Sales Manager Resume Examples & Guide for 2023

You’re a pro sales manager who can lead teams and exceed sales goals.

But how do you stand out to recruiters who have never heard of you?

Your resume needs to show the hiring manager that you can assemble a winning team and increase revenue at their company.

Not sure where to start?

Our guide will show you how to write a sales manager resume that impresses recruiters and gets interviews.

Sales manager resume examples

International sales manager resume

• Emphasize regional and global experience. Any job responsibility of a regional manager comes with a “regional” or “international” prefix: regional distributor business, regional sales and marketing, an international marketplace, and so on.
  
  Make sure you showcase and emphasize your results while working across several regions and territories, as recruiters won’t do that for you!
  
• Technical sales experience can be a huge bonus. Many international products these days are digital in nature: SaaS services, cloud vendors, or digital consulting. Your experience selling complex technical products, combined with regional experience, could be a winning combination.
  
  Make sure to frame your technical experience from a sales angle, e.g. how you were able to use your expertise to sell a product or facilitate a business outcome.

Automotive sales manager resume

• Showcase successful experience with new marketing strategies and channels. The car-selling landscape is quickly changing. Doing 100 cold calls a day is not as effective as it once was, and customers are not lining up at the dealership like they used to.
  
  Demonstrate how you were able to use modern marketing techniques and channels to attract customers, and you’ll have an edge over more traditional auto sales resumes.
  
• Prioritize niche experience. If you have experience working with luxury cars or regional dealerships and are applying for a similar position, the experience may serve as your unique identifier.
  
  You may even use a custom layout to build up an “Accomplishments” section and present successful results as your achievements, e.g. “Overpassed quota by 130% in luxury ... market.”

Executive sales manager resume

• Showcase leadership within a complex sales ecosystem. A great way to do that is to give your soft skills context. For example, don’t simply write “Creative Problem-Solving” on your resume. Describe the exact scenario where this skill was used to make an impact: “Formed a matrix team of engineers, customer success managers, and BI analysts to launch a new product that resulted in 350% target sales overpass”
• Prioritize your strategic wins over technical wins. Fulfilling a quota is good. But establishing dominance in new regions within the first six months is 100 times better. You have many wins over your long career, so choose those you want recruiters to see first.

Retail sales manager resume

• Experience in retail chains is your unique identifier. Make sure your resume showcases retail sales experience by studying target job requirements and using resume keywords when describing your work experience.
  
• Use the top third of your resume to mention retail management results. Utilize the first sections of your resume such as summary, header, and achievements to quickly differentiate yourself from candidates with more generic experience.

How to choose the best sales manager resume template

Dressing in professional clothes impacts the way customers will perceive you. Practice applying the same principles to your resume.

Choosing the right template is important when it comes to making an ATS friendly resume.

When you select a sales manager resume template, try to:

• Maximize readability with a layout, colors, and fonts that are clean and professional
• Keep plenty of whitespaces, and use legible fonts
• Ensure that it is reverse chronological
• Send it in a PDF format

To make sure your resume’s formatting stays the same wherever it’s opened, send it in PDF.

How to write a resume for a sales manager position

Now that you’ve chosen a template, it’s time to move on to the content of your resume.

Many how-to articles you’ll read online only show generic resume writing tips. While some of them may be applicable to your job, it will take a while to translate them to your role as a sales manager.

What qualifications should you focus on?

How many jobs should you include in the work history?

What skills do employers look for in sales managers?

We’ll answer these questions and give you a step-by-step break down of what goes into each section of your resume

Top 5 sections to include in your sales manager resume

Regardless of how many years you’ve been in this role, or how many products you’ve sold, these are the main sections recruiters expect to see on your resume:

• Resume summary or objective
• Work history
• Skills
• Education
• Certifications

It doesn’t matter if you’re writing an auto sales manager resume, a catering sales manager resume, or an inside sales manager resume. The sections listed above should be present on your application.

Resume summary: a brief introduction

Ah, the age-old question, “Should I use a resume summary?”

A resume’s goal is to convince a recruiter that the applicant is interesting enough for an interview. A resume objective or summary can do that, but only if written properly.

You see, most resume summaries sound like an applicant’s wish list for their job.

