Abdul Akinola

During my time at Sports fashion Retailer JD Sports, I learned a variety of valuable skills in retail from my position as a sales assistant in textiles whilst also gaining some experience in footwear and footwear stockroom. A skill that significantly developed at JD was my Discipline and planning. This was achieved through a variety of different seasonal periods which required me to skilfully attend to customers whilst maintain size order, communicating with customers and communicating with management and security about any suspicious characters that entered the shop using radios. Continuing, I also learned inventory management with the use of scanners. This same scanner equipment also enabled me to learn more about footwear request and "standards" for both footwear, footwear stockroom and textiles.

Whilst volunteering at cancer research I learned valuable skills that are important for both the retail sector and charity system. Whilst volunteering there I have learned how pricing is determined in a retail store and how a store front organises its products to make it more attractive and appealing to the customer whilst also making it easier to navigate and organise the shop floor. During my time there I have significantly improved my ability to balance multiple tasks at one given time due to my role requiring me to manage regular & gift aid donations whilst also organising clothing dependant on size, condition and more.

Whilst assisting in removals I developed my communication skills with a variety of customers with different beliefs and from different backgrounds. This provided me with different perspectives that enabled me to communicate effectively and efficiently. My experience in removals also developed my organisational skills further as it required me to be able to consistently and efficiently organise items of different shapes and sizes to maximise space available and minimise the amount of time it would take. Finally, whilst working with the company I was able to significantly develop my problem solving and adaptability skills. This is because I upon every shift I had to adapt to different terrains and housing designs which required me to create alternative methods of achieving our objective such as dismantling and reassembling items.

As an assistant my main responsibilities included stacking and organising inventory, engaging with customers and dealing with their inquiries whilst delivering quality and timely customer service. Furthermore, I developed my multi-tasking skills by managing subscription requests whilst engaging with customers. During my time in this role, I also developed my teamworking skills by adapting my working style to complement my team member's skills set, resulting in a swift and more efficient service for the customer.