If you're currently working in Retail and you'd like a change in career but you're not sure where to go, I encourage you to check out a career in Tech. How you might go about doing that? Check the thread below for a quick guide for Retail workers to transition into Tech.

Before we actually get started it's important to get an idea of what your value proposition is. A Value Prop is a summary of what you do best and what you bring to the table as a professional. Break your skills down into two categories. Subject Matter Expertise & Transfer Skills.

Subject Matter Expertise (SME) refers to the retail knowledge you've gained over your time in that space. Things like Major players in the industry, trends, customer feedback, and experience. For example, I used to work at Future Shop (Canada's version of Best Buy)

When I was in Uni in their Entertainment and Games section, the knowledge I gained about the Games and Entertainment industry just by working retail was unreal and at the times felt useless. But I was wrong, understanding an industry is to understand what appeals to consumers.

And if you know what appeals to consumers, you know what it takes for them to buy from that industry. That's important. Next, I'd figure out what my transferable skills are. Skills that I can take with me no matter where I go or an easier way to think about them is as

Skills that you could use to land another job. For people in retail, the most common skills developed are Customer Service, People Skills, Sales, Business Awareness, Problem Solving, and Working under pressure.

Everyone is different though and your personality and history will determine which of those skills listed and unlisted are ones that truly resonate with you. Think long on where you thrive within retail. Could be in front of customers or could be exclusively on the numerical side

The idea is to know yourself. Know your strengths and then hyper-focus on them to guide you on a path. Job hunting is a negotiation and hyper-focusing on what you're good at, gives you clarity on where you should focus your energy.

Once your SME and T-Skills set, it's time to go looking for different career paths that leverage those skills. Based on the most common skills picked up in retail you can start looking at roles at Tech companies like:

Customer Support Rep
Account Executive
Product Marketing

Customer Success Manager/Support
Project Coordinator

Here's where your SME comes into play. A good way to get started for your transition from retail is to see what Tech products currently support your Employer's retail business.

We do this because we know that any Tech company servicing the retail industry is uniquely interested in knowing how they can best serve their customers to get them to spend the most within their ecosystem. Your SME can give them that advantage.

Targeting one of the roles above in said Tech company is another hack as well. You're bringing the knowledge of how we can better serve our clients to everything you do in the org because that's directly where you're coming from. Advantage goes to you here.

You can also search and network within your niche, again this is where your SME comes in handy. You can find the info of different Tech companies in the retail space on Google. Here are a few spots to start with:

https://retail.apacciooutlook.com/vendors/top-retail-tech-companies.html https://www.maddyness.com/uk/2020/01/23/10-retailtech-companies-to-follow-in-2020/

There's also a Retail Tech Job board you can take a look at to see who is hiring in the industry. The goal here is to become aware of the players in the space, to network with them, and build your Rep within that industry.

http://retailtechjobs.com/ 

We can even take it a step further and utilize Boolean aka keyword searches on job boards like Indeed to find us relevant opportunities. You'll have to play around with your keywords depending on the Job Board but this can be used on any job board.

Of course, if you have the ability you can also try to get in as a Coder or something more technical. That requires a bit more effort as you're probably building from the ground up but.

Everything is possible. I hope this helps. If you have any questions feel free to ask away.

Lastly, check out this thread on understanding Salary and compensation packages in your career. https://twitter.com/JermaineJupiter/status/1312402336489369607?s=19