Creating a sales CV that stands out

Of all professional disciplines, you might expect applicants for sales jobs to be among the best at creating a standout sales CV. However, selling your own talents is not always easy, and writing a great sales executive, sales manager, or sales director CV is a discipline in itself.

In this guide we'll take a look at how to write a general sales skills CV, as well as some CV examples sales professionals can use when applying for specific roles.

To start with, make sure you've read our guide how to write a CV and familiarised yourself with our CV template, so that you know the different elements to include and the general best practice when writing your sales CV.

Build your sales CV template

You know your own education, experience and interests better than anyone, so sit down and plan your sales CV template before you begin filling in the fine details.

There are a few ways to do this:

• On screen if you feel more comfortable editing things digitally
• With highlighters to pick out the information for each section
• Cutting each section out and rearranging your CV on paper

Mix and match any of these methods and don't feel self-conscious about exploring the options. Writing a sales CV is not something many people need to do often, so it's likely to feel unfamiliar to you in some ways.

Creating a sales CV template that you can work from is not just about the order of information, but also how much space you give to each section. You can tweak this in the final edit, but it's good to have an idea of whether you want to prioritise your career history, education, or other expertise and activities, so you know how much detail to include.

Sales CV example

You can see some examples of sales, marketing and retail CV advice in our guide on how to write a CV for your sector.

There's more sales CV sample snippets in our article example of a good CV, including how to structure your education history and any past job roles. Now, let's look at a sales CV example in more detail:

Name, contact details and personal statement

Your basic information and personal statement should be concise - don't waste valuable real estate on putting your name in 36pt font. Keep contact details to just a line or two at the very top of the page (leaving a sensible margin on all sides).

A personal statement can be useful for a sales advisor CV, as it's your chance to use full sentences and persuasive language to sell yourself. Just remember to keep it brief, and remember you're talking to a hiring manager, not a sales prospect.

Career history

Career history is likely to be the most relevant section on a sales executive, sales advisor, or sales manager CV, or for any role where you have held more than the most basic entry-level junior positions in the past.

Be complete: list start and end dates, company name and job title for every entry, to show there are no gaps in your career. Provide bullet points listing your duties and achievements in any roles you are especially proud of, such as when you increased sales or exceeded sales targets.

Education and interests

As you move up your career ladder, your education and outside interests may become secondary to your on-the-job experience, but they are worth including in summary.

Secondary and further education can be omitted if you're short on space, and even your university degree can be summarised once you're a few years into your career. It's likely that many of the applicants will have an equivalent degree, so only go into detail if yours stands out for some reason.

Write a sales CV to get through the gate

One final point worth thinking about is this: many hiring managers, especially in competitive disciplines like sales and marketing, now use automated CV shortlisting software. This will scan through your sales resume and look for certain key words or phrases.

If you work in sales, you likely have an appreciation of the impact specific words can have. Apply that knowledge to your sales executive resume and get past those AI gatekeepers.

How to get past CV gatekeepers

Treat writing your sales CV as a comprehension exercise, whether it’s for a sales advisor, sales executive, sales manager or any other sales role. Read the job description and take note of any technical skills required.

Make sure you mention them in your CV using similar wording to the job description.

Often the CV scanners are configured to look for the exact wording used in the job advertisement - so don't get filtered out by deviating too far from the wording used there.

In general, it's best practice to tailor your CV to each new application anyway, so this is not an extra step to crafting the perfect sales CV, it's just a slight modification to your approach.

Now your CV is completely up-to-date why not check out all the live sales roles we have on the Michael Page website:

EXPLORE LIVE ROLES

Ask your sales recruitment consultant

Finally, if you're stuck for what to include on a sales CV, ask your Michael Page recruitment consultant. We know the market well, and we work closely with our candidates to make sure we can advise you on how to land the best role for your talents and ambitions.

Or, if your CV is ready, submit it today and start discussing new opportunities.

SUBMIT YOUR CV