Sales Resume Example (With Best Practices and Tips!)
In the sales world, your resume is your ticket to landing a high-paying position. Building a compelling sales resume requires more than just listing your experiences; it demands a tactical approach that highlights your achievements, quantifies your successes, and tells a story of your sales skills.
In this guide, we discuss the best practices and tips for creating a high-quality sales resume that’ll help you land your dream job.
Be sure to check out the example resumes at the bottom of this post and use the templates!
1. Quantify Your Achievements
Metrics are the language of success in sales. When you’re putting together your resume, make sure to quantify every accomplishment possible and provide context for each metric.
For example, instead of simply stating "Exceeded sales targets," specify by how much you exceeded them and what impact it had on the business.
Did you surpass your quota by 150%? Did you achieve a record-breaking sales figure? Quantifying your achievements not only demonstrates your proficiency but also adds credibility to your claims.
Here are a few more examples:
Achieved an annual quota attainment of 121% selling to C-level marketing leaders
Ranked 2 out of 19 account executives on number of opportunities created in 2023
Added $5 million to pipeline and closed $1.1 million in ARR in 2023
Performed 80 cold calls on a daily basis and sent 25 personalized emails
Recruited and lead a team of 8 SDRs focusing on selling to data engineering leaders
Reduced the average sales cycle length by 20% through implementation of streamlined sales processes and effective pipeline management
2. Detail Your Experience With Context
In sales, context is key. Provide information about your sales experience, including details on the types of products or services you sold, the industries you sold into, average deal sizes, and the length of the sales cycle.
Hiring managers want to know how your experience aligns with their needs. Be specific and highlight your experiences as it relates to the open role!
3. Highlight Quota Achievement
Sales is a numbers game. Meeting or exceeding sales quotas is the leading benchmark of success. Make sure that you prominently feature your quota achievements in your resume.
Not a top performer? Try stack ranking your achievement. For example, let’s imagine that there are 12 reps on the team, but the targets set are unachievable. Only two people successfully hit the target, but you’re the 3rd top rep. Focus on that! Highlight your quota achievement as being the third highest performer on a team of 12.
To summarize, make sure you can give your hiring manager an indication that you are a high performer.
4. Showcase Your Brag Book
Your resume is just the tip of the iceberg. A resume shows that you hit quota, but a brag book shows the hiring managers the exact strategies you take to hit quota. Here are a few things that you can include in your brag book to stand out to hiring managers:
Your exact cold call script
A recording of a mock cold call or discovery call
Sample cold emails
Your objection handling strategy
How you set up sales sequences
and so much more!
See an example brag book by clicking here.
Your brag book is the secret weapon that provides a deeper dive into your sales skills. Include a link to your brag book in your resume, where you can showcase your success stories, sales strategies, sales tactics, and tangible results.
A link to your brag book can set you apart from the competition.
Build your own brag book with PitchFolio here!
5. Save as a PDF
While this last tip may seem minor, formatting plays a larger role than you’d expect.
While candidates who work in graphic design or marketing often rely on visuals and more creativity on their resumes - sales resumes often focus more on text and numbers.
Avoid resume formats with significant whitespace or resumes that are focused on design. We suggest you choose a more modest resume.
To make sure that your resume maintains its format across various devices, save it as a PDF before sending it out (be sure to give it a professional name when saving!).
PDFs keep the formatting, ensuring that your resume’s layout isn’t affected, regardless of the device used by the hiring manager.
Conclusion
In conclusion, creating an effective sales resume requires you to focus on quantifiable achievements and a focus on quota attainment.
By following these best tips, you can create a resume that stands out to hiring managers. Your resume is your first impression of your job search, make it count!
Example Resumes
Want to use one of these formats? Download the resume in doc.x format - then open up a separate Google Doc, select Open, then Upload and select the resume.