How to write a sales resume?

[Click here to directly go to the complete sales resume sample]

To get the sales job of your dreams, you need to pass the interview - and in this blog, we will help you achieve this.

Isn’t it ironic that you generated stellar sales in your last sales profile, are confident that you’ll crack any interview, but a tiny snippet of a fact skipped your mind - that you have to reach the interview stage?

If you’re looking for a new or better sales job, there’s no point in registering record-breaking sales in your previous profile if you can’t sell yourself on a piece of paper. That’s what a perfect sales resume is, isn’t it? You are selling yourself and if the recruiter likes the product, you are shortlisted.

But if you start counting the number of companies you sent your sales professional resume to, you might need a third hand (or fourth?). And how many of those bothered to call back? Is your hand curling into a raging fist because, surprise surprise, no one did?

So what happened?

Is it because your sales resume did not have what it takes, or is it because the competition is just too high?

Both maybe?

How about you let go of the raging fist and take a step back. What can you do now?
The key to unlocking that mystery lies in that one-pager sales professional resume that you mindlessly send anywhere and everywhere.

Our guide to writing the best sales resume will tell you how to beat the competition and help you find the Wolf-of-Wall-Street-esque company you are looking for and deserve!

By the end of this article, you'll be able to:

• Write an on-point resume headline
• List out your skills in the correct format
• Decide when to make an objective section and when to go for a summary section
• Provide the correct personal information
• Write your resume points in the correct fashion

... All to get that much-desired interview!

Our guide will broadly cover the following topics:

• Sales Resume: Personal Information
• Sales Resume: Header
• Sales Resume: Summary or Objective
• Sales Resume: Key Skills
• Experience In Sales Resume
• Sales Resume: Education
• Sales Resume: Additional Information
• Resume For Sales Related Profiles
• How To Make An ATS Friendly Sales Resume
• Advanced Tips For Sales Resume

Before you go to sleep at night, do you calculate the number of companies that you sent your sales resume to? Do you have nightmares of a cubicle full of HRs pouring over your sales resume and having a hearty laugh?

Do you try to compute the ratio of how many callbacks you received? And does that ratio make you feel helpless?

It’s not the ratio itself which is disheartening. It’s what you do after that. Are you the one to wallow in self-pity, or are you the one to take charge of the situation and do something about it?

If you’re a sales professional who has been in the field, you know the level of competition which is out there. You know it’s a dog-eat-dog world simply because of the very nature of the profession. And in such a scenario, the formula to survive is simple: eat or be eaten.

Ever wonder what happens when weeks go by without you receiving even a single confirmation from the recruiter? Was your sales resume so bad that they did not see it worth their while to even spend a second on it?

Before you blast off a list of back-alley insults to the recruiter, consider this: what if s/he didn’t even get a chance to look at your sales resume?

Believe it or not, this happens more frequently than you think. Most companies use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to filter out all job applications. You can’t expect a bunch of poor HRs to pour over thousands of applications that they receive for a single sales vacancy, right?

The situation is worse in most MNCs (yes, including the MNC that you have your eyes on), where the scale at which they operate makes the ATS an indispensable tool for filtering out applications.

While we’ll talk about making sales resumes ATS-friendly in detail in this guide itself, there are a few things which are not in your control - the number of applicants, how exactly an ATS is programmed, what specific things the HR is looking for, etc. But there are a few things which you can certainly do.

How so?

By understanding how a sales resume is structured.

The broad structure of sales resumes is divided into the Professional Summary, Professional Experience, Key Skills, and Education.

How these 4 sections are played around on an actual sales resume can range from professional to professional. Professionals with 20+ years of work experience in sales will structure their sales resumes differently than, say, people who have finished half a dozen different internships and are now ready to start.

Sales resumes of freshers in this field should be of one-page and for those who have over 10 years of experience it should be two pages. Sales resumes should not be 1.5 or 1.75 in length. If you're utilizing the second page, make sure you reach the entirety of the second page and do not breach the limit of one line for each point.

So you saw an infographic sales resume somewhere online, and thought to yourself ‘What better way to present all your sales achievements in all their glory than fancy graphs and charts? That ought to triumph everything else, right?’ Um, no. Granted, they do look fancy, but the job of sales resumes is not to look fancy, it’s to get people shortlisted.

