

Are you searching for the perfect sales assistant role? Fish4jobs can help you to create a winning sales assistant personal statement to place at the top of your CV, to ensure that you land your dream role!

Your personal statement is your chance to shine, so use this 100-150 words to show off your skills, strengths and achievements in the sales sector. We recommend that you provide examples of how you match the job specifications, and show your desire for this particular sales assistant position.

For further advice and guidance, check out our  how to write a personal statement guide .

What to include in your Sales Assistant personal statement

Why you are applying for the role.

• Highlight what appealed to you about the sales assistant job role.
• Mention any experience you have of working as a sales assistant such as dealing with customers, handling transactions and sales.
• Provide information on other skills you have that relate to the role.

Your Education

• Provide any relevant subjects you have studied that can apply to the role.
• Mention your School/College/University that you attended.
• Provide information on your relevant qualifications.

Your sales assistance experience

• Mention previous sales assistant roles, and provide information on key responsibilities within the role.
• Highlight your daily tasks, objectives and how you managed your work.
• List any training you may have received in previous roles as a sales assistant.

Your visions of the future in the company

• Where do you see yourself working within the company.
• Mention where you want to take your skills.

Sales Assistant Personal Statement example

I am a very friendly and enthusiastic individual, who ensures that clients and customers receive the best customer service and satisfaction. In my past role as a sales assistant, I strived to achieve the best results daily, ensuring that my day-to-day tasks of greeting and serving customers, assisting with queries, replenishing stock and keeping the store tidy were completed to the highest standards. I am a fantastic people person, with great communication and listening skills, therefore, I am able to successfully assist customers with any requirements or requests they may have. I work extremely well in a team as well as alone as I am able to confidently deal with problems and use my initiative to overcome challenging situations. My previous experience in sales, coupled with my interest in X makes me the ideal candidate for this role.

See our Sales Assistant cover letter template for extra help with your application.

Related links

• Sales Assistant CV Template
• How to Write a CV
• How to Write a Personal Statement

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Working with amazing people and with a purpose.

Customer service associate.

Address: 5050 LEMAY FERRY RD,SAINT LOUIS,MO,63129-01571-05285-S

Walgreens is a great place to be. Why? Because the work you do makes a difference in your entire community, helping customers with all the essentials they need. And it doesn’t stop there. Your career gets a boost with new opportunities to learn and grow every day – from our store aisles and the registers to merchandising and display work. So when you join our family, you get to impact your customers’ lives and your future.

• Shifts: Full-time or part-time, Weekends, Days, Nights
• Job Level: Entry Level
• Travel: None
• Salary: $15 - $17.5 / Hourly

Success Profile

What makes a great customer service associate at Walgreens? We’re always looking for that special something – those qualities that set a Walgreens team member apart from the rest. Take a look and see how you match up.

• Communicator
• Trustworthy
• Responsible
• Multi-tasker

Our Customer Service Representatives are the ones on the front lines; they know what our customers’ wants and needs are. Trini, Store Manager

