How to show awards on a retail resume

​Need another reason not to use a resume template? Quite often they have a section at the very bottom to list awards. That's unfortunate because awards are much more important than that, and they deserve to be treated like any other achievement.

Why? Because the fact that you won an award tells the reader that your performance was better than your peers, and that is VERY important. It also offers tangible, 3rd-party "proof" of your excellence, and that builds credibility with the reader (rather than YOU saying you are great, you have something to back it up).

So rather than listing your awards at the bottom of your resume, almost as an after-thought, include them in your work history section under each individual position. You can even showcase them in the summary at the top if they're impressive.

A couple more points to consider:

1. Focus on the reason for the award rather than the name of the award. Since people outside your company won't know what the "Henry J. Smith Award" is for, leave that out and instead say "Won national award for the highest sales increase over last year...." or something similar.

2. Include how many of your peers you competed against for the award. For example, instead of "Won the Store Manager of the Year award in 20XX," say something like "Awarded Store Manager of the Year in 20XX over 65 other candidates across the country."

Throughout your job search, you should always be thinking of ways you can "prove" yourself to a potential employer so they feel their risk is minimized. Awards are similar to recommendations and testimonials - they tell the recruiter that someone else (besides yourself) considered your performance to be exceptional, and that can be very valuable.

Cheers!