Prima-facie, infographic sales resumes do deliver quite the impact, but the truth is, they make most ATSes go haywire. An ATS is programmed to parse only basic text. That means logos, tables, and graphs are out of the picture. A graph showing a meteoric rise in your sales will be useless if the ATS goes ‘huh?’ and trashes the same in the bin.

As dumb as it sounds, don’t write ‘CV/Resume’ on the top. We’ve seen sales resumes with a ‘RESUME’ in bold for a heading, so let’s avoid that. Simply start with your name, and then continue with your current/targeted profile below it and then provide your contact details.

What about the file format? Most companies specify what they want (.docx, .pdf, hand-made paper from septuagenarian artisans in Japan, etc.) in the Job Description itself. In case of a lack of information about the same, you can go for a .pdf with minimal formatting.

Since you can never possibly know which ATS the company is using, or which way it has been programmed, you can play it safe by sending a .doc file to the ATS and a .pdf to the recruiters.

That’s alright, but what about the font, font size, or the margin? Go for sans-serif fonts like Calibri or Tahoma instead of serif fonts like Cambria or Times New Roman. If you pick a font, make sure it’s consistent throughout your sales resume.

Having the heading in some fancy font and then the points in the standard font is a rookie mistake that we’ve seen countless times. Avoid a font size smaller than 10 or 11, and don’t underline words as they can distort the legibility of lower case letters like g, j, or y.

When it comes to margins, go for a margin spacing of 0.5 on all sides. Do not manually extend it to try and fit your point in one line. The formatting of sales resumes is as important as the content in them. So, make sure it is also on point.

How many pages? Size matters, but not like the way you think. We’ve seen top-level executives and CXOs bragging about their 20-pages long resumes containing their entire life history, starting from their cashier job at Walmart 30 years ago. Don't do that and if you're on a senior position then just limit your sales resume to just 2 pages.

Most HRs don’t think twice before throwing away a 5-pager resume in the bin.

What is your argument? That if you mention everything, you’ll come across as being comprehensive and detail-oriented? Put yourself in the HR’s position and you’ll find out why that is not the case. Moreover, limiting your entire professional trajectory to just two pages is a skill on its own.

Also, if sales resumes exceed the limit of 2 pages there is a high chance that the recruiter might not even think of them as worth taking a glance at.

Design: The content of sales resumes is of prime importance and then comes the design of sales resumes. So, keep that in mind while making your sales resume.

Prioritizing design by compromising on content can land you in trouble. Just to clarify, no one is downplaying the role of good design. It can automatically give you a boost over a majority of other sales resumes, even before the recruiter can dive down into the finer points. But that’s just it.

A good design is just a gateway for the reader to enter the domain of content. But if the content isn’t engaging enough, no amount of flashy design can save you. And while we’re there, unless you’re applying for a Graphic Designer profile, you’d be better off toning down the flashiness a bit.

Spending hours fine-tuning the subtle nuances of design for sales resumes is pointless if doing that very thing will render the sales resumes as un-parseable by the ATS.

So broadly, you've got 2 options.

The first one is to make your sales resume on MS Word and the second one is to opt for Hiration's Online Resume Builder where you'll get more than 25 premium design templates as well as a ready to use the content template to make your sales resume.

You can also check out 10+ sales resume examples given on our Online Resume Builder to get more clarity on how to write your sales resume.

Go, check it out and see for your self.

Sales Resume: Personal Information

When it comes to writing the perfect sales resume, finding the correct way to add your contact details somehow doesn’t feature on top, right? But you do remember the dreadful ATS, don’t you? An ATS might as well come with a ‘My way or the highway’ bumper sticker, you might think. And that’s true.

It’s true because if one fails to write the contact details and relevant information in the prescribed manner, the ATS is programmed to not even consider the rest of the resume. And you can’t blame it as well, right? In any professional environment, there’s an established process for everything. Why should resumes be any different?

Most resumes in the US follow a fixed standard for contact details. Don’t write your complete address down along with the flat number - it serves zero purposes at this stage of the recruitment process. Just the area and city code will do.

Have a professional-looking e-mail address. If your ID is on a college domain name, it doesn’t matter if the college is Harvard, it just means that you still haven’t grown up.

The country name comes only if you’re looking for a switch in location. If you’ve worked in the US your whole life and aren’t particularly looking for a change, don’t bother writing the US at the end of each work profile.

That only makes sense if you have a track record of thriving in multiple continents and are open to recruiters globally.

