How to write a Retail CV

Called a resume in the US and a CV almost everywhere else — the same document, and these are the rules it gets judged by.

The conventions below are the ones this field actually uses. They are what the builder applies when you pick Retail / Customer Service, and what the rating checks a finished CV against.

What it must contain

Leave any of these out and the CV reads as incomplete to someone who hires in this field:

Work experience — Sales against target, footfall, basket size, CSAT and how many people you were responsible for.

The order to put them in

Order is not cosmetic. What sits at the top is what gets read before someone decides whether to keep reading.

Professional summary
Work experience
Skills
Education
Certifications
Achievements
Languages

What to put numbers on

The single most common reason a CV in this field reads as weak is that nothing in it is measured. These are the figures that mean something here:

sales vs target · CSAT · basket size · shrinkage · calls per day

Verbs that carry weight

Openers like “responsible for” and “worked on” describe a job description rather than a person. In this field these do the work instead:

Sold · Exceeded · Resolved · Trained · Merchandised · Reduced

Length

One page is the norm here.

Build a Retail CV See a worked example

Free, no account, and nothing is uploaded — the builder runs in your browser and the CV never leaves it.

Common questions

What should a retail CV include?

A retail CV has to carry work experience. The order this field expects is professional summary, work experience, skills and education.

What goes first on a retail CV?

The professional summary. That is where this field's convention puts it, and it is what the builder applies when you pick Retail.

How long should a retail CV be?

One page is the norm here. Going longer does not add weight; it moves the thing being looked for further down.

Is a retail CV the same as a retail resume?

For applying to a job, yes - the same document under two names. Resume is the usual word in North America and CV almost everywhere else. The one real exception is the academic CV, which is long-form and lists publications.

Is there a free retail CV template?

Yes. ihatejob builds one to this field’s convention for free, with no account and no upload: the section order, the section names and the rating all come from the retail pack described on this page. It exports to PDF, Word and plain text.