6 Golden Rules for Writing a Sales Resume
In today’s highly saturated sales job market, you need to makes the best first impression and stand out from the crowd. And it all boils down to your resume. As a sales professional, you know the far-reaching implications of first impressions. Whether you’re applying for an entry-level, manager, or executive position, you cannot break the six golden rules of writing a sales resume. Adhering to resume writing rules will help you create a persuasive CV that presents you as the best candidate for the sales job. To land more sales job interviews, follow these simple golden rules for writing a compelling sales resume:
1. Create Detailed and Informative Content
Your resume should represent your relevant skills, experience, and qualities to help the recruiter or hiring manager see why you're a good fit for the job. Cover all the basics in a few words as possible. Here are the most important elements to include in your resume:
Contact information: Provide your full name, where you live (town or city), email address, and phone number. Check and countercheck to ensure each item is accurate.
Resume objective: Write a brief, informative, and powerful resume objective or statement to grab recruiters’ attention right from the start. Your resume objective should proclaim all your strengths in a single sentence.
Relevant skills: So, how do you write skills for a resume? First, place the most relevant skills for the sales job or role at the top of your list. Second, describe your skills using the words in the job advertisement. To write a compelling sales resume, include your soft and hard skills in your resume and add value using power words.
Relevant experience: In the experience section of your resume, provide relevant information about your past jobs to give the recruiter some context. You can list past sales roles and positions from the most recent to the oldest. If you’re applying for your first sales job with no experience, use personal experiences to demonstrate your capabilities.
Relevant education: Having relevant education is crucial if you're applying for management or executive sales positions. If you’re looking for a sales VP role, put extra effort into the education section on your resume. You should include your field of study, college, degrees, and certificates.
You may also need to write a cover letter for your resume depending on the sales position. It can improve your resume and increase the chances of landing your first sales job.
2. Quantify Your Accomplishments
To write an outstanding resume, help recruiters and employers to envision the tangible benefits of your experience. You can accomplish this by quantifying your achievements using facts, data, and numbers. Here is an example of how to write your previous responsibilities in a resume:
Unquantified achievement: “Improved annual sales as Sales VP at XYZ.”
Quantified achievement: “Attained 200% year-over-year sales growth as Sales VP at XYZ.”
Quantifying accomplishments with numbers, facts, and data brings your work experience to life and boosts your credibility. It provides informative context and demonstrates the potential impact you could have working for the company. If you’re writing a resume with no sales experience, you can also quantify your personal experiences to convince recruiters to give you a chance.
3. Use Keywords to Align Resume with Job Descriptions
In today’s tech-driven world, you should use keywords to align your resume with job descriptions. Sales recruiters and hiring managers are impressed by job applicants who speak their language. This resume writing best practice reinforces the idea that you’re the right candidate for the job. Some sales recruiters in Dallas use applicant tracking systems (ATS), which sort applications based on specific keywords. Without the right keywords, ATS will classify your resume as irrelevant and push it aside. To beat the system and impress hiring managers, research the right keywords and use them throughout your resume.
4. Format to Emphasize Your Strengths
Choose a sales resume format that prioritizes and emphasizes your strengths over weaknesses. If your education increases your value as a candidate, put it above your experience and closer to the top. You can place your sales experience first if your degree is not relevant to the role. Using the appropriate sales resume format can emphasize your strength and mitigate the impact of your weaknesses. To create a professional sales resume, use either Times New Roman or Arial in font size 10 or 12. The purpose of writing a sales resume is to attract recruiters’ attention. So, you should not include references in your resume. Hiring managers will request references when you get closer to landing the sales job.
5. Name Your Resume Appropriately
Naming your resume ‘Resume’ is counterproductive. It creates the perception that you don’t care about landing the sales job or you’re lazy. Sales recruitment agencies in Dallas receive hundreds of resumes for entry-level, part-time, and management roles. It is easier for your sales CV titled 'resume' to get lost in the database. A recruiter can also skip your application if you label it ‘resume.’ If you’re working with a sales headhunter in Dallas, they can find your CV quickly from their database by searching your name. A recruiter does not have the time to go through hundreds of CVs searching for your resume. You can lose a high-paying sales job just like that! It only takes a minute or two to name your resume correctly. Yet, it may be the only thing standing between you and your dream sales job.
6. Spell Check and Proofread
The last thing you need is for a typo or misspelling to deny your dream sales job. After writing your sales CV, you should spell-check and proofread your resume line-by-line and word-by-word. Review several times to catch hidden typos and misspellings. You can ask a friend, colleague, or family member to go through your resume to be on the safe side. The more times you proofread, the better.
Adhering to these golden rules for writing a resume can help you get more interviews and land a sales job. If you're unsure how to format your CV, you can do more research on resume writing tips, examples, templates, and samples for inspiration. The best sales recruitment agencies in Dallas also offer candidate resources and blogs, which can help you write a compelling resume.