LinkedIn/Skype: Are you sure your external profile will give a boost-up to your sales resume? Or are you having trouble remembering the last time you updated your LinkedIn?

Linking your sales resume to a bland LinkedIn that still shows your work profile of 5 years ago as your current job, will not help your case, will it? A Skype ID only makes sense if you’re applying for remote profiles, or if the company specifically asked for one.

Remember, you only have one page to showcase your entire career to date. So, make every word count.

Take a glimpse at the sample sales resume given below to get more clarity on how to state your personal information in a sales resume:

Additionally, you can go for Hiration's Online Resume Builder wherein you will get the option to customize the personal information section. You'll get all sorts of social media icons according to your need. For example, icons of WhatsApp, LinkedIn, GitHub, etc.

You will also get 25+ designs for your sales resume template along with 10+ sales resume templates with ready to use content in them.

So, come and make your sales resume at Hiration's Online Resume Builder Today!

Sales Resume: Header

Are you a Sales Executive, a Sales Representative, or a Sales Associate? Where are you right now, and where do you want to go?

Don’t think of job titles as sacred keywords that can’t be played around with. If earlier you were an Executive but came across a Sales Representative profile that looks appealing, you can write Sales Representative right below your name.

It’s surprising how little attention is paid to the job title. Most sales resumes we encounter don’t even have them in the first place. The reader has to scan the resume for the current profile to find out what the applicant is doing, and that goes against our mantra of doing everything to make the recruiter’s job easier.

In case you are looking for jobs similar to your current profile, the job title can remain unchanged, but we strongly advise you to have it on top. But in case you are looking for a switch or scale up, you have ample room to play around.

What you essentially have to do is bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to go. It can be a bit tricky, and you’ve to be cautious to avoid misleading the recruiter. Your task is not to get shortlisted by the ATS.

Your task is to prepare a stellar sales resume which can form the basis of your interview with the recruiter, leading to your inevitable selection.

Doing research will help. Scan the job description for skills and requirements which you can align with your existing job profiles. You’ve to narrow down the search to that one catchphrase which will get you more hits than any other. Say it out loud before you proceed with your sales resume - every word counts.

More particularly the words which are right below your name.

Have a brief look at the example given below to get better understanding of how to write your job title:

In addition to this, for profile-specific sales resume samples, go to our Online Resume Builder where you will get 10+ ready to use sales resume templates.

Sales Resume Key Sections

Sales Resume: Summary or Objective?

Yo mama so old she still uses an objective section in her resume.

While we would strongly advise you to not use that in your next rap battle, the truth remains. We’ve seen people devote hours on just optimizing their objective section, without bothering to find out if it would even serve their purpose.

We often throw around a JFK quote when we have to explain the difference between an objective and a summary section in a sales resume ‘Ask not what the company can do for you, but what you can do for the company.’

Merely pointing out that you’re good in x, y and z is only half the job. You’ve to be explicit in pointing out how the skills that you possess will help the organization in achieving their goals - it’s the latter half which will get you shortlists.

For this reason, it’s of paramount importance that you ditch the objective section, go for a crisp Professional Summary section instead, and as Dylan said, don’t think twice, it’s alright.

It’s common knowledge that any recruiter will devote not more than 6-10 seconds on your sales resume at first glance. And if at that moment, they see a drab objective section where you have a shopping list of all the things that you are looking for, s/he won’t have any reason to continue reading.

A concise summary section, on the other hand, will not only mention your skills but also provide a proper context on how it would add value to the organization.

Since the summary section in your sales resume will be the first thing that the recruiter will notice, let’s dive deeper and try to figure out how to go about framing points in this section.

So you have a list of all the achievements across your entire career - how do you zero in on what all will cut the top? That’s where the Job Description of your targeted sales profile, your Bible for your job-hunt, comes in handy.

Scan the JD for skills which the recruiter is looking for, and go back to your sales resume to find out what all existing achievements can be showcased along those lines. If on the first attempt, you can’t find anything, see what all points can be rephrased. Rephrasing is a double-edged sword though.

The goal here is to customize your sales resume in such a way that it looks like it was made in response to the JD itself, that the person behind that piece of paper holds the solution to all the problems ailing the organization.

But on the other hand, if you do manage to fool the ATS but the recruiter ends up feeling that you stuffed your sales resume with keywords from the JD...well that’s some irreversible Jurassic Park-level damage right there.