2 sales manager resume summary samples

This resume summary for a sales manager doesn’t mention any of the applicant’s skills. Yes, the applicant may be hardworking and driven, but there’s no evidence of that in this summary.

It also doesn’t mention anything noteworthy. Since this is the first thing a recruiter sees, it has to be a showstopper.

It’s a good idea to use a sales manager resume objective for management graduates or entry-level sales professionals—also, a good choice for applicants changing careers.

Just don’t write it out to read like a wish list of your dream job. Include details about your transferable skills or related accomplishments instead.

The example above is for an advertising professional transitioning to a sales role.

The mention of a closed deal and innovative launch campaigns makes it a tad more interesting because it shows what they bring to the table, combined with a transferable skill—sales.

Enthusiasm, as shown by the applicant's desire to contribute to the company’s bottom line, is a nice touch because it shows passion for the job.

If you’re not a fresh graduate or changing careers, you’re better off with a sales manager resume summary focused on your strengths and achievements. This way, recruiters can quickly see your best achievements.

Of course, it’s not enough to do a brain dump of your qualifications here. A good sales manager's resume summary statement is short, so you have to choose which accomplishments and skills are worth including.

Compare the two examples below for an international sales manager resume to get a better idea.

2 international sales manager resume summary examples

At first glance, this looks like a good sales manager resume summary.

It includes keywords you’d expect for a sales job, and achievements like handling high value accounts. But if you look closer, you’ll notice several things can still be improved here.

Let’s make a few adjustments and take another look.

Notice how this resume summary cites specific figures and numbers.

Hiring managers want to see real impact, not general roles, and responsibilities.

You’ll also notice that there’s no mention of the applicant’s academic background because for experienced candidates, that’s better off in the education section.

Sales manager resume experience: where the real sale is happening

Now that you’ve enticed the recruiter with a delightful sample of your accomplishments, it’s time to prove your worth in gold with a compelling work history.

Use industry-specific keywords

In sales, words like sales pipeline, B2B, B2C, leads, profit margins, and accounts are common. Use them to give employers a clear description of your work, while adding more job-related keywords to your resume.

Be mindful to use them in sentences naturally. Copy-and-paste resumes will be obvious to recruiters!

Show initiative

Write about campaigns and other initiatives you started to improve your team.

These initiatives don’t have to be limited to closing deals. It could be as simple as streamlining a process to qualify leads or file paperwork, so your team members can focus their energy on other sales tasks.

Quantify achievements whenever possible

Speaking of initiatives, it’s obvious that you should quantify sales achievements, but you shouldn’t stop there. You can also do this for soft and non-sales tasks.

Let’s say you did streamline the process your team members used to qualify leads, how many steps did the process take before and after you streamlined it? What happened as a result of that initiative?

Compare the examples below for a B2B territory sales manager resume, and you’ll see how this can boost your credibility:

WRONG:

Trained team leaders to streamline the process for qualifying leads for B2B software sales

RIGHT:

Streamlined B2B pre-qualifying process for team leads, from 10 steps to qualify leads to 6 steps, resulting in faster outreach and an average of 21% more booked appointments across the region.

Don’t just write about your tasks

Yes, as a sales manager, you were tasked to hire and train salespeople, build relationships with other buyers, develop new income streams and marketing strategies, and so much more.

These are expected of you, so practically everyone applying for the job will have these experiences.

Take a look at this hotel sales manager resume example below. Do you see anything that would catch your attention in their work history?

• Maintain relationships with key hotel accounts
• Launch social media and PR marketing campaigns for hotel bookings

No, because the bullet points show their daily tasks. There’s nothing here that would amaze you.

The only way to set you apart is to write about what happened because you did those tasks. Ask yourself, “So what happened?” for every skill or task that you have to help you recall the results tied to your task.

Let’s make a few improvements and try again.

• Maintained relationships with key hotel accounts, thereby increasing corporate bookings for events by 15%
• Launched social media and PR marketing campaigns that led to a 20% increase in hotel bookings, even during the low season

Show examples of your leadership

As the manager, employers don’t just look at your individual performance. They’re more concerned about how well you can duplicate your skills by training those under your supervision.

Write a sales manager resume bullet points about how you coach people who are stuck, how you brokered a new distribution deal with the help of your team, or how one of your team members got promoted.

