Jobs: Sales

Opportunities to further your career within the Sales industry

The demand for sales jobs within the digital economy has continued to increase year-on-year, with more organisations than ever offering competitive salaries and benefits packages to secure the right sales talent.

Recent Changes for Sales Jobs

With customers becoming increasingly concerned that sales professionals would be more interested in earning their commission than providing value to clients, the role of the salesperson has had to adapt to changing times. Therefore, companies are trying to replace their customers’ suspicion with a relationship-building sales process which, in the long term, leads to retained custom rather than a one-off. The customer experience and longevity of sales are now in the centre of all good sales activity.

This is best demonstrated by the rising popularity of consultative sales, which involves a sales executive spending time with their clients, in order to identify their needs first-hand. This allows salespeople to better understand what solutions will be best suited to their customers.

Future Prospects

Sales companies or departments usually have a very rigorous promotion structure. At larger companies, your first sales job will be as an executive, before entering into a position as an area sales manager, then to national sales manager and, finally, sales director. For those working at SMEs, the progression will be on a smaller scale, but with more responsibility. This means that senior sales executives will move up to be a sales team lead or manager, then becoming head of sales and, finally, sales director.

Throughout a sales career, you can easily earn a promotion, as long as you deliver the right results. Promotions will not only lead to better salaries but also to better customer accounts, and more responsibility.

• Salt’s advice for getting a job in the Sales industry

  Employers’ Requirements

  Employers usually have a high expectation of the salespeople in their company. Sales professionals will not only need to maintain relationships with current customers but also establish new ones. As such, demonstrating an understanding of your prospective clients’ businesses, and being able to identify any gaps in their processes to which your company can provide the solution, is a critical way to seal a deal.

  Members of a company’s sales team will also agree on terms and conditions with clients, regularly close sales and advise on future product developments. Furthermore, sales experts are expected to create detailed proposal documents, and constantly gather information on their customers and the wider marketplace.

  CV Requirements

  For any sales job, the core competencies are great communication skills, the ability to sell products and services (which might sometimes be relatively complex), the capability to cope with a high level of competitiveness and good team working skills. A proven track record of sales over the past few years is also crucial, as the job market rewards those who can demonstrate consistency in, or improvement on, a business’s previous performance. Furthermore, it is beneficial to know one or more foreign languages, as businesses increasingly operate on a global level, and need employees who can communicate with the different markets.

  Proven track record of sales in the past years is crucial. Whether it’s recurring businesses or opening new accounts, being able to articulate consistency is highly sought out in the market.

  Sales Job Interview Preparation

  Personality plays a huge role in Business Development and Sales careers, so interviewers will be looking to find out as much as they can about what candidates are like as a person. Questions you may be asked include:

  1. Which is more important: happy customers or meeting your targets?
  2. What is this company’s target market?
  3. What is your least favourite part of the sales process?
  4. How would former clients describe you?
  5. What could our company do better sales-wise?

  Educational Requirements

  Generally speaking, hiring managers consider personality (e.g. excellent communications skills, commercial awareness) to be more important than academic qualifications. If you have a degree, the following subjects could increase your chances of landing a sales job: business, marketing, media, technology or engineering. Large sales organisations also often organise graduate schemes, for which you will need a 2:1 degree or above.