When you break down your sales resume, you can’t change your achievements in your work profiles. The summary section is what will take you from where you are to where you want to go. You can upload/paste the JD into this tool which examines the frequency of words used and gives you a jazzy word-cloud.

It will give you an accurate idea of what all skills are highly prioritized by the recruiter.

It’d also help to know what the Summary section of a sales resume is not. It’s not a board for pinning all your achievements where you go about spouting numbers and clients. Reserve that for the relevant work profile.

You can reserve a separate Key Achievements bucket/sub-heading (more on that later) under each work profile. In the summary section, avoid the specifics of your achievements and instead provide an overview of what you are capable of.

To give you an even better idea, here’s a sales resume sample summary section of a sales resume:

~7 years experienced, result-oriented and value-driven Senior Management Professional & Regional Sales Head with a track record of spearheading cross-functional teams to formulate strategies and effectively execute key project deliverables. Proficient in combining an entrepreneurial drive with management skills to drive major gains in revenue, market share, and profitability. Highly skilled in cultivating excellent relationships with new prospects and existing customers.

Briefly look at the sample sales resume given below to get better understanding of how to optimize your sales resume summary:

For getting profile-specific sales resume examples of summary, visit our Online Resume Builder where you will get 10+ sales resume template with ready to use profile-specific summaries.

Sales Resume: Key Skills

What are some broad-level key skills for sales resumes?

The Key Skills section of a sales resume is where you have the chance to dump all your research around keywords and job descriptions. But a word of caution. Don’t go overboard! For an experienced recruiter, it won’t take a minute to find out if the key skills are genuine or whether they’ve been dumped for the sake of it.

Like we mentioned, the journey of sales resumes does not end at ATS. If keyword-stuffing was the solution to all ATS problems, everyone would be doing it.

You can fool the machine (even though most modern ATSs are equipped to deal with cases of keyword stuffing, and some even penalize the applicant by blocking them from all subsequent vacancies) but the recruiter sitting behind the ATS has been handling resumes for years. Good luck fooling them.

Add only those skills which have been substantiated in your work profiles below. Any discrepancy in this regard can backfire, you can bet your bottom dollar on that.
And a side note: MS Office as a skill doesn’t count. I mean, c’mon.

Another thing we’ve seen people bungle up on their sales resumes is to have an unhealthy mix of soft skills and hard, professional skills. What we forget is that the ATS, the machine we hate because we don’t understand it, is, at the end of the day, operated by humans alone.

Adding soft skills like ‘creative’ and ‘team-player’...just how exactly do you see it working out in your favor? You don’t expect a recruiter to filter out applicants based on those skills, right?

The ideal way is to have a healthy mix of both, with priority given to professional skills that you’ve gained in the course of your tenure. It’s your job to anticipate what all keywords the recruiter might use to filter out the thousands of applicants, and it’s your job to optimize your sales resume according to that.

Additionally, having a ready list of your core competencies in your sales resume will allow you to easily remove and add relevant keywords based on the profile you’re applying.

Here’s a sales resume sample list of key skills in a sales resume which you can use:

• Key Account Management
• Sales & Business Development
• Team Management & Leadership
• Client Relationship Management
• Product Development & Promotion
• Budgeting & Cost Management
• Negotiation & Portfolio Management
• Partnerships & Alliances
• Training & Stakeholder Management

See the sales resume example of key skills section given below to get a better idea around how exactly to write your skills in your key skills section:

Moreover, you can opt for Hiration's Resume Reviewing Service to get your resume reviewed for relevant key skills by select industry experts.

Along with this, to get profile-specific sales resume samples of skills, you can make use of our Online Resume Builder where you will get 10+ sales resume templates that have profile specific, ready to use key skills section. In addition to this, you can also use trendy graphs to demonstrate your skills as shown in the sample above.

How To Describe Your Experience In Sales And Frame Points In Your Resume?

It might help to research and find out the norms which are followed in your industry or location - whether companies ask for functional resumes or reverse chronological ones.

Additional factors are also considered; for instance, whether you were a Sales Consultant or in public service, if there are gaps in your career if you were working on an ad-hoc or contract basis, etc.

A common ATS blunder which most people make is to mention the date of joining or location before the company’s name. The order to be followed is the company’s name > job title > location > date.

