3 Ways to Get a Job in Retail

By Kaitlin Hurtado on October 30, 2017

The idea of getting a part-time job isn’t foreign to college students; it gives them an opportunity to build up their job experience while funding their college experience. The variety of part-time jobs available to college students is wide, making it easier for you to somewhat enjoy your job instead of simply seeing it as a chore that needs to be done.

If you love coffee, you can work in a coffee shop close to campus, or if you want to get experience with working in an office, you can work in an office on campus. Retail is one field where part-time jobs are abundant, especially around the holidays.

If you are looking for a part-time job, consider going for a retail job and make the application process easier with the following tips.

1. Advertise your customer service skills 

With a retail job, the chances of you interacting with customers will be very high. If you are working the floor at the job, you will be greeting customers, making sure they find what they need, and answering any questions that they may have. As with any customer service job, you’ll need to treat each customer with respect and have a good attitude regardless of the attitude they are giving you.

As a sales associate, for example, you are the face of the company as you are the one shaping the customer’s experience with the help you give them. You’ll have to keep their interest in the store and hopefully, secure a sale while making their experience great; you want them to have such a good experience that they want to come back. Employers want people with good customer service skills off the bat.

Employers want to hire people that have the ability to work comfortably with customers, from approaching them confidently to helping them with their problems. If you don’t have experience with retail, you still can have customer service skills that will make you more desirable in the eyes of employers.

For example, if you have experience in a club on campus where you are involved with actively recruiting and/or advertising your club and events, you can put that on your application as a skill. Talking to potential club members and successfully recruiting shows that you have the ability to talk to customers and advertise a store’s products to ensure a sale.

2. Know the products and/or company

Depending on what position you are applying for, employers will want you to be very familiar with the company and their products. They may ask you what your previous experience with the company is to see how familiar you are with the company. Have you been a customer of the company or used its products? Which product have you had experience with and what did you think of it?

Having that experience makes you more believable when it comes to talking to the customer, as you can truthfully say you have tried a product and relay your own experiences with the product in order to advertise it.

Knowing the products means that you have an active interest in the job and that the chances of you being more committed to the job are higher, as an employee with an interest in the company/products is more appealing than an employee with no interest in the company/products.

3. Give a good first impression 

When it comes to working retail, specifically in a position where you will be dealing with customers daily, the first impression is everything. If you come off as angry to a customer that just wants to know where they can find something, they won’t want to ask another question, or worse, never want to come back to the store due to the bad treatment. If you come off as overbearing, tracking a customer throughout the store, you could ruin a customer’s experience. Show that you can make a good first impression, starting with your job interview.

Dress the part — a part-time job in retail doesn’t seem serious, but you still want to take the job interview as seriously as you would for any job interview. Looking presentable during your job interview will help build a good first impression to your potential employer.

Having a good attitude and conveying a good personality to your potential employer in an interview shows your potential as a retail employee. They can see your potential when it comes to dealing with customers, as they can get a feel of how you talk to strangers by the way you talk to them and by running through scenarios you can find on the job.

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