CareerOneStop urges Big Lots workers to spotlight transferable skills

Why your Big Lots shift is more than a retail shift

The most useful thing to remember about retail work is that it is rarely just retail work. Helping a shopper find the right item, keeping freight moving, handling a register rush, and resetting a messy aisle all build skills that travel well beyond the store.

That is the heart of CareerOneStop’s message: transferable skills are valuable because they apply across many careers, not just one job or one industry. For Big Lots workers, that advice fits especially well because so many everyday store tasks already line up with the language hiring managers use outside retail.

How CareerOneStop says to frame your experience

CareerOneStop breaks transferable skills into three broad groups: general, technical, and role-related. Its tools encourage workers to think beyond one job title and reflect on volunteer work, school experience, and job history when building a skills inventory.

The site’s skills assessment points to workplace abilities such as writing, problem solving, data entry, and helping people. Its resume guidance also makes one important point: transferable skills should not be left in one isolated section. They should show up throughout the resume so an employer can understand how well you can do the job, not just where you worked.

That matters because employers often read for capability before they read for industry background. If your resume only says you “worked the floor,” it hides the real work. If it says you managed customer questions, completed transactions, handled stock issues, and kept the team moving during freight, it starts to sound like experience an employer can use.

What Big Lots work already teaches you

Big Lots’ role descriptions make the connection easy to see. Current postings and job descriptions include greeting customers, assisting with merchandise selection, completing transactions, answering questions, unloading trucks, processing freight, recovering merchandise, stocking shelves, cashiering, and doing light cleaning or maintenance.

Those tasks already map to skills hiring managers recognize:

• Greeting customers and answering questions build communication and interpersonal ability.
• Helping with merchandise selection shows sales support and customer service judgment.
• Completing transactions and cashiering demonstrate cash-handling accuracy and attention to detail.
• Unloading trucks, processing freight, and stocking shelves show organization, pace, and physical task management.
• Recovering merchandise and keeping the register area moving show cooperation, time management, and team coordination.
• Solving a stock issue or price discrepancy points to critical thinking and problem solving.
• Opening, closing, and managing a fast freight move reflect self-management and reliability.

The value here is not theoretical. Big Lots’ own careers page says the company is looking for hardworking and talented people, and that language mirrors what CareerOneStop is asking workers to do: name the skills that sit underneath the job.

Before-and-after resume language that employers outside retail understand

The easiest way to make transferable skills visible is to translate store work into action verbs and outcomes. Think of the resume as a bridge between what happened on the sales floor and what another employer needs to know.

Here are a few examples:

• Before: Worked the floor.

After: Assisted customers with merchandise selection, answered store questions, and kept the sales floor organized and shoppable.

• Before: Ran the register.

After: Processed customer transactions with accuracy and handled cash register duties in a fast-paced environment.

• Before: Put away freight.

After: Unloaded trucks, processed incoming freight, and stocked shelves to keep inventory available and organized.

• Before: Helped customers.

After: Used communication and problem-solving skills to resolve stock issues, explain product options, and support sales.

• Before: Closed the store.

After: Completed closing tasks, light cleaning, and end-of-shift organization while managing time and priorities independently.

• Before: Worked with team.

After: Coordinated with associates to recover merchandise, maintain the register area, and keep the store operating smoothly.

Those changes may look small, but they make a resume read like a skills profile instead of a job log. That difference matters when you are applying for warehouse work, customer service, office support, logistics, administrative roles, or another retail position.

Why the message matters even more at Big Lots

Big Lots has been through a severe restructuring that changed the stakes for workers across the chain. In its filing for the quarter ended May 4, 2024, the company said it operated 1,392 stores in 48 states and an e-commerce platform. By September 9, 2024, it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware, later saying it would pursue a sale to Nexus Capital Management.

Reuters reported that the company employed more than 30,000 workers when it filed for bankruptcy. Court-related coverage and reporting also showed that hundreds of store closures were planned or already underway. For workers, that scale means job security, transfers, and outside opportunities can all become part of the same conversation.

That is why transferable skills are not just a resume trick. They are a survival tool in a retail company that once reached far beyond a single region and then moved through one of the biggest restructurings in its history. When store jobs disappear or shift, the workers who can explain their experience in clear, portable terms are in a stronger position to move with the market.

How to build a stronger skills inventory now

A practical way to start is to list the tasks you already do and then match each one to the skill behind it. CareerOneStop’s guidance points workers toward exactly that kind of reflection, including experience from school, volunteering, and paid work.

A simple approach looks like this:

That is the real takeaway for Big Lots workers: the store title may change, the schedule may change, and the company may keep changing around you, but the skills you built on the floor still travel. The workers who name those skills clearly will have a better chance of turning retail experience into the next job.