By Sean McPheat
You can find tons of tips on resume writing all over the web and I am no resume expert. However, I have hired dozens of sales people and helped others do the same. So let me give you a few tips on how you might go about really selling yourself in your CV.
Strengthen the summary
One thing to look at is your summary section where you give a snap-shot of your experiences. Here you want to match your experiences to the job description. This does not have to be perfect in that you do not have to create a brand new CV for every job application.
However, you want to bullet-point your experience with the duties for the job. As an example, let’s say the job calls for:
“The ideal applicant will have experience in cold calling, e-marketing, account management and closing sales…” Your summary may say:
8 years cold calling large and small businesses
6 years experience in e-marketing and social network marketing
8 years successful experience in high level account management and CRM…
Make more of your sales training
It is always good to mention some job related sales training that you have had. However, keep in mind the relevance that sales training may have to the sales manager.
The skills that you learned or perfected are more important than the name of the sales training programme. The manager that reads your CV may not be aware of the training programme you have had or could be biased against it. So, always put down what you have learned.
“Learned how to instantly build rapport with prospects from Dale Carnegie Sales training…”
“Perfected long-term, multifaceted sales process management from ISMM…”
Look forward
Finally, most resumes look backwards. That means applicants usually concentrate on what they have done. However, also look forward to the future and point out what you CAN DO for the company you are applying to.
“My 10 years experience in business development will allow me to successfully open new doors and vertical markets for XYZ Company…”
Your CV needs to not only be a record of your past achievements but a diagram of your future accomplishments.
Author credit:
Managing Director of MTD Sales Training, Sean McPheat is regarded as a thought leader on modern day selling, management skills and business improvement. Sean has been featured on CNN, ITV, BBC, SKY, Forbes, Arena Magazine and has over 250 other media credits to his name. Sean’s Sales Blog is visited by 5,000 people every week and his 6 Sales Training Audios are free to download. Click here to follow Sean online.
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