The Importance of People - Retail as a Career Part II
Part II of our retail as a career series is from Hannah, 21
Why did you choose your particular path?
I think it is ridiculous that as a teenager we have to decide what we want to do for the rest of our lives when we have hardly experienced the real world. Yet however I came to the easy decision of studying industrial design.
I saw it as a way I could continue to develop my love for art and design – not really planning on how or what the job could be I would look for at the end of my degree. I felt that, for me, I needed to do something that I was passionate about, something that would make me happy. Cheesy I know.
Why did you not investigate a career in retail?
I never really thought of a career in retail would be an option once finishing high school. No body came to my school to present any options for a profession in retail. For me, I have always been told that going into to retail would stunt my career. I would be stuck working on a shop floor for the rest of my life, going nowhere fast. Retail has never been portrayed to me as a viable career path. As previously stated in this post I want to do something that I am passionate about, and that would be fashion. I can spend up to hours of the Internet looking at clothes, reading articles, and sharing my thoughts. Working in retail would allow me to do this face to face with people.
If retailers had come to your school and shown an internship programme with clear career path would that have increased the chance that you would have chosen a career in retail?
I do think that if someone had come to my high school and shown me what a career in retail could potentially lead to, I would have taken it into more consideration.
Ironically working in retail will probably be my first job out of university till I land on my feet, which I am perfectly content with.