So how should one go about detailing the work experience for the sales resume? For writing succinct points, we recommend the Princeton formula:
A+P+R=A.

action/power verb (begin every point with a power verb) + project (what you did) + result (why you did) = Accomplishment (what was the outcome)

Why do we recommend it? If you can keep this formula as a backdrop for all the points that you frame:

You can effectively weed out all the fluff which otherwise becomes hard to even identify in the first place

When you only have one line to sensibly link all these 4 parameters, it will not be easy in the first go, but trust us, the result is worth it.

99% of the sales resume that we see daily will have 2 or 3 of these factors, but never all. Your existing sales resume will invariably fall in that bracket as well. And this formula is how you jump the ship from 99% to the creamy layer of the top 1%.

The keywords from your research on JD and beyond will be incorporated here as well, in addition to the Summary and Key Skills section.

Most people invariably fall on two extreme ends of the spectrum - either their sales resumes will be entirely responsibilities-based or they’ll only list out their achievements. Either of the two only paints an incomplete picture.

But the Princeton formula flawlessly ties up your job role, what you did, how you did it, and its quantifiable impact.

There are two things to keep in mind while formulating points for sales resumes:

Buckets/Subheadings: Let’s say you smoothly applied the Princeton formula for your current work profile and are now left with 8-10 odd points. Now, the vast majority of the people will stop here and will continue with the rest.

But not you. You need to jump from the poor jetty with 99% of applicants sailing in it to the luxury liner with the top 1% on-board. How do you that?

Start with having another look at those ~10 points and grouping similar points together. Let’s say some points are around Sales & Business Development, a few points focus on you forging strategic alliances & partnerships for boosting the business, others talk about the various stakeholders that you were coordinating with, etc.

Why do we do that? ‘Making the recruiter’s job easier’ is our mantra, that’s why. Instead of spending time pouring over each point, HR only has to go through the buckets/sub-headings. If they look relevant enough, only then will it make sense to go deeper.

You can go a step ahead and try to link the sub-headings that you use with the keywords research and Key Skills that go on top. That adds a tremendous and unparalleled amount of coherence to sales resumes.

Given below are examples of buckets in action. Below you’ll see perfectly framed points more or less along the lines of the Princeton formula. You’ll notice how the journey of framing points does not end here. Here’s why.

• Grew business to 7 cities from 1 & client acquisition from ~25/month to 350 & raised INR 250k for the Christmas community site
• Established a 35-seater outbound telesales call center from scratch and managed the entire team independently
• Tasked with brand-building and process implementation for overcoming previous attempts to form a footing in the state
• Groomed 2 members to get them promoted to State Heads & the entire region won the sales contest for a Bangkok trip in '12
• Led a team of 50+ to increase business/month from USD 50,000 to USD 750,000 and achieving 106% growth in 12 months
• Handled Direct Sales and DSA distribution business models across 7 locations with minimal infrastructure
• Established dynamic sales, marketing, customer care and operations teams with 50 employees including 4 Cluster Heads
• Ensured zero attrition by designing reward/recognition schemes to further increase employee productivity by 20%
• Partnered with Google for an SME event and appointed as a member of the panel for press meet covered by 30+ reporters
• Enhanced collection from 10% to 85% by stopping credit, a decision appreciated and later implemented across the country
• Set up an inbound call center and executed brand awareness campaigns to increase reported calls from 3/day to 800/day

What’s the first impression? Do you just see a wall of text and nothing else? Do you feel like you need to take a few deep breaths before you begin reading? Surprise surprise, the recruiters going through your sales resume also feels the same.

And how can you blame them? You did not follow our mantra of making their job easier, did you?

Now have a look at the same points in a slightly different light

Sales & Distribution

• Tasked with brand-building and process implementation for overcoming previous attempts to form a footing in the state
• Handled Direct Sales and DSA distribution business models across 7 locations with minimal infrastructure

Team Building & Management

• Established dynamic sales, marketing, customer care and operations teams with 50 employees including 4 Cluster Heads
• Ensured zero attrition by designing reward/recognition schemes to further increase employee productivity by 20%
• Groomed 2 members to get them promoted to State Heads & the entire region won the sales contest for a Bangkok trip in '12
• Established a 35-seater outbound telesales call center from scratch and managed the entire team independently
• Set up an inbound call center and executed brand awareness campaigns to increase reported calls from 3/day to 800/day

Key Achievements

• Led a team of 50+ to increase business/month from Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 25 lakhs and achieving 106% growth in 12 months
• Enhanced collection from 10% to 85% by stopping credit, a decision appreciated and later implemented across the country
• Grew business to 7 cities from 1 & client acquisition from ~25/month to 350 & raised Rs. 22 lakhs for Navratri community site
• Partnered with Google for an SME event and appointed as a member of the panel for press meet covered by 30+ reporters

If this isn’t mic drop stuff, we don’t know what is. The points remained the same, but simply assigning buckets exponentially enhanced the readability of these points. That’s what you should ideally be targeting.

