Sales Resumes Archives - Palladian Career Resources

Exceeding Sales Quotas

Sales is a field where the emphasis on quantifiable metrics is extremely high within the hiring process. Hiring managers look for sales professionals who have an established track record of beating their goals. Sales goals are easily measured and are one of the most commonly published metrics in an organization. This makes it extremely easy to find sales data for your resume. Despite this many job seekers omit hard data on their sales performance.

There’s a good reason many omit the information. Sales is a field with a high failure rate. There are a lot of sales people who just aren’t that good. They may work hard and land some sales, but struggle to reach the company’s goals. Putting sales numbers on a resume would highlight this poor performance, so they leave them off.

For a hiring manager, demonstrated success in sales is critical. Most will assume the job seeker was a failure if the job seeker doesn’t specifically tell them otherwise. The resume I read today made this mistake. It didn’t give enough information to know if the job seeker was successful, or if he was a failure.

The problem started in the cover letter. It is 178 words long. That’s on the long side for a cover letter, but isn’t too long. In it, there are five paragraphs. The first explains the person is seeking a business development role. The second and fourth paragraphs make general claims about a successful track record through the career, but nothing specific. The fifth paragraph is a simple closing.

The middle paragraph has four bullet points. A bulleted list in a cover letter is like a giant magnet for attention. Most people will be drawn to the list before they read the majority of the letter. That’s what I did. I read the first sentence of the cover letter and jumped to the bullets. Here’s what I found:

Creativity in developing new business opportunities
Credibility based on previous success
Proven executive experience
Positive attitude and desire to succeed

I’m not sure how a successful sales person could write something this boring and expect to grab a person’s attention. A desire to succeed is a good quality, but I assume anyone successful has that. If that’s one of the most impressive qualities you have to market, you’re in trouble.

After reading the bullets, I skipped to the resume. The only reason I know what is in the other paragraphs of the cover letter is I read it to write this article. The bullets made it clear it was a waste of time to read, and that conclusion was proven correct when I did read it.

In the resume, the job seeker included a few performance metrics. Each job listed a few big clients he landed, some with deals in excess of $10 million. Selling multi-million dollar deals is a marketable experience, but it still doesn’t answer the question about the success of the job seeker. In sales, you have to remember the old quote, “Even a blind squirrel will find a nut every now and then.” Is this job seeker a blind squirrel occasionally tripping over a sale, or is he a superstar?

The resume covers 11 years of sales experience. In it, the job seeker lists four years where he lists his performance relative to his quota. In those four years, three are listed as meeting 100% of quota and one is listed as hitting 350% of quota. The 350% year immediately preceded the three 100% years.

So we have a sales professional, who in 11 years of selling, is telling us he met the minimum expectations for his job four times, and once had a “blind squirrel finding a nut” year blowing his targets out of the water. He wants us to hire him because he’s creative, credible, experienced, and has a desire to succeed.

Now, you’re a sales manager trying to fill a key position. Sales are down, the economy is tough, and you can add one key person. If the person comes in and is successful, you will keep your job and may even earn a bonus. If the person bombs, you’re likely to get canned. Is this candidate going to get your attention? Are you going to bet your career on his performance?

So, what could this job seeker do? He should give more detail on his performance. What were his quotas each year and how did he perform? He had a long run with the same company, so there’s a chance he was more successful than the picture I painted. The three years he listed that he met 100% of his quota, he notes he received a corporate Circle of Excellence Award. Usually, awards indicate exceeding expectations by a significant amount. If his quota was a stretch goal, he should really show what his performance was relative to his minimum expectations. Even better, listing how he performed relative to other sales people would help. He may have been the best sales person in the company, or the worst. We have no way of knowing.

The key is giving a hiring manager insight into how your boss would assess your performance. The more detail you can provide about your specific performance, the more credible and impressive your background will be.

Provide Context for Common Acronyms

I read a resume today with a lot of acronyms. I’ve written about the problems of using acronyms in the past – they confuse the reader and can make a resume impossible to decipher. This should be simple to understand, but what if the acronym is used much more frequently than the term?

