If you’re conducting a sales job search, you may already have an advantage over your competition.  Working in sales gives you good training for how to “sell” yourself to an interviewer or hiring manager.  You’re probably already skilled at stressing good points and advantages of a product; now you simply need to use these skills for yourself as if you are a product being sold.  Unfortunately even very experienced salespersons forget this during their sales job search, so let’s make sure we understand how to do this so that you can apply these points to your own search.

Stressing the positive is imperative during your sales job search.  Resumes today usually have a section that emphasizes a person’s traits that might not be communicated in other areas of the resume.  For instance, good communication skills, problem solving ability, and open and engaging personality, or strong interpersonal skills can all be mentioned directly on your resume.  When conducting a sales job search remember that a hiring manager wants someone with these personality traits as well as their sales abilities and experience.  Don’t be shy about mentioning these things, as chances are other applicants won’t be!

During a sales job search you need to remember that those hiring for a sales position are often very interested in actual numbers more than anything else.  On your resume, you can certainly state the type of product you represented as well as the company and number of years, but numbers are really going to impress the hiring manager.  State sales figures, percentage of increase in sales, increase in profit margin, and so on.  A sales job search must emphasize what you’re able to produce in terms of dollars and cents, and especially when it means increases as well.  If you can demonstrate an increase in sales and profit then definitely you want to make this stand out as much as possible!  And as with a sales job, your sales job search might mean some persuading down the line as well.  Be sure to follow up with your interviewer, sending a thank-you letter and stressing your positive qualities.  Remind them of the work that you can do for them and the results that they’re sure to see. 

And of course it’s important to remember that your interviewer is like one customer; you can’t pin all your hopes on any one person.  During your sales job search make sure you send out a number of resumes and browse as many online job boards as possible.  Even if you’ve had a good interview, keep searching because you don’t know what will happen.  Like selling a product, your sales job search will mean some hard work but of course it’s worth it in the end when you finally make that “sale,” that is, when you finally get that dream job.  Keep up a good attitude and remember to persevere and you’re sure to finally land the sales job of your dreams!