Responsibilities

• Models and delivers a distinctive and delightful customer experience.
• Registers sales on assigned cash register, provides customers with courteous, fair, friendly, and efficient checkout service.
• Engages customers and patients by greeting them and offering assistance with products and services. Resolves customer issues and answers questions to ensure a positive customer experience.
• Models and shares customer service best practices with all team members to deliver a distinctive and delightful customer experience, including interpersonal habits (e.g., greeting, eye contact, courtesy, etc.) and Walgreens service traits (e.g., offering help proactively, identifying needs, servicing until satisfied, etc.).
• Provides customers with courteous, friendly, fast, and efficient service.
• Recommends items for sale to customer and recommends trade-up and/or companion items.
• Registers customer purchases on assigned cash register, collects cash and distributes change as requested; processes voids, returns, rain checks, refunds, and exchanges as needed.
• Keeps counters and shelves clean and well merchandised, takes inventory, and maintains records. Checks in and prices merchandise as required or as directed by store manager or communicated by the shift leader.
• Implements Company asset protection procedures to identify and minimize profit loss.
• Ensures compliance with state and local laws regarding regulated products (e.g., alcoholic beverages and tobacco products).
• Constructs and maintains displays, including promotional, seasonal, super structures, and sale merchandise. Completes resets and revisions as directed.
• Assists with separation of food items (e.g., raw foods from pre-cooked) and product placement as specified by policies/procedures (e.g., raw and frozen meats on bottom shelves). For consumable items, assists in stock rotation, using the first in, first out method and restock outs.
• Has working knowledge of store systems and store equipment.
• Provides customer service in the photo area, including digital passport photo service, poster print and creative machine, suggestive sell of promotional photo products.
• Assumes web pick-up responsibilities (monitors orders in Picture Care Plus, fills orders (pick items), delivers orders to customers as they arrive at store).
• Assists with exterior and interior maintenance by ensuring clean, neat, orderly store condition and appearance.
• Complies with all company policies and procedures; maintains respectful relationships with coworkers.
• Completes special assignments and other tasks as assigned.
• Attends training and completes PPLs requested by Manager or assigned by corporate.
• Must be fluent in reading, writing, and speaking English. (Except in Puerto Rico)
• Requires willingness to work flexible schedule, including evenings and weekend hours
• Prefer six months of experience in a retail environment.
• Prefer to have prior work experience with Walgreens.
• Prefer to be fluent in reading, writing, and speaking English. (Except in Puerto Rico)
• Requires willingness to work flexible schedule, including evenings and weekend hours.

Salary Range $15 - $17.5 / Hourly

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A long-time Customer Service Associate with Walgreens, Velma exemplifies what it means to champion health and well-being in her community.

Through stories shared by his customers and store manager, hear how Mike has positively impacted so many folks in the community.

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Retail manager CV example

Hoping to land a top retail manager role? The first step to success is a compelling CV.

A well-written, skills-packed and tailored CV will significantly boost your chances of landing interviews with leading retailers.

This in-depth CV guide, complete with an example retail manager CV, will teach you everything you need to know to get hired:

Guide contents

Retail manager CV example

• Structuring and formatting your CV
• Writing your CV profile
• Detailing work experience
• Your education
• Skills required for your retail manager CV

CV templates 

The CV example above demonstrates how you can highlight your suitability for the retail sector, in a professional and well-organised way.

Here, the candidate’s key skills, experience and achievements are easy to pinpoint, meaning the CV is easily scannable for busy recruiters.

As we move through the guide, you’ll find out exactly how to  write your own CV  to meet the same high standards.

Retail manager CV structure & format

People often forget the importance of CV structure and format … and end up relying on the written content alone to land them an interview.

But most of these candidates end up with a flat rejection – time-strapped recruiters simply find their CV way too cluttered and disorganised to read!

Taking the time to ensure your CV is organised and easy-to-navigate will put you straight in a recruiter’s good books.

Check out my top tips below:

Formatting Tips

• Length:  2 pages of A4 is the perfect CV length . This gives you more than enough space to showcase why you’re a suitable hire, without waffling or boring the reader with excessive detail.
• Design:  When it comes to CVs, simple is always better. Use a legible black font, and stick to the same one throughout. Additionally, avoid including profile photos or other images – they’re just a waste of space!
• Readability: Retail recruiters are usually very short on time, so they need to be able to read your CV with ease and speed. Avoid lengthy blocks of text – break them into small paragraphs instead. You can also format your info into short lists of snappy bullet points wherever possible, as this will make content much easier to skim through.

