The job market in Arlington, Virginia is so heavily weighted toward highly educated, high paying, bureaucratic or defense related careers that many people without a graduate degree or a relative in politics despair of ever finding a job there. However, the over 200,000 people living in the city need certain things to go on living, like groceries and furniture and business attire and shoes and TREO leather pouches for the PDAs they can't live without. To provide the city's many, many bureaucrats and scientists with these things, Arlington has developed quite a significant retail sales industry, which people of all ages, educations, and experience levels can find jobs in.

If you're a good salesperson and would like to make a career out of helping people outfit themselves for life or you simply need a job to tide you over in your rent until you're accepted into the bureaucracy, here are some likely places to go about looking for positions.

Ballston Common/ Crystal City Shops/Clarendon Market

Arlington, Virginia has an extremely high percentage of public transit ridership, with thousands upon thousands of people commuting every day via the subway to Washington. Subway stops such as Ballston, Crystal City and Clarendon form the center of Arlington's "urban villages," where you'll find a lot of the city's high rise condo buildings and most of its shopping. The positioning of the shops at transit stops ensures that Suzie Bureaucrat coming home from the Pentagon has bamboo diapers and new pantyhose at her disposal without having to go out of her way.

Each transit mall has 100+ shops, usually mid to high-end, like Williams-Sonoma, and Macy's, though some of the malls, especially Ballston Common, have more ubiquitous or low-end retailers like Payless or Cash 4 Gold, where you get cash for gold jewelry. If you decide to work here, be prepared for customers in a hurry on their way somewhere.

The Fashion Center at Pentagon City/Pentagon Row

The Fashion Center mall and its outdoor companion, Pentagon Row, like Ballston Common and the others, are attached to a transit stop. The difference here is that the retailers are of the more upscale variety and the restaurants are sit-down. There are over 170 shops ranging from Nordstrom to Swarovski Crystal. Most are franchises. Expect to serve a lot of tourists if you work here, as it's the city's largest mall. You may also see a lot of Pentagon aides rushing out to make purchases for their bosses and even some important personnel looking for a neutral place to discuss the use of gold bullion bars in Columbia.

The Village at Shirlington

The Village at Shirlington is a more eclectic shopping destination, both because of the types of shop you'll find there and because it's the only one not attached to a public transit station. This is the place to work for anyone weary of the ordinary: people who like to chat to customers and sell hand-made wall lettering you can't get anywhere else. Very few of the shops here are franchises and the mall is also a center for award winning regional theater.

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