If you are in the sales industry, please make sure you “sell yourself” in your CV. After all, if you can’t submit a convincing pitch or produce an effective sales document, recruitment consultants and employers won’t take you seriously.
Objective – Include a relevant objective and this will confirm to a recruitment consultant or hiring manager that you know which job you are applying for and have made efforts to tailor your resume for that position. You can also mention the name of your desired role in the objective.
That being said, having no objective is better than having a general objective. Often objectives don’t make sense to the role that a candidate is applying for and that can make you lose credibility.
Relevant and specific – The way you describe your experience will set you apart. E.g. imagine two CV’s with the same experience at a fast food restaurant. If one applicant lists what the job entailed, whilst the other describes that they looked after the drive-thru regularly and always beat the time given for each order, it’s obvious which CV a recruitment consultant is going to like more.
Sales jobs are often about meeting goals and achieving targets, whether that’s in monetary terms, contacts made, meetings booked or other measures, so it’s vital that you demonstrate that you are results-oriented in your resume. You really have to pull out the relevant skills that make sense for the job you’re applying for.
Keywords – The sales industry, like any field, requires candidates with specific strengths. Use words and phrases such as self-motivated
- results-oriented
- competitive
- outgoing
- hard working
- driven
Then explain why these words describe you using real examples.
Keywords are important – review the job that you’re applying for and emphasize their criteria on your resume.
Error free – Every recruitment consultant is going to have a personal preference in terms of what catches their eye but the most important thing is to ensure you have zero mistakes in the spelling and grammar department.
Also present your resume in a PDF file rather than a Word document (unless otherwise specified). When a recruitment consultant or employer opens up your CV in Word, they are going to be presented with all of those red underlines. Even if you have nothing spelt wrong things like your own name may be noticed by the spell checker. This brings attention to those things rather than what is actually important.
Remember if you are uncertain whether your CV is hitting the right notes never be scared to ask your recruitment consultant because they know what they are looking for!!
Good luck!