Structuring your CV

Use the simple structure below to organise your details:

• Contact details – Stick your contact details at the very top of the page – you wouldn’t want them to be missed.
• Profile – Draw recruiters into your application with this snappy, 5-10 summary of your key skills and experience.
• Work experience / Career history – List your relevant work experience, starting with your current job and working back.
• Education –  Detail your vocational or academic qualifications.
• Interest and hobbies – Use this optional section to highlight any hobbies you have, especially if they display relevant skills.

Next, I’ll talk you through what you need to include  in each CV section.

CV Contact Details

Your CV should always start with your basic contact details, making it easy for recruiters to get in touch with you.

Stick to the essentials, such as your:

• Phone number
• Email address
• Location – The town or city you live in is enough – for example,  ‘Chester’ or  ‘Birmingham’.

Quick Tip:  Don’t bother with your date of birth, marital status or full address – these details are irrelevant to recruiters at this stage.

Retail manager CV Profile

Busy recruiters may only read the top section of a CV before deciding whether it’s worth any more of their time.

This is what makes your CV profile – a short and snappy summary of your relevant skills and experience – so important.

It’s basically your sales pitch. Aim to prove that you’ve got everything they’re looking for and entice them to read the rest of your application.

Tips to consider when creating your profile:

• Avoid clichés:  Generic statements, such as  ‘Goes above and beyond’  or  ‘Dedicated and enthusiastic team player’, are a huge no-no. You might think they add impact, but in reality, they’re very generic and mean nothing to recruiters.
• Tailor it:  To make the most impact, it’s important to tailor your profile to the specific role you’re applying for, as well as the retail industry as a whole. So, get online and research your target roles, read over the job description and then pack your profile with relevant skills and keywords. This will instantly show recruiters that you meet their requirements.
• Keep it short and snappy: A CV profile length of 5-10 lines will make the maximum impact on recruiters and make them eager to find out more. Only share high-level information in this section – the smaller details should come later on in your CV.

Quick tip: A poorly written CV will fail to impress recruiters and employers. Use our quick-and-easy CV Builder to create a winning CV in minutes with professional templates and pre-written content for every industry.

What to include in your retail manager CV profile?

• Experience  – Whether you’ve worked as a retail assistant or assistant manager for several years, or are already an experienced retail manager, start your CV profile by summing up your relevant experience. This might include the number of years in the industry, the types of roles you’ve worked and/or the types of shops you’ve worked in (supermarkets, phone stores, fashion retailers…).
• Management & leadership skills  – Do you have any experience of managing and motivating a team, training staff, making decisions or dealing with conflict? Pack your CV profile with a range of management and leadership skills and experience.
• Retail skills  – Highlight any general retail skills, especially if they’re listed in the job description – for example, till work, stock tacking, sales and promotions, etc.
• Niche industry/sector knowledge  – If you have niche product or industry knowledge, make it known. For example, if you’re applying to manage a technology shop and have previously worked for several years as a computer sales assistant , highlight this experience and knowledge – it’s a serious selling point!
• Achievements – Employers want to know how what value you could bring to their company – and highlighting results and achievements from previous roles is a great way to showcase this. For example, you might have increased sales, decreased staff turnover or improved the customer experience.

Core skills section

Next up is your core skills section, which should be placed directly underneath your CV profile.

This is basically 2 or 3 columns of your most relevant retail management skills, listed in snappy bullet points.

Take another look over the job description and aim to match the skills that are listed in it.

This way, recruiters will immediately see that you’re capable of carrying out the role and will be keen to read further.

Work experience/Career history

Now, it’s time to add the finer details to your CV and really show recruiters what you’re capable of.

Commence by detailing your current (or most recent) position and work backwards through your career history.

If you’ve been working for years, you might struggle to fit everything in. In this case, prioritise space for your most recent and relevant roles, whilst shortening down descriptions for older and less applicable work experience.

Quick tip:  Will this be your first attempt at a management position? Throughout your work experience section, focus on showing your potential as a manager by pinpointing transferable skills and experience. For example, in your experience as a retail or sales assistant, you might have been trusted to mentor new recruiters, helped to organise rotas, assisted with training, or filled in when a team leader or manager was out of office.

