Where are you working and what are you doing?
Stirling Sports Manukau, Casual Retail Assistant
I’m doing everything to be honest. I’m a retail assistant but I do stuff from working at the till, doing sales, greeting customers, doing stocktake, I’m doing cash up as well. It’s funny because I had to stay late the other night to do cash up and one of the other assistants who has been there a year and working at the main store didn’t know how to do cash up. Because it is a small store, there are mostly casuals and one permanent staff.
Did your studies with MSL help you? If so, how?
Yes it did, it was the main reason why I got my job. There are a lot of role plays which helped me to get used to customers attitudes and what you might experience. Now that I am in my job I am coming up with these things and even though I am still learning I kind of know how to deal with them. Going to the retail course also gave me the confidence. To begin with I really hated role plays because I was nervous getting up in front of the class, but we kept practicing and each time it got easier.
When it came time to look for a job, we each printed out about 5-6 copies of our CV’s and we got to choose which employers we would hand in our CV’s to.
So I had asked the Manager (Stirling Sports) but he said there were no jobs going at the time. A week or so later, the manager called me and said they had a few changes and asked if I would be willing to come in for a interview – which I was! When I got the call I was at course, so I finished up and went home to get prepared and dressed. And I wasn’t that nervous in the interview, it was quite calm. I was just told about the role and then after that I got offered the job.
I found MSL Retail very welcoming and I felt comfortable. Also I found that everyone in my class was very supportive which was encouraging – overall I felt it was a really good learning environment.
Everyone motivates each other and I formed special bonds with the girls especially the ones that started out in level 2 like me and went on to do level 3.
What did your family and friends think of you graduating from Level 2 and 3 MSL Retail Courses?
They were proud that I was actually doing something, especially after coming back from Australia. I was looking for retail courses to do and found MSL when I was online. For some reason MSL stood out to me plus it was close to home.
Would you recommend MSL to your friends and family? What advice would you give them?
I’d find out what sort of pathway they are interested in and let them know that MSL can support and help a lot especially because you need that education.
