NRF Experts Give Real-Time Retail Career Advice
The National Retail Federation (NRF), the world’s largest retail trade association, and Monster.com, a leading global online network for careers, will team up in an online chat on April 3, 2001 to provide job seekers expert advice on the wide range of available retail career options. Kathy Mance, NRF Vice President, Research, Education and Community Affairs, and Dan Butler, NRF Vice President, Retail Operations, will answer live questions about retail careers – covering topics such as compensation, skills training, education, career advancement, management opportunities and interviewing skills. The Online Retail Careers Chat, the first of its kind to be offered by Monster.com, will take place from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST in the Retail section of the Monster.com web site.
Both NRF experts will offer a broad perspective on retailing as a career. Dan Butler is a retail veteran with more than two decades of store-line experience in management, merchandising, and human resources development for major national department stores. Kathy Mance heads the NRF Foundation, NRF’s non-profit education and research arm. She lobbied workforce issues for the Federation from 1985-1991, and since 1994 has overseen the Federation’s efforts to develop retail skills standards, strengthen workforce training programs, and initiate school-to-work partnerships. She currently serves on the boards of several education-related organizations.
The NRF Foundation has created and managed Retail Skills Centers across the country since 1997. These Centers recruit, train, and place individuals in long-term retail careers and flexible job opportunities, while providing them with a link to community-based organizations, area schools and colleges, and employers. Retail Skills Centers combine state-of-the-art self-paced computerized instruction with workshops, placement services, and on-going job counseling and skill development. NRF currently operates Retail Skills Centers at the King of Prussia mall in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, at the Jersey Gardens mall in Elizabeth, New Jersey, at Arundel Mills mall near Baltimore, Maryland and in downtown Seattle, Washington. NRF-developed curriculum resources are also being used in other retail training programs around the U.S.
The NRF Foundation (NRFF) is the research and education arm of the National Retail Federation. Since the early 1990s, the NRFF has placed strong emphasis on workforce development initiatives to create the next generation of retailers. This focus has included leadership in Retail and Sales & Service Skill Standards development, driving strategies that link education and the retail industry, and development of one-stop Retail Skills Centers.
The National Retail Federation (NRF) is the world`s largest retail trade association with membership that comprises all retail formats and channels of distribution including department, specialty, discount, catalog, Internet and independent stores. NRF members represent an industry that encompasses more than 1.4 million U.S. retail establishments, employs more than 20 million people -- about 1 in 5 American workers -- and registered 2000 sales of $3.2 trillion. NRF’s international members operate stores in more than 50 nations. In its role as the retail industry`s umbrella group, NRF also represents 32 national and 50 state associations in the U.S. as well as 36 international associations representing retailers abroad.
For more information about NRF, visit our web site at www.nrf.com.
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