Cause-effect: Using the above given 4 parameters to frame your sales resume points is the key to make your sales resume stand apart from the rest of the sales resumes. It will help you in highlighting your accomplishments in such a way that they cannot be overlooked.

Another way in which you can highlight your accomplishments is by making a separate 'Key Achievements' bucket at the end of your work experience section and then jot down all your achievements related points in that bucket. So, you can choose either of the two ways to highlight your accomplishments.

Look at the below-given sales resume examples to see the difference between a point with no cause-effect methodology used and a point written by using the cause-effect methodology.

Example 1:

• Grew business to 7 cities & raised money for the Christmas community site

The above point in example 1 does not have the methodology of cause-effect used in it. So, it is not providing complete information.

Example 2:

• Grew business to 7 cities from 1 & raised INR 250k for the Christmas community site

Now, example 2 is written using the cause-effect methodology and is providing complete information around the work which one did.

Have a brief look at the below given sample sales resume to get more clarity around how to make your professional experience section:

Further, for profile-specific sales resume examples of professional experience points, you can opt for Hiration's Online Resume Builder where you will get 10+ sales resume templates with ready to use professional experience points which will provide greater clarity around how to frame points.

Sales Resume: Education

Another section that gets the least attention is the education section. But, just so you know, the ATS pays a lot of attention to the education section as well. So, you must make your education section the correct way.

You must be well aware of how tough the competition is when it comes to jobs. Everyone wants to get a job in a top company and all the top companies make use of the ATS to shortlist the best candidates out of all the people who have applied for the jobs there.

So, just make sure that your education section is on point.

Look at the below given example of education section to get more clarity around how to make the education section:

Besides this, to get more sales resume examples of the education section, you can go for Hiration's Online Resume Builder where you will get 10+ sales resume templates to refer to.

Sales Resume: Additional Information

Apart from the 4 sections which we talked about previously, there are also additional sections which can be added to sales resumes. One such section can be of certifications. In this section, you can include any and every certification which you have done and is relevant to your target profile.

Do not include your certifications in the education section. Keep the education and certifications section separate. Doing so will also make it easier for the recruiter to gauge what is your educational qualification and what all additional certifications you've done just at a glance.

Make sure to write dates for both enrollments as well as for graduation from your certification course.

Another section which you can include is the 'Additional Information' section. In this section, you can include additional information like your hobbies or if you're multilingual, then you can include all the languages which you know in this section.

Also, for instance, you write 'photography' as a hobby and if you've taken any classes on photography, then including that course in your sales resume will further add value to your sales resume as well as to your hobby.

See the below given sales resume sample to see how to include additional sections in your sales resume:

Furthermore, you can opt for Hiration's Online Resume Builder to make your sales resume with ease as all these sections come pre-arranged in our Online Resume Builder along with 25+ designs for sales resume template.

Besides this, you will also get more sales resume samples to refer to as our Online Resume Builder has 10+ sales resume templates.

So, what are you waiting for? Go and make your sales resume at our Online Resume Builder Now!

Resume For Sales Related Profiles

1. Car Salesman Resume: If you are making a car salesman resume then make sure you highlight your achievements while framing your points in the professional experience section. These achievements can be by how much you were able to expand the customer base or your contribution to promotional and sales campaigns and the likes.

And as far as it's about key skills, include skills like documentation, persuasion, task management, etc.

The key skills section should ideally be a healthy mix of functional and soft skills.

2. Insurance Agent Resume: In an insurance agent resume highlight those achievements in your resume points which will demonstrate how skilled you are in your fields. These points can be around how you suggested changes or additions to your clients' existing insurance policy and how it benefited the company.

Or it can be how you customized policies around the needs of each client and then mention what was the outcome of the same. And then follow the same cause-effect methodology for writing all your insurance agent resume points.

