How to get a sales job
Ask a sales recruitment business and they will tell you. The sales sector is a huge employer and there are career opportunities in many fields: Construction, Engineering, FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods), Information Technology, Manufacturing, Media, Printing, Service Industries and Telecommunications to name only a few.
Where and how you begin will depend on your level of education as well as your experience but someone taking up sales as a new career would find themselves entering a field where the majority of enlightened employers nowadays recognise the important contribution that fully qualified and motivated sales people make to the success of a business and are committed to regular or on-going sales training programmes.
At the start of a sales career you could expect to be employed as a sales representative but the opportunities this particular career path can open for you can lead to other positions within an organisation or other areas of sales and marketing. Although job titles vary in different employment areas, they may include the following: Sales Representative, Sales Executive, Sales Manager, Account Manager, Regional Sales Manager, Business Development Executive, National Account Manager, or Telesales Executive.
At this point, contacting a sales recruitment company is probably the best of the options available to you because you will be given a professional assessment of the positions you might apply for. The alternative is that you attempt to send out your applications blindly to an advertiser - who is under no obligation to reply to you should they feel that you do not come up to their particular criteria. So the sales recruitment business, which will evaluate your potential as part of the service it offers, can save you from possible disappointment by advising you of your prospects and likelihood of success in two vital areas. Firstly by telling you at which level you should be pitching your job applications and secondly in which particular industry you are most likely to find fulfilment. (There is also a strong possibility of course that you could already be precisely the person an organisation is looking for – because all sales recruitment companies are also retained by employers to filter and submit applicants to them for interview). So send your CV, as it stands (which may mean ‘warts and all’) to a sales recruitment company, together with an accompanying note about who you are and where you are working currently, and ask them for an opinion. Make that initial enquiry by telephone or letter or by email and the more time you give them, the better. The reply you receive will enable you to put your future planning and goals into some kind of perspective. Importantly it will have put you under no kind of commitment and will not have incurred any cost. Remember a sales recruitment company earns a fee, not from you but from the company where you may eventually find employment as a result of their activities on your behalf. Finding a sales recruitment consultant who understands you and has a clear picture of your aims and ambitions is very much akin to appointing a personal career agent. Therefore the best possible answer to the question, “How do I get a sales job?” is clear. Go to a sales recruitment company and get yourself an agent.
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