It goes without saying that your CV is a crucial tool that will or will not get your foot in the door with an employer. It is most likely going to be the first opportunity that you will get to sell yourself as someone who is capable and worth hiring. But do you know how to create the perfect CV?
Today we will show you how to write the perfect CV to help you land a sales job.
Add Relevant detail
The word to focus on here is “relevant”. As a sales professional, the way to make yourself stand out in the initial CV selection process is by adding relevant details. For example, expand on vague points like “cross-selling and upselling” and add more detail so it sounds more like “it was my responsibility to encourage customers to purchase additional products or more expensive items and I was consistently cross-selling or upselling in over 80% of my sales which meant I regularly featured in the weekly bulletin for top salesperson”. Adding details like that makes your past success more real and measurable.
Don’t Forget The Numbers and figures
When employers first look at your CV they will be scanning for details such as how much revenue you and your team generated over a period of time. It is imperative you include these details as this is how they will instantly evaluate someone as suitable for the position. Some examples could be:
- How much you were targeted in a certain week or month and how much you achieved.
- How much revenue you generated in your first 3 months or in your last 3 months.
Buzz Words To Avoid And Keep
Now the odd one or two sales-focused buzz words cannot be helped and can make your CV more interesting to read, however, we would strongly recommend avoiding the boring cliches.
What the employer will want to hear are words like:
- Colding calling
- Networking
- Up-selling
- Cross-selling
- Negotiating
- Objection Handling
- KPIs / Targets
Who Have You Sold To?
Employers love to know about what industries you have been working in, which businesses you have sold to and also what type of people you have been selling to. This will help the employer gauge the level of sales experience that you have and sharing this kind of information could open the door for the sales opportunity that you want.
Eye-Catching Modern Format
Now for a moment let’s put to one side our discussion on what information you should put into your CV and let’s think about the appearance of your CV.
The way your CV looks is going to be the very first thing that the employer will see when they open your CV. As you are applying for a sales role the CV shouldn’t be overly flashy or radioactively colourful as you want your skills and experience to be the thing that stands out.
If you don’t fancy designing your CV yourself, you could try using CV builders such as using resume.io.
Check For Grammatical Errors
Checking your spelling and grammar is a must. There is no discussion on this. It is a huge turn off for employers if they’re reading through a CV to find many spelling and grammatical errors. To avoid these mistakes we recommend using tools such as grammarly.com to check your spelling and grammar automatically.
Customise Your CV For Each Job
A standard sales CV containing all your skills and achievement and created with the points we mentioned above may do the job of getting your foot in the door. However, if you want to drastically increase the chances of your CV being noticed then carefully examine the job description and conduct further research online and tailor the content of your CV around that. This will help the employer recognise how you would be able to complete the tasks within the sales role.
