Craft your pitch
Posted: Wed May 28, 2025 4:39 am
the top of your sales resume, you should include a career objective. This is a short, sharp, punchy summary of the key skills and abilities you have to offer.
Treat your objective as your personal sales pitch. If it’s weak, not only will hiring managers doubt your abilities, they’ll also stop reading your resume altogether. Craft something outstanding and you’ll be on your way to making the sell.
To ensure your objective statement is as persuasive as possible, treat it like a sales pitch to a potential client, highlighting features and benefits. The features are your skills, knowledge, and abilities, and the benefits are the results and achievements you can accomplish if you get hired.
You also want to keep this section of your resume tailored to the job description. The skills you reference in your objective should incorporate the keywords from the job description and be related to the job posting to ensure your resume lands at or near the top of search results on application tracking systems (atss) and search engines.
Reference essential sales skills
the benefits of referencing essential sales skills in your resume are america phone number list twofold. As mentioned, keywords from the job description will optimize your resume to pass atss. But at the next stage, your resume will be read by recruiters. By referencing skills in the recruiters’ own language, you make it obvious that you’re a great fit, helping you progress to the interview stage.
Here are some common essential skills and abilities you might include in your sales resume:
product knowledge
client acquisition and retention
goal setting and forecasting
closing sales
written and verbal communication
self-motivation
organization
time management
attention to detail
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showcase your results
while it’s easy to say you have certain skills, such as the ability to close sales, this won’t necessarily convince the hiring manager that your skills are genuine. To remove all doubt, support your skills with examples, achievements, and, where possible, actual numbers.
As a sales professional, you need to focus on your results, targets, and other industry metrics. For example, you might reference generated revenue, unit sales, or targets achieved.
Try to be as specific as possible, and quantify your results with stats and facts. Recruiters will digest them better than words because they’re so to-the-point.
Here are some examples of ways to phrase your skills and achievements on your resume:
strong product knowledge in chemical and pharmaceutical ingredient sales
averaged more than $3 million in annual sales
met or exceeded all quotas, resulting in 80% revenue increase over 12 months
showcasing your results in this way will prove to hiring managers that you’re a talented salesperson worth short-listing for an interview.
Treat your objective as your personal sales pitch. If it’s weak, not only will hiring managers doubt your abilities, they’ll also stop reading your resume altogether. Craft something outstanding and you’ll be on your way to making the sell.
To ensure your objective statement is as persuasive as possible, treat it like a sales pitch to a potential client, highlighting features and benefits. The features are your skills, knowledge, and abilities, and the benefits are the results and achievements you can accomplish if you get hired.
You also want to keep this section of your resume tailored to the job description. The skills you reference in your objective should incorporate the keywords from the job description and be related to the job posting to ensure your resume lands at or near the top of search results on application tracking systems (atss) and search engines.
Reference essential sales skills
the benefits of referencing essential sales skills in your resume are america phone number list twofold. As mentioned, keywords from the job description will optimize your resume to pass atss. But at the next stage, your resume will be read by recruiters. By referencing skills in the recruiters’ own language, you make it obvious that you’re a great fit, helping you progress to the interview stage.
Here are some common essential skills and abilities you might include in your sales resume:
product knowledge
client acquisition and retention
goal setting and forecasting
closing sales
written and verbal communication
self-motivation
organization
time management
attention to detail
trending articles
productivity icons like email and chat on an illustration of a laptop with a blue background
3 ways generative ai will help marketers connect with customers
3 min read
illustrating of einstein character surrounded by 3 trailhead badges for ai skills
learn ai skills on trailhead
6 min read
showcase your results
while it’s easy to say you have certain skills, such as the ability to close sales, this won’t necessarily convince the hiring manager that your skills are genuine. To remove all doubt, support your skills with examples, achievements, and, where possible, actual numbers.
As a sales professional, you need to focus on your results, targets, and other industry metrics. For example, you might reference generated revenue, unit sales, or targets achieved.
Try to be as specific as possible, and quantify your results with stats and facts. Recruiters will digest them better than words because they’re so to-the-point.
Here are some examples of ways to phrase your skills and achievements on your resume:
strong product knowledge in chemical and pharmaceutical ingredient sales
averaged more than $3 million in annual sales
met or exceeded all quotas, resulting in 80% revenue increase over 12 months
showcasing your results in this way will prove to hiring managers that you’re a talented salesperson worth short-listing for an interview.