Then while making your key skills section, writing skills like financial data computation, evaluation & presentation, inspection & installation, etc. Write skills which show in what all functions of your domain you hold expertise in.

How To Make An ATS Friendly Sales Resume

By now, you know that before your sales resume lands on the table of a recruiter, it has to pass the ATS test. But an ATS is not necessarily a roadblock in your way to getting that much-deserved interview. You can use it to your advantage and can get on top of the job getting race.

When writing your sales resume, keep in mind that you have to write it in a way that makes it able to pass the ATS test and easy for the recruiter to read through.

So, let us first tell you how an ATS works.

It scans for specific keywords and phrase which were given in the job description. It will scan for these keywords throughout your sales resume sections like the education section, key skills section, professional experience section, etc.

After the ATS is done scanning your sales resume, it will move up your sales resumes only if it'll have the highest number of matching keywords and will reject it if it won't have any relevant keywords.

So, this shows us how important it is to include the information in the job description carefully and correctly in our sales resume.

Another thing that the ATS is quick to reject is the information in the header. So, make sure that there are no headers or footers in your sales resume.

If there are certain tools, platforms, or technologies given in the job description, then make sure you add them to your sales resume. Also, if you don't know how to use those tools, platforms & technologies, then do not include them in your sales resume.

Then comes the functional skills which you need to include in your key skills. Some functional skills have their short forms as well. For instance, if you are including Customer Relationship Management in your key skills section, then also write CRM in brackets.

The ATS can be programmed to scan for this skill in either of the ways. By writing such skills in both ways will increase your chances of getting shortlisted for the interview. To further increase your chances of passing the ATS test, you can include these skills in the points of your professional experience section as well.

Now, that you've made your sales resume ATS friendly, its time to make it recruiter friendly. To make it recruiter friendly, keep in mind the below-given tips:

1. Make sure your sales resume point does not exceed the limit of one line.
2. If they do, then split them into multiple main-points or sub-points.
3. Frame all your points using the cause-effect methodology.
4. Bold important words, phrases, and numbers throughout your sales resume.
5. Do not use fancy acronyms or any slang words.
6. Include a one-line company description for all the companies where you've worked.
7. Do not write your complete address. Just the city name and country code are enough.
8. Do not use any graphics, logos, or tables.
9. Use san-serif fonts like Calibri & Tahoma.
10. Write section headings in 12 pt font size and the rest of the resume in 10 points.

Additionally, to see how an ATS friendly sales resume looks like, then you can go to Hiration's Online Resume Builder where you will get profile-specific sales resume examples along with 10+ sales resume templates whose content is completely ATS friendly.

Advanced Tips For Sales Resume (Master Resume And A Few Other Pointers)

The best way to start with making your sales resume is by making a master sales resume first. A master sales resume goes a long-long way. Not only it helps you in making your present sales resume, but it will also help you in the future when you'll need to update your old sales resume.

A master sales resume is the one in which you simply dump all the information related to your sales resume. And by all the information we mean every little detail that you can remember related to the work which you have done so far in your professional life.

You don't have to sort any information at this stage. The basic idea of making a master sales resume is that you have all the details which you think should go into your sales resume at a single place.

In the master sales resume, you don't have to edit your point to frame them in a cause-effect manner. Since the sole purpose of the master sales resume is to contain all the information related to your sales resume so that you don't have to look here and there when you sit to make your final sales resume.

Also, you don't have to limit your master sales resume to just 2 pages. It can extend up to 5 to 8 pages or even more.

Once you've dumped all the information in the master sales resume, then you can pick the information which you think should go in your final sales resume. Now, to make your final sales resume look perfect and on point, make sure you follow the below-given pointers.

1. Do not use first-person and second-person pronouns anywhere in your sales resume.
2. If your sales resume points are exceeding the limit of one line, then you can remove an article or two to limit it to just one line.
3. Do not use full-stop anywhere in your sales resume except for the summary as all the other points in a sales resume are not complete English sentences.
4. Do not write any personal information like your age, gender, religion, etc.

Then before sending your sales resume to a recruiter or posting it on any job portal, make sure you proofread it at least 2-3 times. If you send out a sales resume that has dozens of grammatical errors then you'll completely lose your chances of getting that shortlist.

Also, it is a good idea to give your sales resume to your friends or family members to proofread. As fresh eyes are always a good idea to get your resume proofread.

Got some questions or tips on how to make a great sales resume? Give us a shout out in the comments section!