How to Craft a Seriously Compelling Sales Resume (Examples Included!)

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First impressions play a crucial role in the hiring process. When you send in your application for any job, your resume gives potential employers a first impression of you. It determines whether or not the potential employer will consider you for an interview.

Hence, your resume must be professional, persuasive, and make a favorable impression on the hiring managers.

A good sales resume effectively communicates how you are the best candidate for the job while highlighting your past work experiences, achievements, certifications, and position-based skills.

However, writing a perfect resume can be challenging for many sales professionals.

Which is the best resume format?
How long should a sales resume be?
Is writing about duties and responsibilities essential, or will work achievements be enough?
How to tailor the resume according to the job requirements?

To help you out, I have compiled a list of actionable tips to create an outstanding sales resume that is certain to impress your prospective employers.

Tips to Write a Sales Resume That Lands Interviews

Whether your resume will be scanned by a screening tool on a sales job board or be screened manually by hiring managers, these tips will help you create a compelling resume and get called for interviews.

1. Choose a Neat Resume Layout That Fits Your Goal

Layout and formatting are crucial steps for creating a professional and readable resume. Hence, choose a layout with a simple and clean design that presents all the relevant information in an organized manner.

Craft your resume in one of the popular resume formats – reverse-chronological, functional, or combination.

Chronological resume – This type of resume format lists the work experience in reverse chronological order. This means your recent job position will be listed at the top.
Functional resume – This format focuses on the candidate’s skill set rather than the work history.
Combination resume – This type of resume format is a blend of chronological and functional resumes emphasizing work experience and skill set.

Choose a relevant format for your resume depending on the job requirements and career goals.

Once you have chosen the format, it is time to draft your resume. Here are a few things to remember.

Use a straightforward design to ensure you do not distract hiring managers from important resume content.
Structure your content into consistent sections with the proper headings to help the hiring managers navigate the resume seamlessly.
Ensure the resume looks presentable and appealing using the right font and alignment.
Follow a consistent color scheme throughout the resume design.
Keep your resume one page in length. Refrain from overloading it with too much information.
Use icons and timelines to share important information in the resume, such as work experience, education, and more.
Run a grammar and spell check on the resume content and proofread it manually before making a final copy.

You can also refer to this infographic for tips on formatting a resume.

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2. Write a Strong Sales Resume Header with a Summary/Objective

A resume header acts like a business card for the candidate. This section contains name, job title, and contact information, such as email address, phone number, and LinkedIn profile link. Besides basic information, you can include links to your other social media profiles and personal website in this section.

You can also add a resume summary or objective to this section, as it helps your resume to stand out among hundreds of other candidates.

A well-written career objective briefly introduces yourself and your career goals. In comparison, a resume summary sums up your entire work experience and informs the hiring managers how your skills and knowledge align with the requirements of their open job roles.

Check out the resume header in this sample sales resume.

22 Sales Resume Examples

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Let us now dive into the best practices for crafting a professional header.

Design a visually-appealing header that presents information in a clean layout.
Limit yourself to adding information that is relevant to the job requirements.
Refrain from using fancy buzzwords, such as Sales Ninja, Sales Guru, Sales Samurai, or any other for the job titles.
Include either a resume summary or an objective in the header.
Provide details of your current location. Also, mention if you are willing to relocate for the said role.
Write down proper contact details. List down the phone number along with the country code. Add a professional email address that is easy to read.

3. Focus On Showcasing Your Sales Experience with Results

Hiring managers always look for specific skill sets in candidates that will help them succeed as sales professionals. You must emphasize the sales experience by showing a track record of sales achievements in your resume to land a role in a top firm.

Structure your work experience section in the following manner.

Job title or position
Company name and location
Employment period
Responsibilities and achievements

To convince the hiring managers about your sales skills, craft the experience section to accommodate accomplishments, examples, sales results, and more. Quantify the achievements by adding actual numbers, such as unit sales, achieved targets, or generated revenue.

Check out this work experience section of the resume of a HubSpot employee. Notice how the candidate has written about the achievements and supported them with statistical figures.

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Follow these tips to write an effective work experience section on your resume.

Tailor the content in the work experience section to include keywords from the job description.
Focus on sharing the best achievements rather than sharing your daily tasks. For instance, you can say you achieved monthly sales KPIs for three months in a row instead of saying closed sales deals.
Use action words to make your responsibilities or achievements stand out. For example, use ‘spearheaded or lead’ instead of ‘managed.’
Do not hesitate to list the awards and recognitions that you may have received.

4. Include the Top Sales Resume, Soft Skills, and Core Competencies

Since the sales field involves customer-facing responsibilities, outstanding soft skills are crucial for all sales professionals. These skills help in building strong relationships with customers and prospects.

Did you know 93% of employers say soft skills play a critical role in their hiring decisions? No wonder they want to see them in candidate resumes.

Hence, creating a separate section for highlighting soft skills on your resume is wise. Keep it short and simple. You can use data visualization elements like star ratings, bars, or icons to show off your soft skills.

Consider adding the below-mentioned soft skills to your resume.

Result-driven
Problem-solving
Persuasion
Time management
Strategic thinking
Flexibility
Self-motivated
Active learning
Honesty

Check out the skills section in this sample resume.

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Similarly, listing the core competencies in the resume can also help strengthen your candidature. Here are a few core competencies that are a must for a career in sales.

Sales knowledge
Industry and market insights
Product knowledge
Prospecting skills
Upselling and cross-selling abilities
Strategy planning and implementation
Negotiating prowess
Change management
Emotional intelligence and empathy

You can also combine both these sections and list them as key skills.

Sales Resume Examples for Different Sales Roles

Here are examples of a few sales resumes you can refer to while writing yours. Take note of how these sample resumes incorporate all the above-mentioned sales resume writing tips across various sections.

Channel Account Manager – Sample Resume