Sales Resume

Questions to Ask Yourself When Creating a Sales Resume

Are you a sales professional who wants to take your career to the next level or down a new and interesting avenue? If so, you are going to need to build a resume with a strong and effective sales resume objective and well-organized experiential information. If it has been a while since you took a look at sales resumes or if you are new to the marketing and sales field, you may be wondering what types of information should go into your initial resume outline and final draft. You may also be wondering whether you should go with the chronological resume style or the functional resume format. When faced with making these kinds of decisions, there are certain questions you an ask yourself to help you get just the right message down on paper in the form of a high quality sales manager resume or regular sales resume:

• Have you been steadily moving up the ladder or have you been in one position for a long time?

• Are you new to the sales industry and have very little experience to highlight?

• Have you accomplished anything that has saved your company money?

• Have you won any awards?

• Have you attended any specific training sessions, workshops, or seminars?

• Have you brought old customers with you to a new place of employment?

• Have you “stolen” customers away from a competitor?

• What is the biggest sale you ever made?

• What is the first sale you ever made?

• What kinds of grades did you make in your marketing classes in school (for the relatively inexperienced salesperson)?

• Who is your favorite sales and marketing author? Why?

• What one piece of advice would you give to younger, less experienced salespeople?

• What is the most rewarding aspect of a career in sales?

• What is the most frustrating aspect of a career in sales?

• What specific character traits do you have that make you a good salesperson?

The answers to these questions can provide you a good place to start when searching for information that belongs in your sales manager resume. Of course, the frustrating question should serve as a “flip” piece of information, and can be particularly useful for creating your sales resume objective. Let’s say the most frustrating thing about your current job is your company’s policy against offering even a small discount for repeat customers. You might use that to create a sales resume objective statement along the lines of, “To help XYZ increase sales and profits by utilizing new and innovative techniques to make the sale each and every time.” They don’t have to know that one of those new and innovative techniques you are talking about is a small discount for good customers!