Job Responsibilities
Managing a staff of 100, usually 25 working at a time
Managing and Planning Millions of dollars worth of inventory,
planning on where to put it 1 to 2 days befoe it arrives
Managing Cash registers, the safe, the fitting rooms LOSS PREVENTION, Customer
Service.
All of these things are daily activities, it keeps you VERY BUSY!!!
There are store schedules to make (takes 4-8 hrs to do), audits to
do, reviews to do.
Unfortunately there is corrective action involved with the job.
Lots of lifting and cleaning to do.
Keeping on top of hourly sales reports and details is very important.
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Job Requirements
Experience as a manager of a smaller retail store or assistant
manager of a big box retailer is generally the experience you need
Post Secondary education will get you promoted faster it seems,it
will probably land you a larger salary to start off too.
Depending on your location you can move around store to store in
the same position gaining experiences that are unique to each
location. Then you can usually move to General Manager from there.
The next step would be District manager, that may take a few
years. You can move on to the Merchandising side as well, but
those jobs as a district Merch. Mgr are few and far between it seems.
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Uppers
Discount on clothes,
fun, work with variety of people,
very busy job.
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Downers
On feet all day,
working evenings, weekends and holidays,
working 40-55 hrs a week,
stress of never enough budget for staff but having TONS of work to do.
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Lifestyle
Hours are weekends and evenings - usually mgrs get 1 weekend off a month, work 1
full weekend and 2 half weekends -
very tiring, it's tough when you get an 11 PM colse and the next day you have to
open, or it's your day off but your exhausted.
You get a discount at Old Navy (50 % off a few items a month, then 30% off the
rest of the items).
Very diverse work force.
have to wear head sets that are germ ridden and usually never are working
properly
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Compensation
Base salary starts at about $25,000 for less experienced people
but can be in the high 40's K for big box experienced and well
educated applicants.
Average Merch manager makes about mid to high 30's to start
raises are about 1 -5% a year.
Bonuses are a rare treat, usually quota is never met even though
you may blow the doors off the previous years sales.
In Canada the benefits were good, dental, vision, perscription,
drugs - only had to pay a small amount out of pocket for plan and
had 80% coverage for drugs.
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Advice to Jobseekers
It's fun, you can go places if you work hard and keep a list of
your accomplishments fresh in you mind- the boss always needs
reminding
you have to stand out, it's important to dress nice and keep up
your looks, don't go to work with worn shoes and unkempt hair -
they notice this and it makes you look like you don't pay
attention to detail.
the hours are hard to have a family (I'm a Mom) with, but it you
get to a District Manager position the hours are generally Mon-
Friday 9-5 (ish).
This type of career, once you get experience in high volume
stores, makes it easy to move anywhere and land a job.
There always seems to be a need for managers.
If you have an interview you usually can impress the interviewer
with examples of iniative.
Be prepared to work with people who are trying to rip off the store, be it by
taking longer than allowed paid breaks or by out right stealing - it always
happens and it breaks your heart to have to confront the employee doing it.
I recommend Gap Inc., I think they are very generous with their
salary and discounts.
Many employers don't even give managers a weekend off a month,
they do so it's nice, they expect you to have a like.
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