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Build a sales representative resume that shows off your abilities and gets you the job you want, using our expert examples and advice.
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No need to create a sales representative resume from scratch. Use the formatting and content from this sample as a springboard to write your own resume.
Sales representatives are the lifeblood of any business. Businesses rely on sales reps’ knowledge of company products to meet sales goals, source potential customers, take care of customer needs and follow up with after-sales service. Sales professionals use their product knowledge to help businesses achieve their sales targets. A superior sales representative resume will feature all these abilities, as well as a rundown of experiences and accomplishments that show a record of efficiency and success.
Follow our resume examples and tips to show you have the essential sales skills that hiring managers are looking for in a sales representative job.
Build my resumeA professional resume should show that you are suitable for the role. For a salesperson, that means demonstrating you have the sales skills necessary to persuade customers to buy from you. It also means sharing evidence of how effective you are on the job, such as conversion rates in current or previous jobs and knowledge of sales strategies.
The perfect resume will highlight that you will be an asset to the business and that you can attract prospective customers while fulfilling the requirements of account management. Read on for our tips on how to write a resume that does just that.
There are three different resume formats for you to choose from. These are the chronological format, which emphasizes work history, the functional format, which emphasizes skills, and the combination format, which emphasizes both. You’ll use similar sections for each format, but depending on the resume format you choose, the order of the sections (and how substantial each section is) will be different. If you think your experience is a strength, go with the chronological format. If you don’t have much experience, go with a functional format to put your skillset front and center.
The resume header with your contact information always appears first. Your full name with links to your LinkedIn profile and any other relevant professional links, as well as your phone number and address should be here. This makes it convenient for the hiring manager to contact you.
Your resume objective or resume summary is like a tagline briefly highlighting your career background. This section should be clear and concise and no longer than three sentences. Outline your experience and highlight any specialties that you have, such as experience at trade shows.
In the skills section, you have an opportunity to highlight the hard skills and soft skills you possess that will help in your future role. Sales team members perform various tasks, and you must use this section to show you have the skills necessary to complete them. In these bullet points are some examples of sales skills that a recruiter will be looking for:
These are some of the crucial skills you’ll need to show you have an awareness of what the role entails. Any hiring sales manager wants to see that you can perform the role’s duties. This should go beyond some experience with cold calling. They need to believe that you can genuinely expand their customer base and keep existing customers satisfied.
In the work experience section, list your previous roles in reverse chronological order. Your years of experience should feature your responsibilities within each role. Focus on any overlap between your expertise and the demands of the position you are applying for.
If you have industry-specific experience, focus more on those roles to show you already possess industry expertise. If you are an entry-level candidate, feature previous roles that showcase transferable skills. Help the recruiter see your potential by drawing connecting your experience with the advertised role. Senior sales managers are not averse to hiring a candidate with a lack of experience if they can see potential and ambition.
A sales representative will need at least a high school diploma to apply for a role. It is increasingly common for sales reps to have a bachelor’s degree in a business-related field. If you are applying for an in-demand industry-specific position, the education section of your resume should show you have the necessary training. For instance, if you would be selling products or services in the medical or pharmaceutical industries. Include any relevant certifications in this section.
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A cover letter backs up your resume and offers the opportunity with further explanation of your best skills and achievements, while also addressing why you’re interested in a particular company, and how you can make a positive impact. A good cover letter should also include keywords and phrases from the job description. Learn more about writing cover letters from ResumeHelp.
Keep it clear and concise. Don’t get too convoluted. If there are intricacies, explore them in the resume main sections and the cover letter. Keep it to the headlines, but use the resume summary to highlight a specialty if it relates to the advertised role. See our resume summary tips page for more guidance and examples.
Updating your resume for each job application based on keywords is a useful move. This will help your resume get past applicant tracking systems (ATS) that hiring managers use to screen resumes. Read this guide on writing a targeted resume.
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