You’ll see examples of good leadership in this comparison of a regional sales manager's resume.

2 regional sales manager resume experience section examples

The first example, while noting that they reported results to upper management, does not mention any improvement or results the team accomplished.

So while it’s a management task, it doesn’t say if their being a manager helped or not.

What makes the second regional sales manager resume sample better is that the bullets are focused on the applicant’s impact on their team.

2 hotel sales manager resume experience section examples

This example is very generic and provides no insight into whether the candidate is any good at their job.

Listing general responsibilities with no specific achievements doesn’t say much of anything to recruiters.

This example is a big improvement. It cites real figures and data to show the impact the candidate had on their company.

Hiring managers look to your past accomplishments to learn what you will bring to their company.

Let’s take a look at a few more examples.

2 retail sales manager resume experience section examples

Same problem here. The bullets are very general and aren’t tailored to the target job.

Be sure to select achievements that highlight why you’re qualified for the job you want.

Check out our How to Cover Work Experience On Your Resume guide for more tips on building a job-winning experience section.

Just make sure that your experience has been built to sell. Don’t compromise!

Sales manager skills section: which ones will put you ahead

Regardless of the industry, there’s a common set of skills expected of sales managers.

Adding those skills directly increases the chances of your resume getting shortlisted for an interview.

Below is a list of 10 skills you may want to include on your resume.

Of course, these aren’t the only skills an employer will look for. Check the job ad for other skills not yet listed on your resume, such as soft skills or technical skills specific to the job.

The skills of a retail sales manager, for instance, would be different from a hotel sales manager, or an area sales manager.

Sprinkle these on your summary and work experience, and highlight the skills you’re most proud of— and are listed in the job description— on the skills section of your resume.

Be sure to provide context for soft skills. They can be open to interpretation and you don’t want recruiters making assumptions.

Back up soft skills by providing specific examples where you exhibited “leadership” and “time management.”

Try not to go overboard on your skills section, you don’t want it to look like a bunch of random keywords.

For more detailed advice on winning recruiters over with your skills, read How to Create A Resume Skills Section To Impress Recruiters (+10 Examples You Need to See)

The best way to list education on your resume

You’re already applying for a managerial role, which means you’ve been employed for a few years. You don’t need to include details about your coursework or GPA in your education section.

Just list your degree, major, school name, and the year you graduated. To save space, you can put it all in two lines.

If you have a postgraduate degree, start with that and include the same details as your undergraduate degree and then list your undergraduate credentials below it.

Here’s an example.

If you have certifications, seminars, or conferences you’ve attended, list them below your degree. Include the following details when listing continuing education:

• Name of certification or training
• An institution that provided it
• Date Obtained or in progress
• Location

Example:

“Certified Inside Sales Professional from the American Association of Inside Sales

Maine, 2014”

Haven’t finished your degree or certification? Just write ‘in progress’ or ‘Complete by (year)’ instead of the year finished.

To give you an idea, here are a few certifications an employer might look for in a sales manager:

• Certified Inside Sales Professional (CISP) by the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals
• Certified Sales Executive (CSE) by the Sales and Marketing Executives International (SMEI)

List what you’re proud of

Recruiters read about 250 resumes per job application, so your resume should be interesting if you want to stand out.

One way to do that is to include a section called “Notable achievements” or “Most Proud Of” where you can add your most impressive qualifications.

Mention awards you’ve won from employers, a big sale you closed, the fact that you have a big remote team, or that some of your team members got promoted because of your help.

You can even mention a personal achievement or project that you’re most proud of. That’s a good conversation starter.

Key takeaways for your sales manager resume

Don’t let your previous accomplishments go to waste with a resume that doesn’t do you justice. Just think of this like another client presentation that you’re going to ace.

Just so you don’t forget, though, here are the most important points to remember when writing your sales manager resume.

• Choose a professional-looking template

• Write a compelling sales manager resume objective or sales manager resume summary that shows your achievements on the skills mentioned in the job ad

• Create an achievement-focused work history that shows your leadership, planning, and sales skills expected with your employment level, whether you’re a sales manager, regional sales manager, or national sales manager

• List down skills and certifications that prove you have the technical know-how for the job