Is your organization struggling to fill retail vacancies during the ongoing labor shortage? Has this led to a series of poor hiring decisions that negatively impacted your business? Do you want to know which leadership skills in retail management lead to the best hiring choices?
If any of this sounds familiar, then you have come to the right place. Below, we deconstruct the top skills for retail sales associates and managers. In addition, our team discusses a proven strategy for identifying top talent and making smarter, more effective hiring decisions. Cumulatively, this information will help you navigate the labor shortage, refine hiring processes, and become more competitive.
Skills Needed for Retail Associates
When stepping into entry-level retail positions, sales associates must possess a dynamic range of skills to succeed in their new roles. First and foremost, every retail associate must be a great communicator. Daily, they are expected to address consumer concerns, inform customers about new products, and project a positive brand image to store visitors.
In addition, retail associates must perform basic math, which is necessary when verifying discounts and taking stock of a register’s contents at the end of a shift. They must also possess organizational skills, which will be used when restocking shelves and performing other business continuity activities.
Skills Required for Retail Managers
Like line-level associates, retail managers must possess strong communication skills. Not only are they responsible for positively interacting with guests, but they must also carefully manage the various personalities of their staff members. Without the gift of gab, a retail manager will have difficulty being successful in their leadership role.
Another required skill for a retail manager is inventory control. Frequently, retail managers must verify the accuracy of the work of other employees. This essential oversight responsibility ensures that proper inventory is maintained at all times. A failure to maintain inventory can cause serious disruptions to any retail company’s normal operations.
Retail managers are expected to have good mathematics skills as well. They will need these skills when analyzing transactional records, calculating total revenue generated at the end of each business day, and performing similar finance-related tasks.
How to Identify Which Candidates Possess the Skills Needed for Retail Management
Compiling a list of superior skills needed for retail management is not challenging. However, identifying which candidates possess these skills certainly can be. This difficulty is particularly apparent when hiring departments rely on outdated screening practices such as interviews and resume reviews.
Fortunately, skills testing is an effective and efficient way to gauge whether a candidate has the skills required to be a retail manager. A skills test or skills assessment is a formal screening tool designed to measure a candidate’s abilities in a specific category. Skills assessments might gauge soft skills (non-job-specific abilities), hard skills (job-specific talents), or both.
Once an applicant completes an assessment, hiring teams can review a detailed report of their results. This report will contain a cumulative score and a breakdown of topic-by-topic performance.
Skills assessments allow hiring teams to significantly improve the screening process by giving them access to quantifiable data on each candidate. They can use this information to eliminate unqualified applicants while simultaneously focusing on top talent.
In addition to skills tests, some retailers are also incorporating behavioral assessments into their hiring process. A behavioral assessment reveals a candidate’s personality traits, providing employers with insight into the individual’s work ethic, motivations, and overall job fit.
After a business has determined which skills they want to test for, they can select assessments to incorporate into their hiring process. Many pre-built skills tests are available designed specifically for the retail industry. Several assessments measure soft skills, such as Attention to Detail and Negotiation Skills.
Which Assessments Measure Leadership Skills in Retail Management?
Since retail management professionals are expected to possess a wide range of skills and abilities, it is smart to administer multiple assessments to these individuals.
For instance, we recommend using the General Retail Knowledge skills test in many instances, as this assessment covers a broad array of retail-related topics. In addition to this hugely popular skills test, you could also administer a behavioral assessment to gain insight into applicants’ unique personality traits.
Cumulatively, the information gathered from both assessments would help your team make an informed hiring decision as to whether a candidate has the required leadership skills for retail management. By using skills tests and behavioral assessments together, your hiring team can gain valuable insight at every touchpoint along the hiring process. The net result is better hires that happen faster and dedicated employees who stick around because they’ve been selected to fit your culture.
Detect Skills Needed for Retail Management with eSkill
eSkill’s dynamic library of skills assessments offers the perfect solution when you need to accurately determine whether a candidate possess skills required for retail managers.
Request a demo to see how employment assessments help you find candidates who have the skills needed for retail management and sales.