Macy's Fashion Merchandising Resume (Entry Level)

With Examples & Detailed Walkthrough



An Entry Level Fashion Merchandising Resume, especially when you have no relevant experience, will look a little different from most resume examples you might see online.

Your most pressing issue may be a lack of work experience. But that should not stop you from applying to jobs you’re interested in.

In this article, I’m going to show you how to write an entry level fashion merchandising resume in response to a real job at Macy’s.

IMPORTANT: the job post you’re responding to is what’ll guide how you write your resume. Most resume writers don’t talk about this. But I like to focus my method on a proper study and understanding of the job post.

If you’ve already read some of my other articles and are already familiar with how to study a job post, skip ahead.

If your new to this site and/or writing your own resume, don’t worry.

Take my hand. Read on. And I’ll take you through it step-by-step.

Entry Level Fashion Merchandising Resume Examples

Below is a fashion merchandising resume that I created in response to this job ad from the fashion brand Macy’s. Even though it’s an entry level position, it did require a couple years of experience. But don’t worry. I included examples of how to write a resume even when you have no work experience down below.

Preparing To Write Your Entry Level Fashion Merchandising Resume

Career Coaching Notes: For the most detailed instructions on how to write each section of your resume, please refer to this fashion resume how-to guide I created for you.

When you use it, give yourself ample time to learn how to write a resume. The first one may take several days. That is perfectly alright.

Better to write your resume well over a few days, than to write it badly over a few hours. In this article, I’ll briefly go over why I wrote each section the way I did with the assumption that you’ll refer to the how-to guide for more information.

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First Things First

The first thing I do is copy and paste the job post into a word doc. So we can study it in depth.

For this example, we’ll be looking at a job post from the popular brand Macy’s. I've included my personal notes.

For your convenience, the job post opens up in another window. That’ll make it easier for you to follow along.

How To Study A Job Post

Optimize your resume

Just like search results on the internet, resumes are sorted and filtered. This is how a company separates candidates it’ll consider vs those they won’t. When you optimize your resume, you use the same keywords on your resume that the company is searching for.  

Step 1:

Begin to highlight any keywords that stand out to you. Keywords are any jargon and technical terms associated with a job.

It’s a skill to learn how to properly study a job post and it does take a little practice.

I highlighted what I found important in pink in the job post sample.

These words and phrases are what you'll use to optimize your resume.

Step 2:

Look out for the specifics of this particular role. It changes from company to company. This is a basic overview of what I can see about this job…

  • A 4-year degree is required (but not specified)
  • Requires 1 to 2 years of experience even though this is entry level
  • You’d be working more with stock than with clientele

Now we’re prepared to start writing our resume.

HINT: Start your work in a basic word document. Work on the content aka words of your resume first. Worry about templates or how it will look later.

6 Steps to Writing Your Entry Level Fashion Merchandising Resume

1. Let’s Start With Your Contact Information

Even though contact information seems very basic, it’s still possible to get your resume disqualified on badly written contact information.

There are 2 main areas of your contact information that could make or break your fashion merchandising resume. They are your…

  • Email address and
  • LinkedIn profile

Please refer to this section of the how-to guide for more details on how to complete your contact information.

Once you’ve done this section right, you can always reuse it in any other resume you’re writing. So know that it’s time well invested.

*For this particular post at Macy’s, you won’t be needing a portfolio. So, we can skip that bit.

2.  Move On To Your Experience Section Next

Even though the experience section is usually further down the resume, I like to work on the experience section next.

This gives me a chance to explore all the details of why a candidate is a good fit for a role.


Most articles will tell you to come up with 3 to 4 points that demonstrate your ability to work well in this role.

When it comes to experience, only relevancy counts. So baby sitting and food serving don’t count.

As a rule of thumb, if any section of your resume is weak, you simply move it further down the resume and place your stronger sections before that – in a more prominent position.

So what should you write if you have no work experience?

Rather than using a heading like Work Experience, go for a heading like Campus Engagement, Volunteering And Work.

List the roles you have held rather than go onto detail about each.

See the comparison below.

No Work Experience, No Problem!

3. Get Your Education Section Out Of The Way

It’s a simple matter of putting down the details of your degree and you can move on to the next sections of your resume.

If you have no work experience: you can list relevant modules you covered in your degree that will be useful to this role such as...

  • Essentials of Psychology
  • History of Fashion
  • Introduction to Textiles
  • Consumer Behavior
  • Merchandising Planning and Buying
  • Retail Management
  • Fashion Promotion
  • Supply chain management

See image above.

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4. Writing A Headline For Your Entry Level Fashion Merchandising Resume

Headlines are one important part of resumes that candidates often overlook.

The headline I used for this resume was…

MERCHANDISE CONTROL ROOM ASSISTANT

Marketing and E-Commerce Content Production

I used a variation of the job title at the beginning of the job posts and as a second line pulled the phrase Marketing and E-Commerce Content Production which I noticed was repeating itself a lot.

If you follow my method, you already know what you’ve written in your experience section. So that can guide how you craft your headline.

For more details on how to write your headline, read here.

5. Writing Your Key Skills Section For Your Fashion Merchandising Resume

Most people are at a loss when it comes to what key skills to write on their fashion merchandising resume. There’s no need to search the internet for key skills. Rather, you need to search the job posting for the key skills.

Remember all that keyword research we did at the beginning of your resume? You get to use that again in your key skills section.

So, make a list of all the skills you could find and use around 6 to 8 of them to create your skills section.

The key skills do split into at least 2 groups…

  • Technical skills which are skills that are specific to this role. For example, designers should probably know design and copywriters should probably know copywriting.
  • Transferable skills which are skills which are useful to any role, are somewhat general and could be useful in a different role.

6. Writing Your Fashion Merchandising Resume Objective

I only call it a career objective so we can both be on the same page.

However, a career objective is a sure resume killer.

This part of your resume should be summarizing why you’re a good fit for the job (a career summary). NOT stating the obvious about how you wish to work with this company (a career objective).

If you’ve been following along, you already worked out your experience, and education. You're now in a good position to - just like in English class- write a summary that hits all the high points of hiring you.

Think overview versus general.

For example, …

  • Strong interpersonal skills? Can you show any way you have successfully worked with other people? Are you part of any community groups, school groups? Maybe you can write something like led a team of 5 minority representatives and carried their concerns to school board.
  • Resourceful self-starter? Maybe you started study groups that brought together students that wouldn’t usually mix.
  • Maybe you weren’t too social at school, but your teachers all had good things to say about you. Described as a bright student and high academic achiever. Proven resourcefulness as an assistant.

For more info on how to write your objective/summary, read here.

Drawing To A Finish

By now, you have the content of your entry level fashion merchandising resume complete. But what about look and feel?

Now is the time that you can copy and paste your content into a chosen resume template.

Sorry to say, but most free templates were designed by a graphics person and hardly have any space for quality content. Not to mention they have unnecessary headings and sections like hobbies. Yikes!

So, I always prefer a minimalist template that sticks to one page.

This is the safest option.

The most daring I would do is to maybe customize the fashion merchandising resume to look and feel like the brand.

Simply put, the content of your resume needs as much attention, if not more, than the look of the resume.

Hope you find this useful.  Remember if you need more direct help, the best way I can help you is with a resume critique and rewrite.

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Resume Review/Critique

I’ll go over your resume and create a personalized 10 - 15 minute video review that you can watch as many times as you need to.

$21