Structuring your roles

The way you structure your career history can have a huge impact on the overall readability of your CV.

My simple 3-step structure, as shown below, will break up the info into easily-digestible sections.

Start with a brief overview of your role, highlighting the type of company you worked for and what the purpose of your role was.

“Responsible for leading and motivating a team of 24 staff in a busy high-street phone shop, ensuring that high customer service standards are adhered to and sales targets are consistently achieved.”

Key responsibilities

Next, use short bullet points to detail your key duties and responsibilities.

Try to highlight the people you interacted with (assistants, managers, customers…), the managerial and retail skills you used, and the positive effects your work had.

• Motivating a team of sales assistants to achieve and surpass sales goals and targets.
• Monitoring and assessing shop performance on a daily basis, regularly reporting back to the area manager.
• Conducting monthly health and safety audits and preparing appropriate action plans.

Key achievements

To finish up, pinpoint some impressive achievements or results, to show how your work has benefited the stores you have worked for, as well as its customers.

• Improved overall store sales by 35% in 12 months.
• Implemented a new complaint handling procedure, which reduced wait times by 20% and boosted customer satisfaction by 15%.
• Decreased staff turnover by 25% in 6 months, resulting in a saving of over £5k.

After your work experience, you should list your qualifications in an education section.

Retail manager roles are generally open to anyone who’s built up retail experience, but relevant qualifications – such as finance, business, marketing or retail management degrees or HNDs – could put you at an advantage.

Start with your highest qualification and work your way back. You should list the name of the qualification, the date of completion and the school/college/university you studied at.

Quick tip: If you’ve been working as a retail sales assistant for several years and are keen to progress into management, why not boost your skills and prove your enthusiasm by taking a short retail management course ?

Interests and hobbies

The last section of your CV is a hobbies and interests section – but it’s completely optional .

You can use this section to discuss hobbies that further prove your skills. For example, being a captain of a sports team shows that you’re a confident leader, while volunteering in a charity shop demonstrates retail skills and great personal attributes.

Avoid generic hobbies, such as going to the cinema or socialising, as they won’t add any value to your application.

Essential skills for your retail manager CV

Leadership & management skills – You’ll be in charge of managing and motivating a team, so it’s vital to provide a range examples of leadership and managerial skills, such as how you motivate people, handle situations and conflicts with fairness and patience, plan and prioritise workloads, make decisions, solve problems, delegate and strategize.

Customer service –  Customers should always be at the heart of your decisions, and you’ll be expected to set high standards of customer service for the rest of your team to follow. Therefore, you need to pack your CV with examples of exceptional customer service.

Sales –  You’ll be held to account for setting and meeting sales targets and, ultimately, the success of your store. Provide examples of how you’ve converted browsers into customers and how you’ve maximised sales. Popping a few tangible sales results and achievements – for example, increased sales by 15% in 6 months – will win you even more brownie points.

Recruiting and training – In smaller shops, you might be solely responsible for recruiting new staff, as well as providing and/or organising their training and development. If you have experience of this, make sure to highlight it in your CV – even if it was mentoring or training on an informal basis.

Organisation & time management   skills – Retail is one of the fastest-moving industries out there – and as a manager, you need to stay on top of everything that’s going on. Give plenty of examples of your strong organisation, time management and planning skills throughout your CV.

Communication & interpersonal skills – From employees and customers to area managers, the ability to communicate confidently with a wide range of individuals is essential for any retail manager. Make sure to purposely name the range of stakeholders you’ve communicated with in your previous roles.

Writing your retail manager CV

Competition for the top retail manager roles can be tough – but with a flawless CV, there’s no reason why you can’t land your dream job.

By focusing on creating an easy-to-read structure and format, as well as tailoring your CV to the role, your relevant skills and strengths will jump out at recruiters.

Good luck with your job search!