Career · Your own business and management
Cashier
Takes payment from shoppers, rings up purchases and makes sure the sums are accurate.
Career overview
What a day looks like
A cashier greets shoppers, scans the goods, takes payment and hands out the receipt. They make sure the till adds up and try to work quickly and politely even when the queue is long.
Try it yourself this week
30 minutes
Make your own monthly budget on paper
- Write down where your money comes from: pocket money, gifts, a part-time job. If you don't have any money, make up an amount for practice.
- Write down what you usually spend money on and split it into needs and wants.
- Make a table: income, spending, what's left.
- Work out how you'd save for a goal, for example a new phone or a trip, and how fast you'd get there.
What you'll learn about yourself: Whether you like putting numbers in order and deciding what to spend money on.
What you can do next
Next 3 months
Practise quick counting
Make up a set of purchases with prices and work out the total and the change in your head, then check on paper.
In six months
Watch how a till works
Stand in a queue and watch how the cashier talks to people and what they do when a question comes up.
In a year
Ask someone who does this job
Through people you know, and together with your parents, find out what a cashier's shift is like and what is hardest about it.
What it pays
No verified information is available in this section yet.
Where to study
No verified information is available in this section yet.
How to get into college
College gets you a profession faster than university. You can apply after grade 9 or after grade 11.
- Colleges accept students both after grade 9 and after grade 11. After grade 9 you study longer — about 3 years 10 months; after grade 11, about 2 years 10 months. The exact length depends on the college and the specialty.
Source: kchk.edu.kz (opens in a new tab) - About 80% of students admitted to colleges in the 2024/25 school year study on a state order, which means in state-funded places (in 2023/24 it was about 70%). But each college and each specialty has its own number of state-funded places.
Source: inbusiness.kz (opens in a new tab) - There are also paid colleges. For example, training as a nurse at ADILMED costs 450,000 ₸ per year. Check the price and conditions on the college's website.
Source: adilmed.kz (opens in a new tab)
UNT: which subjects to take for university
The UNT (Unified National Testing) is Kazakhstan's national university entrance test. You need it to get into university after grade 11.
- The UNT 2026 has three compulsory subjects: History of Kazakhstan, Reading Literacy and Mathematical Literacy. On top of these, you take two profile subjects, chosen to match your specialty.
Source: testcenter.kz (opens in a new tab) - In total, the test has 120 questions (maximum 140 points) and you get 4 hours. The format is the same as in 2025.
Source: testcenter.kz (opens in a new tab) - Profile subjects depend on the group of specialties. For example: information technology — Mathematics and Computer Science; nursing and veterinary medicine — Biology and Chemistry; electrical engineering — Mathematics and Physics; law — World History and Fundamentals of Law. The full list is published by the National Testing Center.
Source: testcenter.kz (opens in a new tab) - For creative specialties (for example, media and design), you take History of Kazakhstan and Reading Literacy through the UNT, and two creative exams at the university itself.
Source: testcenter.kz (opens in a new tab) - Some universities have their own admission rules. Nazarbayev University, for example, requires a UNT score of at least 85, a GPA of 4.0 and English at IELTS 6.0 level.
Source: nu.edu.kz (opens in a new tab)
Courses and opportunities
No verified information is available in this section yet.
History of the career
No verified information is available in this section yet.
Well-known people in this field
No verified information is available in this section yet.