Retail CV Examples & UK Templates

Just as you would browse through a selection of products before making a final decision on your purchase in a store, hiring managers will browse through many CVs before they shortlist. A compelling CV will attract some attention and fly off the shelf. A generic, mass-produced version is likely to fade into the background and eventually land in the bargain bin.   

Making a great first impression with your retail CV is critical, so how do you get it right? The answer is creating a sharp, influential, and targeted CV, that leaves the hiring manager with no reservations about taking your application to the next stage of the recruitment process. 

CV guide for a retail CV

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This resume guide and corresponding car sales resume example will cover the following:

• How to write a retail assistant resume
• Choosing the right resume format for retail assistant
• How to add your contact information
• Using summaries
• Adding your retail experience
• Listing education and relevant experience
• Picking the right resume design/layout
• What the retail work job market looks like

How to write a retail CV

The first stage in crafting a top-tier retail assistant CV is to be clear about the structure you will use. Your CV should include these essential components:

• The CV header
• The CV summary (aka profile or personal statement)
• The employment history section
• The CV skills section
• The education section

Similar to generating sales via an attractive retail display, your CV needs to attract attention and sell your skills and abilities to a prospective employer. Resist the urge to dive straight into writing a CV without much thought or preparation. Take some time to research the role, company, hiring manager, and team so you understand the company’s needs and can tailor your CV accordingly. 

Presenting yourself as the best candidate for the retail assistant role is vital. Here’s how:

• Draw attention to your strengths and accomplishments. What have you achieved as a retail assistant? How have you contributed to company goals? The answer to these questions will be more compelling than simply listing core duties and responsibilities.
• Customise your CV to match the tone of the specific retail role and sector. Consider how you adapt your approach when assisting diverse customers. Use your background research to steer this process.
• Project your professionalism by selecting a polished format for your retail CV. Try to avoid design-heavy formats that are distracting and confusing.
• Keyword optimisation is one of the most important ways to ensure your CV is correctly filtered by ATS scanners and reaches the eyes of a recruiter.

Choosing the right CV format for retail

Retail is very competitive, in both hiring and business, so the ability to sell, persuade, and educate fast is essential. The format of your retail CV should also quickly sell, persuade, and inform the hiring manager of your suitability for the retail job opening. 

In most cases, the best CV format to use is reverse chronological. This format details recent work experience highlights under dated employer headings, starting with your current or most recent job and working back to earlier roles. Recruiters often prefer this classic CV format, due to its easy-to-read format and the ability to see a clear timeline of career progression. 

If you’re new to the job market or changing careers, you may want to consider the functional CV format, which prioritises skills and strengths, with less focus on work experience. Another option is a hybrid (combination) CV format. Often considered the baby of the reverse chronological and functional CV, this format places equal weight on skills and experience.

Check out our CV templates if you need inspiration and choose the format that best suits your situation. We also have several retail CV examples you can review. 

Select a clean, modern, and organised design for your retail CV. This will ensure that your CV is easy to read by both humans and ATS software that many retail companies now use.

Include your contact information

One way to distinguish yourself from other retail job applicants is with an eye-pleasing CV header that draws attention to your contact information. This creates a favourable first impression by serving as a visual anchor and offsetting the rest of the content on the page nicely. 

Make sure you use the same header design for your cover letter. By presenting your CV and accompanying cover letter as a matching pair, you’re showing your regard for cohesiveness and the finer details. Here’s what you need to include: 

• Full name & title. Start with your first and last name in a larger font than the rest of the content so this stands out. Underneath, include the title of the role you are pursuing.
• Professional email address. Avoid using any quirky or unprofessional email addresses. Stick to a clean format like firstname.lastname@email.com.
• Phone number. Share a phone number where you can be reached, complete with a polished voicemail message.
• Location. Gone are the days when you need to include a full address on your CV. Provide your city or location or a ‘Willing to relocate' if applicable.
• LinkedIn. Include a link to your LinkedIn profile. Just check this is updated and consistent with your retail CV.

Don’t include:

• Photo: Not expected in the UK and could lead to discrimination or ATS issues,
• Personal details: Avoid including personal details, such as marital status, number of children, date of birth, and your NI number.

Make use of a summary

In retail, particularly if you’re providing frontline customer service, first impressions count. The summary—or professional profile—gives you only a few sentences to capture the key skills, experience, and personal qualities that you want to showcase to the recruiter.

How have you reached this point in your career? What are your passions and aspirations? How do these fit with the requirements of the retail role? Bottom line: What can you do for this company if hired? An impressive summary will highlight your talent for retail and give the hiring manager a good sense of the value you can bring to their retail operations.

Ideally, this brief synopsis is achievement-focused and includes quantifiable information where possible. Try saying something along these lines: ‘Achieved and exceeded retail sales targets, averaging +90% customer satisfaction score in regular feedback surveys.’

You will, of course, go into more detail elsewhere in your CV but this will give hiring managers a quick insight into what you have achieved and can achieve again. 

You can find adaptable placement CV example summaries below:

Outline your retail work experience: career journey to date

For most hiring managers, your employment history will be the most significant part of your retail CV so it’s vital to pitch this perfectly. List your current (or most recent) job at the beginning of this section, then work back in reverse chronological order to earlier roles. Just include experience relevant to your target role, covering no more than 10-15 years.

Creating dynamic, concise bullet points under each employer and role heading will make your work history more impactful. Action verbs can build even more momentum when used in your bullet points. Verbs such as ‘orchestrated,’ ‘built,’ ‘accelerated,’ ‘outpaced,’ and ‘revitalised,’ reiterate your talents in the retail arena.

