When you write a resume, your number one goal is to impress potential employers with your education, work experience, and skills. When you re-enter the work force after a time of flea market selling as your only occupation, there can be some confusion about what to include on your resume. By outlining your job description, skills, and responsibilities in an impressive fashion, flea market selling can be an asset to your job-seeking resume.
Flea Market Selling – Job Description
If you think about what you do when you are selling at the flea market, you might not imagine you could make it sound professional. What do you do? Sit behind a table, take money and make sure no one runs off with your merchandise. Obviously, listing that on your resume would be a mistake. It does not sound like a specialized skill at all.
Think harder. Put a positive spin on what you do when you are flea market selling. Not only do you research venues, you are responsible for product procurement, transportation, display management, customer service, handling finances, and negotiation. Make the job description sound exciting and vital.
Flea Market Selling – Skills and Responsibilities
It takes many specialized skills to be successful in flea market selling. Your responsibilities as both a vendor and small business owner are immeasurable. On a resume, responsibilities should be matched with the skill sets necessary to complete them. Product procurement would coincide with research skills, negotiations, and comprehension of shipping methods and rates. Flea market selling skills are the same ones that many professional employers seek.
Flea Market Selling – Pay Rate
Determining what to put on your resume for past pay rate can be more challenging when you are self-employed with flea market selling. Chances are, you could not reduce your profit and loss statements to an hourly wage or even a yearly salary. Stating your pay depended on sales makes it sound like you were on commission. Since the flea market selling business is obviously self-employment or small business ownership, potential employers should understand there was no set pay rate. Unless you want to write, “variable,” you might want to skip that part on your resume entirely.
Resume writing is challenging enough without the added difficulty of self-employment. Still, conducting your own business like flea market selling can actually help you land a difficult job. By tweaking your job description, skills, and responsibilities for maximum effect, you will impress potential employers and find success.