How To Become A Backroom Associate: What It Is and Career Path

What is a backroom associate and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

A backroom associate works in a retail store and ensures that once it is unpacked and assessed, it reaches the floor for customers to purchase. As a backroom associate, you may either find yourself working in a retail store or in hospitality.

Your duties as a backroom associate include receiving stock, unloading and assessing it, providing labels for inventory purposes, and organizing stock such that it can easily be retrieved for the future. Your working hours as a backroom associate vary between early morning and late evening shifts. So, per week, you can expect to work up to 40 hours.

The skills required to become a backroom associate include strong organizational skills, knowledge of data entry, and computer skills. You will not require an undergraduate degree to become a backroom associate, but your high school diploma will suffice as you will learn most skills on the job.

ScoreBackroom AssociateUS Average

Salary

2.5

Avg. Salary $31,395

Avg. Salary $59,228

Diversity

7.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.55%

Asian 6.85%

Black or African American 10.39%

Hispanic or Latino 20.37%

Unknown 5.08%

White 56.75%

Gender

female 23.33%

male 76.67%

Age - 39

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 39

Stress level

6.2

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

4.5

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

8.5

Work life balance is excellent

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a backroom associate

Explore backroom associate education requirements

Most common backroom associate degrees

High School Diploma

45.6 %

Bachelor's

22.1 %

Associate

18.5 %

Start to develop specific backroom associate skills

Skills	Percentages
Groceries	24.42%
Customer Service	12.84%
Cleanliness	8.77%
Customer Merchandise	8.33%
Outbound Shipments	7.48%

Complete relevant backroom associate training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New backroom associates learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a backroom associate based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real backroom associate resumes.

Research backroom associate duties and responsibilities

Receive, inspect and store groceries.
Unload the Walmart trucks as they come in with the supplies from the warehouses.
Pull, stock and restock electronics and entertainment, operate Rf unit, perform inventory
Work with general merchandise, produce and groceries with the quality of the product in mind.

Prepare your backroom associate resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your backroom associate resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a backroom associate resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable backroom associate resume templates

Build a professional backroom associate resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your backroom associate resume.