Focus on actions with tangible outcomes when composing your bullet-pointed job highlights. These are always much more interesting to hiring managers than passive lists of responsibilities, which could easily be lifted from any comparable retail job description. Imagine reading 25 retail CVs that all follow this format:

• “Assisted customers with purchases, queries, and complaints”
• “Coordinated stock and inventory levels with suppliers”
• “Managed and supervised retail staff”

By the time the employer gets to the tenth CV, they’re bound to be zoning out and thinking about what to make for dinner that evening. Instead, be that refreshing change to the norm. Offer insight into what you can achieve by describing measurable beneficial results, such as: 

• “Boosted customer satisfaction levels to 97% by building rapport, delivering expert product advice, and quickly resolving complaints.”
• “Leveraged keen negotiation skills to secure competitive supplier contracts, leading to savings of  £15K and improved turnaround times.”
• “Provided motivational leadership, training, and support to the 30-member retail team.”

Take a look at the retail employment history CV sample below:

How to write a retail resume with no experience

If you’re just starting in your retail career, using your CV to persuade retail recruiters that you’re a strong candidate is vital. Retail is fast-paced, so being target-driven, a creative problem-solver, and customer-focused will be buzzwords that should pique some interest. 

Recruiters will be interested in any part-time jobs, volunteer work, or graduate schemes in retail that you have completed, so make sure to highlight these in the work experience section of your CV. Reference any tangible achievements in these roles and how they have enhanced your customer service and sales skills as well as your knowledge of the retail sector.

When you see an interesting retail job posting but have no direct experience, it can be easy to rule yourself out. However, many employers are moving towards skills-based hiring, so unless you’re wildly unqualified, it’s definitely worth a shot with a powerful CV in hand. 

Include the relevant key skills that make a great retail CV

Your skills section should speak the language of the job description by including terms that are repeated and emphasised as important. This includes both hard skills and soft skills. 

Highlighting your hard (retail-specific) skills, such as specialist product or industry knowledge, point of sale (POS) devices, or visual merchandising, could really give you the edge over the competition in the candidate pool. 

Soft skills are equally important. Retail roles typically involve working with a wide range of people in a variety of situations, so having strong customer service, communication, and collaboration skills is vital.  

If you’re wondering how best to outline your skills, check out our CV builder which provides examples of key skills as well as proficiency levels you can adjust. You can also include your own unique skills.

Here’s what the skills box looks like in our placement CV template. 

Skills are easy to list, but tangible evidence is much more enticing. When writing your retail CV, always think of examples to back up what you are stating. Link each key skill to a specific situation and positive outcome. That way you’re guaranteed to pique the recruiters' attention.

For example, in your professional profile and work experience, highlight your: 

• Customer service by quantifying customer satisfaction and retention levels.
• Product knowledge by demonstrating your role in offering expert advice and proactively upselling and cross-selling products.
• Teamwork by describing your success working in a cross-functional team in a fast-paced retail environment.

Bear in mind that interviewers will also be interested in hearing about your retail skills in action once you move to the next stage of the recruitment process. So, you’ll be ahead of the game.

Detail your education & relevant retail certifications

Moving on to your education section. Keep this clear and direct, with relevant degrees or diplomas in reverse chronological order. If you’ve completed a degree, you don’t need to include your earlier education. Recruiters will understand the steps you’ve taken to reach this level. 

Beyond your degree, this section is a great opportunity to list any training and professional development activities as these will be of great interest to hiring managers:

• Professional training and certifications. Courses, workshops, and seminars improve your skills in the retail world and show your commitment to professional development.
• In-house training. Feature any retail-specific apprenticeships and company programs covering leadership, customer service, and specialised product knowledge in your CV.
• Professional memberships. Memberships or affiliations to professional retail associations, such as the British Retail Consortium, will elevate your credibility.

Check out the education section from our adaptable CV sample below:

Pick the right CV layout and design for a retail CV

The visual impression you make in your retail CV is equally as important as the content in terms of getting a foot in the door. Similar to a cleverly designed store, you want the reader to easily find what they are looking for and not get frustrated or tempted to move on.  

Further, you also need to attract the hiring manager’s attention. That doesn’t mean you have to go overboard with any design and formatting gimmicks. Great shop window displays (and CVs!) use simple but interesting visual elements to draw customers or hiring managers in. 

While a splash of colour here and there is fine on your retail CV, simple is always the better option. Ensure the document is clean, uncomplicated, and has an orderly layout. 

For a retail CV, we recommend a modern format with clear sections, professional font, and use of colour splashes sparingly. The retail CV resume sample here follows these principles and uses a two-column format which is visually appealing and also maximises valuable space. 

It’s not always easy to get your CV design right the first time, but with the help of our tried and tested CV templates, you should be able to create your very own masterpiece with ease.

Retail text-only CV example

Retail job market and outlook

The retail sector in the UK has navigated challenging periods of consumer uncertainty in the past few years, largely due to the pandemic and cost of living crisis. On a brighter note, green shoots are starting to show. Sales in British shops have bounced back recently, with retail data suggesting that slowing inflation is encouraging customers to buy more.

While this is encouraging news, the retail job market remains super competitive. Clearly, having a strong CV and cover letter can be a powerful tool when you’re looking to stand out and land the top retail job opportunities.    

Key takeaways for building a retail CV

Working in retail is an ideal role if you’re a people person. Strong communication skills and the ability to work under pressure are usually expected, and perhaps specific industry experience too. To land the best retail gigs, showcase your skill set and tailor your CV as much as possible to the specific role and company using the job description as your guide.

Use our online CV builder to create a powerful CV and streamline the application process, enabling you to move forward quickly as you start or advance your career in retail.