Career Opportunities
The person who embarks on a career in the area of textiles, apparel, and merchandising (TAM) today enters a field that is exciting, rewarding, and multifaceted. This field offers a freedom to grow, freedom to change jobs or direction, and freedom to move to different cities, or even different countries. The career path you choose and the success you enjoy is all up to you!
Here is just a small sampling of some of the opportunities available:
- Retail Stores
- Central Buying Office
- Manufacturers
- Salaries
- Recent Internship and Entry Level Positions of Recent Graduates
Retail Stores
Department Store Executive Trainee: In stores such as Macy's, a typical training program consists of work experience in a variety of departments and formal classes conducted by senior executives and training department personnel. Training programs are followed by the opportunity to become a junior executive.
Department Manager: training, supervising employees, all department operations, e.g., opening, closing registers, scheduling, merchandising, customer service.
- Requirements: college degree, analytical abilities, strong communication skills, leadership ability, initiative, motivation, energy, maturity, a "sense" for fashion Long range: Most large department stores have two main tracks to management: one is through the buying line (merchandising) and the other through the store line (operations management).
- Long range career opportunities: Assistant Buyer, Buyer or Retail Store Manager.
Central Buying Office
Assistant Buyer Trainee: job responsibilities include keeping unit control records, placing reorders, writing orders for basic stock, working directly with the assistant buyer and buyer, following up on shipments, appointment scheduling, and calculating markdowns.
- Requirements: detail orientation, strong math aptitude, communication skills, organizational skills.
- Long range career opportunities: Assistant Buyer, Associate Buyer, Buyer.
Product Development Trainee: this position combines the business, technical, and creative aspects of the fashion industry. Responsibilities involve preparing product specifications, paperwork and follow up, fashion research, coordination of garment lines, communication with production firms, and travel to identify manufacturers.
- Requirements: understanding merchandising/fashion trends, garment construction, textile science, the apparel manufacturing process, flat sketch knowledge, communication skills, organization and problem solving ability.
Manufacturers
Showroom Assistant: showing and selling apparel lines to clients, dealing with buyers, keeping sales records, writing orders, following up on orders, appointment scheduling, working apparel trade shows.
- Requirements: self-confidence, fashionable appearance, assertive personality, excellent oral and communication skills, high level of organization, past sales experience.
- Long range: Show room assistants usually become a Showroom Manager, followed by a Manufacturer's Representative. Manufacturer's Representatives are wholesalers who show and sell specific garment lines to retail buyers. They are the liaison between the producer of a garment and the retailer of that garment.
Salaries
Salaries are as diverse in this field as are the opportunities. Entry level salaries range from approximately $26,000 for an Assistant Manager of a specialty store to approximately $35,000 for an executive trainee. Store Managers, Buyers, and Manufacturer's Representatives can earn in excess of $100,000 per year.
Recent Internship and Entry Level Positions of Graduates
- Store Management Intern, Kohl's Department Stores, Chicago Metro Area
- Store Management Trainee, Kohl's Department Stores, Chicago Metro Area
- Showroom Assistant, The Apparel Center, Chicago, IL
- Intern, Saks Fifth Avenue, NYC
- Visual Merchandiser, DKNY, Chicago, IL
- Executive Trainee, Neiman Marcus, Chicago, IL
- Assistant Buyer, Spiegel, Downers Grove, IL
- Allocation Analyst, Claire's, Corporate Headquarter, Hoffman Estates
- Textile Analyst, Westfield Textiles, Northbrook, IL
- Assistant Buyer Trainee, Saks Fifth Avenue (DKNY), Chicago, IL
- Assistant Buyer, Burdines, Miami FL