This was the case with the resume I received. The resume was from a person who sold displays using LED lights. The acronym I had trouble with was LED. The term light emitting diode is rarely used – it’s almost always writen as LED. The reason I had trouble with this abbreviation is the resume provided no context for the term. It was only after I reviewed the resume in detail that I figured out that the reference to LED was likely to be a reference to light emitting diodes. There are a lot of other terms that use the abbreviation LED. In fact, a search of website listing common abbreviations yielded 169 results for LED. These ranged from the airport code for the St. Petersburg airport in Russia, to organization terms such as Law Enforcement Division and Library Education Division, to medical conditions such as Lupus Erythematosus Disseminatus, and a wide range of other terms.

Light emitting diode is one the most common meanings for the term. The reason the resume is confusing is it provides no context for the term. There was nothing at the start of the resume that would implied light emitting diodes were the technology being referenced. Some readers would instantly think of this meaning and “get it.” Others would think of some other meaning or context and be completely lost.

This could have been made clearer by adding a single word. The salesperson sold LED signs. Adding the word signs makes the context of the acronym clear.

After you write your resume, look closely at the terms you use. Make sure terms specific to your industry are clearly explained. In your job search, you cannot expect the reader of your resume to know the meaning and context of technical terms you use. Providing a simple explanation of your career and of each individual job can make your resume much easier to comprehend.

Eliminate “Responsible for” From Your Resume

Job seekers overuse the phrase “Responsible for” on their resumes. It is an easy phrase to use. Just put “responsible for” at the start of a bullet and describe some aspect of the job.

Writing a resume like this will not make a good impression. A resume I read today illustrates this very well. The resume is from an insurance agent, but it makes it hard to determine whether the agent was successful. The resume and cover letter contained details that fail to create a clear picture of the job seeker’s performance.

A resume should provide a clear statement of the success of the job seeker. Instead, it lists a number of responsibilities and sales goals. The resume never comes right out and says whether the job seeker achieved the goals. Below are the bullets under the most recent job listed:

Responsible for sales, management, marketing and service of commercial, life, group, LTC, and voluntary benefit insurance products, as well as pension plans
Directly responsible for increasing the territory book of commercial business from $#.# million to $#.# million over a # year period.
Responsible for increasing group life customer base from 0 to ## current groups.
Responsible for increasing LTC book from $0 to $###,000.
Responsible for increasing territory pension assets from $#.# million to over $#.# million in just over # years.
Directly responsible for increasing current commercial client base from ## accounts to ## accounts.
Responsible for increasing life insurance book from $##,000 to $###,000 over # years.

There are two ways to read this. You can assume the statements are a list of sales goals the agent was responsible for hitting, or you can assume the statements detail the specific results the agent achieved. If they are goals, there is nothing to indicate the agent was successful in achieving them. When a hiring manager is screening hundreds of resumes, and only spends a very short time skimming each, you can count on the hiring manager to be very skeptical. Most will assume the job seeker was unsuccessful if the job seeker does not specifically detail the successes.

Further hurting the presentation, the job seeker uses two different phrases, “responsible for” and “directly responsible for” in the bullets. There’s a chance the job seeker is just trying to vary the structure and reduce the repetitiveness of the resume. It is also possible the job seeker is showing the difference between individual and group goals or accomplishments.

Recommendations

The changes to correct this are easy to implement. If the bullets detail specific accomplishments and not sales goals, each bullet (except the first) should be changed to eliminate the “responsible for.” Below are the revised bullets:

Responsible for sales, management, marketing and service of commercial, life, group, LTC, and voluntary benefit insurance products, as well as pension plans
Increased the territory book of commercial business from $#.# million to $#.# million over a # year period.
Developed the group life customer base from 0 to ## current groups.
Developed the LTC book from $0 to $###,000.
Increased the territory pension assets from $#.# million to over $#.# million in just over # years.
Grew the current commercial client base from ## accounts to ## accounts.
Increased the life insurance book from $##,000 to $###,000 over # years.

This reads much better and provides a stronger impact. The contributions of the job seeker are clear after these minor changes.

If the job seeker did not achieve these goals, rewriting the bullets will take a little more work. The job seeker will need to identify their specific accomplishments and write about these. The numbers may not be as impressive, but they will be genuine and honest. This will help the impression the resume makes.

Resume with an Atypical Career Progression

The career progression of most job seekers follows a typical pattern. It starts with an entry level job and progresses to positions of increasing responsibility. At any point in time, the job seeker holds a single full time position. This progression is very common and easy to understand. So, what do you do if your career isn’t typical?

