Trying to move out of retail

[PearlHeart3]

Hello, I'm posting this in the hopes others can offer some advice.

My partner has been working for the same company since the age of 18. He is now 32. He works for a large nationwide supermarket as a night manager, typically (9pm - 7am) and earns around £28,000 (plus a yearly bonus).

We are expecting our first child later in the year. He desperately wants to move away from retail, especially nights. He has a degree (albeit 3rd class) although at this stage, I'm not sure how helpful it would be.

He's willing to take a pay cut providing the move offers some progression later down the line. However, he is finding it increasingly difficult to move outside of retail for "not having the right experience" as per the job advertisement. He is applying but is often rejected without comment.

I have worked in the recruitment industry in the past and have looked over his CV and helped him tailor it to specific jobs, but he's still not getting a good response rate.

If it helps, we live in the Cambridgeshire region and he's happy to travel to surrounding areas - up to an hour commute each way (driving).

Can anyone offer some advice on how to approach this, or the sort of jobs his skills could be best used at? I have asked him what he wants to do career wise, but he's not got any one thing in mind. I can appreciate this as I have only recently (in the last couple of years) decided on what I want to do and have returned to university to get a degree (and I'm a bit older than him!)

Thanks in advance.

What does he want to do instead of retail?

Hi @CloudRusting - thanks for your response. He's not set on any particular career (his degree is criminology), however he is more concerned with obtaining better working hours/environment, which is to move into an office based role, Monday-Friday, that sort of thing.

I have suggested to him Office Manager, Researcher as examples. But I'm not sure what else he can move into.

Would he be able to find another job for his company but not on the shop floor? I worked in retail for years and took a sideways move into the buying office and then HR for the same company?

Hi @Redcliff - I have suggested this too, but their HQ's are based in London and are all buyer/legal centric and he does not posses the experience/qualifications. He and I have both checked their corporate vacancy website (internal and external) and nothing is suitable unfortunately.

The best thing to do is apply for an office job within his company. Tesco, Aldi, Asda etc all have Office manager jobs albeit in their finance division or HQ — just note though that often the managers on the shopfloor earn more than office managers. So if it’s more money you’re after he’s better off applying for a promotion.

You don’t need buying experience if you can sell your on the floor experience correctly. He needs to call recruiting managers. I moved from Retail Banking to professional work in Investment banking because I could sell my customer relationship management skills (as well as the knowledge I learned about the company). Supermarkets are great at doing this too — they nearly always prefer to take a chance on an internal recruit with shopfloor experience than an outsider

I moved from retail to HR (I'd done graduate training in retail) but I left my job to study HR full time to facilitate that.
Your dh could study HR part time.
It's also worth registering with some of the big retail recruitment agencies.
www.retailhumanresources.com/

In your dhs case I would apply for daytime roles in current and other companies.
Office Manager roles are less common nowadays and tend to be candidates with extensive administrative and PA type backgrounds so I don't think your dh would get a look in for those roles unless he moved from Shop floor to an office role in existing company. Not sure what you mean by researcher, what kind of research? Customer insights?

An admin-type role at a Facilities Management or Engineering company would be a good entry point into a new sector. Once in the door, he could move into project management which is usually just putting together quotes and managing sub-contractors.

I went from 8 years in retail to civil service.

Might call centre management be worth considering? Content is different but same core skills of managing teams, client satisfaction, hitting demanding targets etc? Might not be 9-5 but may be better than now.

Thanks for your advice all. I have passed your suggestions.

I’m a store manager looking to get out of retail and in a similar situation. Currently studying accounting at night school.