Transferable retail skills!

Okay retail Leaders!

It is the month of May and I promised I will be sharing content around the subject of transitioning from retail to other roles. Each week I will highlight one career and share tips throughout the week. I am working on getting a few peers to do a live with me, but I will keep you all posted

First a disclaimer! My intent is to help by sharing the experience, insights, tips, and anything that I can from myself, my peers, clients, and friends. The goal is to help others be successful in their transition from retail. I know that not everything works the same for everyone, but my goal is to help! I am not selling a product or service!

With that out of the way, let’s chat! I have been in retail for over twenty years in various roles and with various companies, and I have seen retail change significantly over the years. The pandemic showed us how essential retail workers are, but unfortunately most retail workers are burned out and looking to make changes. Top it off with cost of living especially childcare, many had to quit because they do not have the option of working remotely

As I mentioned in my call to action (CTA) post, retail skills are transferable skills and I mean all of them, this month I will list a few roles that I have seen a lot of success with retailers transitioning to, but I want to start with the first, and to me the very obvious which is the area of talent acquisition and recruiting.

Before we get into that, let’s talk about two things you absolutely must do if you are looking to transition.

1.??????Your resume – As awesome as your resume is for a sales role, until you update it to reflect recruiting, most ATS systems and recruiters will unfortunately overlook it and not even give you chance. (There are exceptions to this as some recruiters will look deeper)

There are many options for a resume review (See below)

·????????Do the research and complete the resume yourself. (Microsoft Word has some features)

·????????Find places that offer free resume reviews. I read this article in the balance career, which is a resource my professors used in grad school. It has helpful tips and resources. https://www.thebalancecareers.com/where-to-find-resume-writing-help-

·????????Ask for help on LinkedIn, sometimes resume writers offer their services for free to help others out.

·????????Use a paid resume writer. (Some are pricey so use discretion)

2.??????Update Your LinkedIn to reflect your experience with recruiting. Most recruiters utilize LinkedIn and will move past your page if they see nothing about recruiting in your about space or roles. (Again, there are some exceptions to the rule) There are multiple resources to help you with this.

·????????Do the research and do it on your own.

·????????Watch YouTube videos on how do it.

·????????Ask for help on LinkedIn, sometimes people offer free help.

·????????Hire someone. (This is a personal choice)

Your resume and your LinkedIn are going to be very critical in getting you noticed for recruiting. Remember those transferable skills that I mentioned earlier, that is what you want to be pulled out from your role as a retail leader.

For example, my original resume spoke to how I hired a staff to drive sales to up to 50% to LY and 25% to plan. My recruiter resume reframed it to, employed grassroot recruiting to hire 50% above my hiring goal in a challenging market. I also had the success of the retention of those same hires who stayed on. At the interview I then spoke about those hires driving my business, which highlighted that not only was I successful in sourcing, and hiring but I did well in the onboarding process. (Yep recruiting has many different parts, what we did as retail managers was full cycle recruiting)

While it is important to pull out what you did and highlight your best skillsets, be mindful of adding things that you are not familiar with. (My next post will address what you can do to overcome what you are not familiar with).

The reason why recruiting is the natural choice, its not only because it is one of the fast-growing career choices, although that’s pretty good, but it is the opportunity for flexibility that it allows and the way it allows you to change lives, and also make a nice salary. ?It is not an easy career, it can be frustrating as with many careers, it has its own challenges, but it is truly worth it. I have many recruiters in my network that I get to share in their joy and their frustrations. They also share when they are hiring so there will plenty of opportunities to connect.

My posts over the next few days will cover how to gain additional learning, what types of recruiting is out there etc. I will share who is hiring from my network and what I come across. I will get as much information as I can out to you this week about recruiting and if you are in my network and you are a recruiter, please feel free to connect with the people in my network. Let’s all help each other out. Also please respect everyone in this space, all negativity will be blocked. Please feel free to ask questions even if you think the answer is obvious.

A few more disclaimers!

1.??????I am not hiring.

2.??????I am not available for resume reviews currently.

3.??????I cannot get you a job.

This is what I can do!

1. I will share my knowledge.
2. I will encourage you.
3. I will cheer for you.

If you are ahead and have already done these steps, share it with someone who will benefit from it.