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Retail Sales Assistant Must-Have Resume Skills and Keywords

Are you interested in improving your job outlook and increasing your salary? How can you demonstrate that you are the most qualified candidate for a Retail Sales Assistant position? Of course continuing to gain experience working as a Retail Sales Assistant may be your best qualification, but there are other ways you can also develop your skills, like continuing education or volunteer opportunities. More immediately, however, you can be ready for your next opportunity or promotion by educating yourself about the duties, responsibilities, and required skills of a Retail Sales Assistant and making sure your resume reflects your experience properly.

We designed the ZipRecruiter Career Keyword Mapper to help you solve this problem and hopefully improve your resume. Using machine learning tools paired with industry research, our Marketplace Research Team helped analyze millions of job postings and resumes to identify the most important keywords related to Retail Sales Assistant jobs. Our goal is to help you discover opportunities to improve your resume or to help you understand what skills and qualifications you need to be a Retail Sales Assistant or to advance your career into beyond this role.

Top Skills Mentioned in Job Descriptions

Top
10
Job Skills
The top three keywords employers use in Retail Sales Assistant job descriptions are Customer Service appearing in 33.75% of postings, Fashion 13.24%, and Personal Shopping appearing in 8.4%. 55.39% of Retail Sales Assistant job postings have at least one of these terms indicating the value employers place commonly place on these experiences when hiring candidates. Product Knowledge, Communication Skills and Innovation are still quite important, but a smaller sliceof the employer Retail Sales Assistant job postings with their combined total of 22.67%. At 21.93%, Cosmetology, Interpersonal Skills, Visual Merchandising, and Sales Experience appear far less frequently, but are still a significant portion of the 10 top Retail Sales Assistant skills and requirements according to employers.

Top Skills Mentioned in Resumes

Top
10
Job Skills
The top three keywords people who held Retail Sales Assistant descriptions listed on their resumes are Customer Service (appearing on 25.61%), Cashier (appearing on 13.41%), and English Speaking (appearing on 12.6%). 51.62% of resumes with Retail Sales Assistant descriptions have at least one of these terms. The Resume Checklist will help you make sense of whether or not employers are also demanding these skills. Stocking, Communication Skills, and MS Office are still quite common, and a respectable share of skills found on resumes for Retail Sales Assistant with 23.99% of the total. At 24.39%, Detail Oriented, Technical, Outlook, and Social Media appear far less frequently, but are still a significant portion of the 10 top Retail Sales Assistant skills and qualifications found on resumes.

Most Important Skills Required to Be a Retail Sales Assistant as Listed by Employers and Employees

Here is a simple table of the top 10 skills and qualifications as listed by employers in Retail Sales Assistant job postings since January of 2018, followed by the top 10 skills and qualifications most commonly listed by people who held the title of Retail Sales Assistant on their resumes.
Top Retail Sales Assistant Skills
Skills Required by Employers Share
Customer Service 33.75%
Fashion 13.24%
Personal Shopping 8.40%
Product Knowledge 8.29%
Communication Skills 7.65%
Innovation 6.73%
Cosmetology 6.21%
Interpersonal Skills 5.49%
Visual Merchandising 5.23%
Sales Experience 5.00%
Skills Listed by Employees Share
Customer Service 25.61%
Cashier 13.41%
English Speaking 12.60%
Stocking 8.54%
Communication Skills 8.54%
MS Office 6.91%
Detail Oriented 6.50%
Technical 6.10%
Outlook 6.10%
Social Media 5.69%

