Sales Resume: Examples, Templates & Tips

Your resume is your calling card. You want to make it easy for the hiring manager to reach out. That’s why you should put your contact information in the header.

Your contact info should always include your name, phone number, email address and location. Additionally, you might want to add a link to your personal website, portfolio or LinkedIn profile.

As a sales professional, your resume header should be straightforward — nothing over-the-top bold or colorful. You can give it a personal touch but don’t distract from the substance of your career.

Next, let’s get into your resume’s introduction.

First impressions are important, and there’s no better place to make one than your resume profile.

The profile sits at the top of your resume, giving the reader an overview of your skills and experiences. It’s your chance to show them you’d be a great hire and make them want to keep reading.

There are at least two different types of profiles, and each one is a perfect fit for a different type of job seeker:

Applicants who have at least three years of relevant experience will benefit from a professional summary. Summaries are normally four or five sentences and speak to the candidate’s skills and experiences.

Applicants new to the workforce or transitioning into a new field may be better off with a resume objective. Objective statements focus on goals. Candidates clarify what they’d like to get from the job and how they will create value for the employer.

At the end of the day, your profile should have one goal: make the hiring manager believe you’d be a great fit for the position.

How do you accomplish that? Ask yourself, “What does this company care about?” Read their mission statement so you can focus your resume on the accomplishments and skills they’ll find most impressive and relevant.

Writing Tip

Tailor your summary or objective for every sales position requesting a resume. No two sales roles are the same. When you customize your resume for each role, you can emphasize the skills and experiences in the job listing. This will increase your relevance and help you sail past the applicant tracking system (ATS).

From tracking your leads with a customer relationship management (CRM) program to building relationships with empathy and persuasion, you use skills daily. The key is to represent these skills on your resume — and not just in your skills section.

You use hard skills when doing technical tasks, like managing a CRM database or forecasting the next quarter’s sales. You use soft skills every time you’re on the sales floor connecting with customers.

This isn’t a showdown —  hard vs soft skills. It’s more like a dance, where these skill sets work hand in hand to create a great performance.

Writing Tip

Sales is a people-oriented profession so you should take extra care to show off your communication abilities. Use words like “negotiate,” “listen,” “persuade,” “present” and “mediate” to help the recruiter understand your skill range.

As a sales rockstar, your work experience is packed with impressive sales figures and survey results. Whether honing your technique, cold-calling customers or adding information to your CRM, you want to believe the work speaks for itself.

But the truth is — you want your professional experience to sing, and you can only do that with a well-written resume.

Here are a few ways to make your work history more impressive:

Sales work experience entry example:

For a recent graduate, showcasing your education will help you break into the business.

Your education tells the employer you have strong foundational skills and a grasp of the basics. In other words, they won’t have to teach you everything from the ground up.

In general, you should list your educational achievements in the following order:

Your experiences in the workplace have shaped you. But what if you don’t have much work history? Or you’ve done many impressive things outside of the workplace?

Your sales resume will be even better if you add a couple of sections that showcase your unique history and abilities. Let’s review a handful of optional sections that tend to appear on sales resumes:

Writing tip

Have you ever won “Salesperson of the Month” or been publicly recognized for closing a huge deal? Consider adding a section to showcase your honors and awards.