Anabel is interested in entrepreneurship, the natural sciences and environmental issues, but she has not yet decided what to study at university. According to Asko Pukk, people with such interests are very welcome to work in the retail sector. "There are several topics that Anabel could deal with here. For example, developing environmentally friendly supply chains, designing nature-friendly packaging and much more. There are endless opportunities for people with all kinds of interests," Pukk says.
On 22-26 April, the Estonian Merchants' Association organised a retail Job Shadow Week to introduce gymnasium students to career opportunities in retail. Feedback from the young people was very positive.
Anabel Selgis, a final-year student at Tartu Jaan Poska Gymnasium, spent a day during the school holidays as job shadow to COOP's development director Asko Pukk in order to get ideas for her future career choices. While shadowing him, she discovered that working in the retail sector offers very diverse opportunities and that she would like to give the retail field a try in the future.
As COOP's development director, Asko Pukk's job is to look for and apply new solutions that help make retail more efficient and better, both from the customer's and the staff's point of view.
"The most exciting thing about my job is that the opportunities are essentially unlimited," he says. "Compared with development work in some other sector, in retail the scale is enormous - stores, logistics, customer service, marketing, IT, finance. All of it is very exciting!"
According to Pukk, young people could choose a career in the retail sector precisely because of the abundance of opportunities. "Anything is possible - you just have to show some initiative," he adds.
Watch the video to see what Anabel saw and experienced on Job Shadow Day at COOP:
Read more retail workers' stories and find out what kinds of job opportunities retail offers: kaupmeesteliit.ee/tulekaubandusse
PHOTO: COOP