The resume I ran into today dealt with a non-traditional career in a very effective way. The job seeker had held a series of sales and sales management positions. Then, a couple years ago, he shifted into a consulting role. His resume shows five concurrent positions, with titles such as Director of Sales, Director of Business Development and Director of Fundraising.

This list of positions raised a number of questions immediately. Holding what appear to be five full time positions simultaneously doesn’t make sense. My initial reaction was confusion. I had no idea what the job seeker was doing.

One tactic the job seeker could have taken would be to describe each position in detail. This would make for a very long resume. The job seeker took a different approach. He provided one line that explained that these were consulting positions. He then offered an example. In the example, he described one of positions in detail. This showed the type of work the job seeker was doing. Because the positions were similar, it is easy to see how the other roles would have similar responsibilities and accomplishments.

The job seeker then provided a traditional description of each full time job he had held prior to moving into consulting. The approach turned out to be clear and easy to follow.

The key to the effectiveness of this resume was its clear presentation of what the job seeker did. The way it was written was unusual, but it made it clear, very quickly, what the job seeker did. Although I started out confused, it only took a few seconds to understand what was going on. There are other ways the job seeker could have presented their consulting experience without writing a long description of each position. The important thing is not providing every last detail – it is showing a clear picture of your overall experience. In this regard, the job seeker did a good job by describing just one of the five positions.

If you have a non-traditional career progression following a traditional chronological format may not work. If you are uncertain how to structure your resume, get help.

A Recruiter’s Perspective

One of my primary goals in writing the this blog is give you the ability to look at your resume the same way a recruiter or hiring manager will. I ran into a resume today that illustrates a common mistake I see, although this example is worse than most.

The resume is from a salesperson with fifteen years of experience. The resume listed a number of great accomplishments. There were bullets where the job seeker had exceeded their annual quota by significant percentages. Other bullets showed their ranking within the company or region – for example, top five out of three hundred sales associates at one position.

The work history looked good. Then, at the start of 2007, the candidate took a new sales job. The new position had one bullet, “Sell comprehensive line of…” and a list of products. The listing had nothing about the success of the individual. No details of the territory, customer base, training or anything else about the position.

Recruiter Perspective

My reaction to this resume is simple. The job seeker had been successful in the past but failed dismally in their most recent position. I can’t think of any reason why the job seeker wouldn’t give some detail of their performance for this position if their performance was good. Describing this as a dismal failure may seem strong. I have to assume the candidate did not meet or exceed expectations in any way.

I also read the cover letter closely. My thought was the candidate might have a reason why he didn’t detail the position. The company many have had financial difficulty or the sales process may not have been a fit for the candidate. These reason could mitigate a failed position. The cover letter mirrored the resume, emphasizing the past and skipping over the most recent position.

The Job Seeker’s Perspective

I expect the job seeker left out details of this position because he has trouble acknowledging the failure. The career track record shows a pattern of success. It doesn’t appear that he has had to deal with failing before. The easiest thing for the job seeker is to skip over the position and emphasize his accomplishments. I’m sure this seemed like a good idea, but it doesn’t create the impression the job seeker wants.

Just as there are reasons that would mitigate the significance of a failure, there are reasons that could make this failure a major issue. What changed about the job seeker that led to the failure? In an interview, this would be my focus.

Solution

The best way to deal with this is to be upfront and give some detail. The job seeker should explain their performance. If the performance was below expectations, then the job seeker should explain way. I’m not suggesting that they job seeker needs a bunch of excuses – that’s the wrong approach. He just needs to provide an honest assessment. For example, shortly after starting the position, the company may have experienced a change in a their operations that made their products less competitive. Stating this by itself is just an excuse. Adding details about how the company’s sales dropped significantly would make it understandable that a new salesperson would struggle.

Another option is to remove all the accomplishments from the resume. I think this is a terrible option, but some job seekers may consider it. By removing the other accomplishments, the job seeker will create a consistent pattern from start to finish. The lack of accomplishments in the current position will not standout without any other accomplishments on the resume. In a down economy, this tactic will cause the job seeker to appear completely unimpressive and reduce the chances of getting an interview.

Often a resume tells as much about the job seeker from the lack on information as it does from the information is included.

