Sales CV Examples & UK Templates

Can you sell sand to camels? If you’re a pro salesperson, you know how to persuade customers to trust in products. But can you sell your services to a hiring manager? Your sales CV is one of the most important marketing materials you will ever create. So, you need to make sure that you get it right. Luckily, you’ve come to the right place.

CV guide for a sales CV

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This CV guide and corresponding sales CV example will cover the following:

• How to write a sales CV
• Choosing the right CV format for sales
• How to add your contact information
• Using summaries
• Adding your sales experience
• Listing education and relevant experience
• Picking the right CV design/layout
• What the sales job market looks like, and what salary you can expect

How to write a sales CV

Before you get started, you should know what your sales CV needs to include. As standard, you should have the following elements: 

• The CV header
• The CV summary (aka profile or personal statement)
• The employment history section
• The CV skills section
• The education section

Keeping this structure in mind should help you stay focused when organising your sales CV content. And there’s a vital end-product consideration that may require selective cherry-picking: Everything you decide to include should fit on a single page.

If that sounds daunting, here’s one more guidepost for hitting the mark: Each version of your CV should be targeted to the specific job you are applying for. Pinpoint the most directly relevant qualifications as the basis for narrowing the angle. Leave out any information that recruiters are far less interested in. 

To give yourself the best chance of success, your sales CV should include: 

• Details of your accomplishments. Don’t just talk about what you did. Instead, focus all of your attention on what results your actions yielded. 
• Simple and straightforward CV design. You need to make sure that a hiring manager can quickly and easily gain the details they need.
• Customised CV with keywords. To customise each version of your CV, scour the posted job application requirements and make sure you’ve got them covered. Certain keywords will likely stand out—many specific to your sales background. 

Choosing the right CV format for a salesperson

Almost always, the chronological CV format is recommended for sales professionals. It’s also what recruiters prefer to easily review your work history as bullet-point descriptions below employer headings. These are listed by date in reverse chronological order, starting with your current or most recent position and working backwards.

There are other options, however, if prospective employers are more interested in what you can do than where you’ve worked. In that case, consider the functional CV format, focusing on specific sales skills or even clients. Or opt for a combination CV format with both chronological and functional elements. Read more about different CV formats here.

We have a selection of CV templates for different formats. Always be sure to choose a minimal design that suits the industry in which you hope to land a role.

Include your contact information

A distinctive header design sets your job application apart from all the rest. It can have double the impact when your CV and cover letter are a visually matched pair. Above all, the prominence of header information makes it easy for recruiters to revisit your CV to shortlist and extend an interview invitation. Here’s what it should include: 

• Full name & title. Include your first and last name, plus the role title.
• Professional email address. List a suitable-for-work email address.
• Phone number. Include a phone number where you can be reached.
• Location. Don’t bother putting your full address. Use your city and county here.
• LinkedIn. Make sure your profile is up to date, and use a hyperlink to your LinkedIn.

Don’t include:

• Date of birth: The hiring manager should not know your exact age as this can lead to age discrimination.
• Personal details: Your marital status, NI number, passport number, etc.

Make use of a summary

Your CV profile, otherwise known as the summary or personal statement, is a written elevator pitch for being this employer’s dream hire. As an up-front value proposition, it captures your most relevant sales qualifications in an irresistible manner. Being just a brief synopsis, it intrigues readers just enough to keep reading for further details.

With that in mind, it should be 2-4 sentences long. A sense of your sales-winning personality should also confidently come across in the profile. It’s the only CV section that allows you to express your purpose and passion as a sales professional. Include action verbs where possible.

Don’t make the mistake of just repeating your skills or duties. For example, writing “Experienced salesperson with knowledge of communication, selling, and closing deals” is a weak summary. It doesn’t tell the hiring manager much about you and the unique value you have to offer. 

You can find adaptable sales CV example summaries below:

Outline your sales experience

Tell your story so far with your employment history section. Again, your CV’s effectiveness hinges on the effort you make to zero in on what hiring managers are keenly interested in. Speak the employer’s language in the selling context of its needs and values. 

Create results-oriented descriptions of your sales accomplishments, not merely job descriptions or vague assurances of meeting your targets and quotas. 

Recruiters want hard evidence of the numbers behind your success stories: revenue and sales unit increases, quota percentages, closing ratios, profit boosts, new customer growth, customer retention rates, and the like. For example, the following points belong on a basic sales CV:

• “Confident speaking to customers.”
• “Excellent customer satisfaction rating.”
• “Created long-lasting relationships.”

While each of these points works as a starting point, they don’t tell a full story. You want to take things to the next level and dig into the value your work brings. Here’s how to do that: 

• “Confident liaising with customers and tailoring packages, leading to a 99% customer satisfaction rating.”
• “Creating long-lasting relationships with satisfied clients, leading to a 79% customer retention rating.”

