Retail Salespersons build persuasion, service orientation and social perceptiveness skills that carry over to other work. Below are 25 careers ranked by how closely their skills match, with pay from BLS May 2025. The closest match is Door-to-Door Sales Workers, News and Street Vendors, and Related Workers (90%).
Updated October 2026 · Data: O*NET 31.0 and BLS OEWS May 2025 · How we match careers
Sorted by skill match.
| # | Career | Skill match | Median pay | Pay change | Extra education |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Door-to-Door Sales Workers, News and Street Vendors, and Related Workers | 90% | $41,380 | +17% | None |
| 2 | Demonstrators and Product Promoters | 88% | $39,320 | +11% | None |
| 3 | Telemarketers | 86% | $35,450 | 0% | None |
| 4 | First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers | 86% | $48,520 | +37% | None |
| 5 | Customer Service Representatives | 83% | $44,770 | +26% | None |
| 6 | Sales Representatives of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel | 80% | $69,990 | +98% | None |
| 7 | Order Clerks | 80% | $46,170 | +30% | None |
| 8 | Stockers and Order Fillers | 79% | $37,330 | +5% | None |
| 9 | Real Estate Sales Agents | 78% | $52,830 | +49% | None |
| 10 | Gambling Dealers | 78% | $34,320 | −3% | None |
Compared with Retail Salespersons, median $35,410. Skill match is our estimate (0–99) from O*NET 31.0 skills, knowledge, work activities and interests, adjusted for preparation and big pay drops. Pay: BLS OEWS May 2025, national median.
How important each skill is in work as retail salespersons (O*NET importance, scale 1–5).
The gaps that show up most often across your top 10 matches.
Free and low-cost training: use the CareerOneStop training finder below.
A concrete first step, the skills to add, and the hard parts of each job, from O*NET 31.0 education, training and work context data.
90% skill match · $41,380 · +17% pay
Programming · Operations Analysis · Social Perceptiveness
No work-context factor stands out as unusually hard in O*NET data.
88% skill match · $39,320 · +11% pay
Operations Analysis · Troubleshooting · Systems Evaluation
86% skill match · $35,450 · 0% pay
If you want to stay close to what you do now, these roles are the nearest.
The closest matches are Door-to-Door Sales Workers, News and Street Vendors, and Related Workers (90% skill match, median $41,380), Demonstrators and Product Promoters (88% skill match, median $39,320) and Telemarketers (86% skill match, median $35,450), based on O*NET 31.0 data and BLS May 2025 pay.
Among the 25 matches, 18 pay more than retail salespersons at the median. The biggest increases: Gambling Managers (+163%, $93,220), Sales Representatives of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel (+98%, $69,990) and Advertising Sales Agents (+83%, $64,820).
23 of the 25 matches usually need no more education than you have now, based on O*NET Job Zones.
We compare the importance of skills, knowledge, work activities and interests in O*NET 31.0 for your job and every other career, then adjust for extra preparation and big pay drops. The full method is on our Methodology page.