Retail Sales Assistant Resume Checklist

Our Resume Keyword Checklist is based upon an analysis of the most commonly found terms within both job descriptions and resumes for Retail Sales Assistant roles. Our algorithm helps isolate phrases and patterns to identify the most frequently recurring and reused keywords from each data source, while correcting for uncommon and outlier results. Various heuristic methodologies are then applied to ultimately create two top 20 lists of the most important and significant skills, certificates and requirements found within Retail Sales Assistant job postings and resumes. We then merge the two lists together and use a combination of statistics and rules-based scenarios to create a list that is audited by the Marketplace Research team, and finally turned into the checklist you see below. Our hope is that knowing this information can help you make your best impression with your next potential employer.
Uncommon Keywords on Retail Sales Assistant Resumes
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Personal Shopping
Visual Merchandising
Sales Experience
Product Knowledge
Retail Experience
Retail Management
Customer Service
Proactive
Interpersonal Skills
Communication Skills
Collaboration
Employer job listings tend to list Personal Shopping, Visual Merchandising, Sales Experience, Product Knowledge, Retail Experience, Retail Management, Customer Service, Proactive, Interpersonal Skills, Communication Skills or Collaboration as requirements in Retail Sales Assistant job descriptions; however, job seekers mention them far less frequently on their resumes. If you possess any or all of these experiences, including these keywords prominently on your resume when applying for a Retail Sales Assistant role may help you stand out more to hiring managers.
Common Keywords on Retail Sales Assistant Resumes
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Scheduling
Cash Handling
Technical
Detail Oriented
Cashier
Stocking
Social Media
English Speaking
Both employer job listings and resumes from people who’ve held the role of Retail Sales Assistant tend to always include skills and requirements found in this list. Whether you’ve only got Scheduling, Cash Handling, Technical, Detail Oriented, Cashier, Stocking, Social Media or English Speaking in your background and experience, make sure to highlight the term prominently on your resume. As a job seeker you’ll be competing with many others who are bound to have as many as you (or more!) of these common resume keywords highlighted in their application for a job as a Retail Sales Assistant.
Uncommon Keywords on Retail Sales Assistant Job Descriptions
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Quick Learner
MS Office
Employer job listings infrequently list Quick Learner or MS Office as important skills or qualifications in Retail Sales Assistant job descriptions. Nevertheless, job seekers mention them much more commonly in their resumes. If you possess any or all of these experiences, including these keywords prominently on your resume when applying for a Retail Sales Assistant role may go unnoticed or even discounted by hiring managers.

FAQs about Retail Sales Assistant Skills and Resume Keywords

What are the most important Retail Sales Assistant job skills to have on my resume?

The most common important skills required by employers are Scheduling, Cash Handling, Technical, Detail Oriented, Cashier, Stocking and Social Media. These skills and requirements are just as likely to be mentioned by employers as well as on resumes of people that held a job as a Retail Sales Assistant, suggesting that having these keywords on a resume are important for success as a Retail Sales Assistant. Additionally, employer Retail Sales Assistant job descriptions list Personal Shopping as a desirable experience, even though Personal Shopping appears 7.64 times less on resumes, suggesting that it's worth considering including this skill if you possess the experience.

What are the least important Retail Sales Assistant job skills to have on my resume?

Although you'd probably love to load up your resume with every possible keyword you can, employers tend to look for the things they specify in the job description. Our analysis suggests that highlighting too prominently terms like Quick Learner and MS Office may be something to reconsider. These two terms appear 0.42 and 0.37 times less often than in job descriptions for a Retail Sales Assistant position. This indicates that highlighting either of these keywords on your resume may not be a great way to get noticed by a potential employer.

How do I make sure my resume has all of the right keywords for a Retail Sales Assistant position?

Unless your resume has a good density of the following skills and experience listed, you may not be considered for the role of Retail Sales Assistant. Make sure to include a strong showing for the following keywords on your resume:
  • Scheduling
  • Cash Handling
  • Technical
  • Detail Oriented
  • Cashier
  • Stocking
  • Social Media
  • English Speaking
Additionally employers frequently list the following as desirable qualities in a Retail Sales Assistant candidate, but they are far less common on most resumes:
  • Personal Shopping
  • Visual Merchandising
  • Sales Experience
  • Product Knowledge
  • Retail Experience
  • Retail Management
  • Customer Service
  • Proactive
  • Interpersonal Skills
  • Communication Skills
  • Collaboration
Finally people who held the position of a Retail Sales Assistant and list it on their resume are adding these terms that are less likely to be noticed by employers. You may want to consider downplaying these terms on your Retail Sales Assistant application:
  • Quick Learner
  • MS Office

Before applying for a Retail Sales Assistant job

At ZipRecruiter, we understand better than anyone the importance of using the right keywords to describe your experience — it’s crucial to attracting the right employers! We built our business on the ability to effectively match job seekers with employers using AI-technology that understands your resume and how likely you are to be noticed by a potential future employer. Having a ZipRecruiter profile that showcases your most relevant skills and abilities can help you get recruited into a new role as a Retail Sales Assistant. Get started on your journey with a new ZipRecruiter Profile today!