Take a look at the sales employment history CV sample below:

How to write a sales CV with no experience 

If you are new to the sales field, you may worry that your lack of experience will hold you back. However, that does not have to be the case. The truth of the matter is that you can still land your dream job. You simply need to show the hiring manager that you have what it takes. 

One way to do that is to rely heavily on your transferable skills. These are talents that you have picked up in previous roles or even voluntary positions. Highlighting them—and how they pertain to the sales sector—shows the hiring manager that you will fit right into the position. 

Should you have a special interest in the product you will be selling, now is the time to talk about it. Accentuating your industry knowledge is a smart way to set yourself apart from the competition. Go ahead and explain why you want to work in this particular industry. 

Creating a CV when you lack direct experience can be challenging. However, you need to draw upon the skills and expertise that you do have. The more comparisons you can draw between your existing experience and the shoes you will have to fill, the better your chances will be.

Include the relevant key skills that make you a great salesperson

Sales jobs are largely talent-based. With that in mind, name four to seven of your most valuable secrets to sales success. It should be a winning combination of learned abilities and innate personal attributes. This can be your foundation for an impressive CV skills list. 

As a general rule, your sales CV should include both hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills link directly to the sales sector. For example, they may include CRM knowledge. Soft skills are transferable and can be used in a selection of environments, e.g. communication skills.

Before finalising, be sure to check your list against the employer’s job posting before to make sure you’ve covered the essentials. Your CV skills list is a further opportunity to incorporate keywords as an ATS-proofing safeguard and to show your awareness of employer priorities. Our CV builder offers pre-selected skills to use. You can also upload your own. 

Here’s what the skills box looks like in our CV template for salespeople.

While your skills section is one area in which you can showcase your talents, you should weave them throughout the body of your CV, too. Be specific when sharing what you have to offer. 

For example, you should delve into the following sales skills: 

• Product knowledge and how you stay on top of the changing market
• Industry knowledge that you learn and the journals or magazines you read 
• CRM usage and the various software that you use in your job

If you are uncertain of what to include in your sales CV, it’s always smart to return to the original job advert. You can find out what the hiring manager is looking for there.

Detail your education & relevant sales certifications

Specific qualifications aren’t always necessary for salespeople. However, you should share your education section. List your post-secondary education in reverse chronological order, from highest to lowest level. High school information should only be included in the absence of university and college degrees or diplomas. Here’s what you could include: 

• Internships. This CV section is also the place to list internships or apprenticeships. This is important as many people enter the sales field in this way.
• Training, certifications, and any relevant continuing education. For example, you may include industry-recognised Institute of Sales Management (ISM) qualifications up to the level 6 equivalent of a university degree.
• CRM certificates. If you know how to use a CRM platform, a certificate will prove it. You may have training from HubSpot Academy, Zendesk, or Salesforce Administrator. 
• Marketing qualifications. Sales and marketing often go hand in hand. So, if you happen to have any marketing qualifications, such as a certificate from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), it may be worth including it on your sales CV.

It’s important to include all relevant education. When the hiring manager looks at your sales CV, they will be looking for anything that sets you apart from the crowd. 

Pick the right CV layout and design for a sales CV

For the same reason, appearance has make-or-break importance in a face-to-face sales scenario; your CV document needs to look the part of a professional on all counts. 

Cluttered and chaotic is hardly the impression you’d want to give prospective clients about your capabilities or the integrity of the product or service you are selling. The same goes for your sales CV, which should be visually spotless and orderly. 

These CV layout and design guidelines will help you achieve a polished result that’s a sight for recruiters’ sore eyes.

• Readers should effortlessly find what they’re looking for in the place they expect. One section connects logically and smoothly with the next.
• White space in the margins and between lines offsets the text-dense segments to create balance and ease of reading.
• Reader-friendliness should also guide your choice of fonts for body text and titles.
• Graphic elements and splashes of colour can provide added visual appeal if used sparingly. They should never detract from readability.

Sales text-only CV example

Sales job market and outlook

While the sales sector is not growing particularly fast, there is a very high demand for hiring. In 2023, there were more than 400,000 sales professionals working in the United Kingdom. If you are looking for a new role, it is vital to make sure that your sales CV tells the right story.  

What type of salary you can expect in sales 

According to PayScale, the average salary for a sales representative is £27,973. However, you should keep in mind that this is often a commission-heavy role. That means that workers can make more than their base salary, depending on the number of total monthly sales they make.

Key takeaways for building a sales CV

Whether the sales force demand is slack or vigorous in your field of focus, an outstanding CV is always essential to outshine other job contenders. Scrutinise the posted job description to determine which skills and work experience do or don’t belong in your CV. This also helps with optimal keyword use to avoid ATS rejection.

The look of your CV is crucial to the first impression recruiters will have of you as the sales professional they might hire. Use our CV builder to make sure that you get it right.