Sales Accomplishments on a Resume Part 2

Continuing from yesterday, I have four more sales accomplishments from resumes showing how some job seekers attempt to demonstrate their success.

Opening Accounts

Successfully expanded account base from 75 to over 90 accounts.

This bullet is ok. It’s better than nothing but doesn’t make a strong impression. The job seekers fails to provide sufficient context. I can’t tell if adding 15 accounts was good or terrible. Knowing the goals for the position would help. Providing an indication of the change in total sales would give the scope. I would also like to know how this sales performance compared with the performance of others at the company. For example, in a booming industry, where most sales people are doubling their sales, an increase of 20% would be a dismal failure. Finally, I would want to know what the margin of the new sales compared to the old sales. Anyone can win new business by cutting margins or selling at a loss – this would not be an accomplishment.

New Division

Established a customer base of 25+ accounts for newly created division.

This is bullet is similar to the preceding bullet – the scope of the performance is omitted. To improve this, the job seeker should include the budget goals, in customers and dollars and how the performance compared to the goals.

Turnaround

Spearheading a remarkable “worst-to-first” transformation, leading an extremely low-performing sales team to become the only one in the region to exceed 1st quarter objectives, and leading this same team to grow revenue from $3.7M to $8M in 3 years.

I like this accomplishment. It starts with some hype… “remarkable worst-to-first transformation.” Hype is usually a mistake in a resume. The pitfall you need to avoid is making very general, broad boasts that can’t be assessed. Additionally, if you don’t back up your claims, boasting will hurt more than help.

In this case, the job seeker makes a very specific claim about turning around a team, and follows up the hype with a clear demonstration of why they made the claim. They define the starting point – bottom performing with revenues of $3.7m. The job seeker then shows the results… 1^st in the region with $8m in sales. Further emphasizing the success, the job seeker adds that their team was the only one to beat expectations.

I would want to know what the job seeker did to achieve the results. Often, explaining the “how” is difficult in a resume. If the approach could be summarized in a sentence or two, it would make a good addition. If the approach was more complicated, it probably is better to leave it out and explain the situation in an interview.

Strategic Planning

Defined and implemented 5 year strategy to triple sales within 3 years to more $20 million.

This bullet sounds good but doesn’t really say anything. The job seeker planned to triple sales. Planning sales growth is easy… achieving the plan is what counts. Compare this to the NFL. Your now the owner of a team and have to select a coach. You receive two resumes. One lists a bullet that says the coach developed a plan to win the Superbowl within 3 years in their last job. The other one has a bullet like the previous Turnaround example, “Spearheaded a remarkable worst-to-first transformation, leading a team with the worst record in the league to the Super Bowl in three years.” Who do you want to interview? It’s no contest… every coach has a plan to win. It’s what you do with your plan, and what you achieve that will make a difference in an interview.

Sales Accomplishments on a Resume Part 1

Your accomplishments provide the sizzle that will get a hiring manager excited about your resume. They demonstrate your performance and your potential. The stories of your successes often are the most remembered details in an interview. This makes it essential to present strong accomplishments in your resume and talk about them in an interview.

I selected accomplishments from the resumes of sales professionals to show some good and bad examples.

Turnaround

Went from “underdog” to winning bidder for a multi-million dollar automation project involving two Target Accounts. Sale required last-minute business trips to Europe and western U.S. and overcoming several commercial and political issues.

This accomplishment is very good. It gives enough context to peak the reader’s interest. The job seeker frames his position as the underdog. He gives some scope to the situation by describing it as multi-million dollar, with multiple accounts and international. He also gives a glimpse of how he succeeded: repeated trips to the customer to resolve complicated issues.

There are a number of questions about this that are left unanswered. I would want to know why the job seeker’s firm was the underdog. I would like to know how the size of this project fit with the typical sales at this firm. I would like to understand the issues that were overcome and how the job seeker did this. Answering these questions in a resume could be difficult. I expect that the text would be long… too long to be effective. Leaving this information out was a good call. The accomplishment peaks the interest to learn more. This is the goal of a resume: get the reader to want to talk to the job seeker.

New Concept

Presented and sold this new concept technology to gain substantial acceptance with <list of six customers>. I worked intimately with nearly 100 <end-users of the product> throughout <metro area>.

This bullet was a stand-alone accomplishment. The presentation did not make it clear what the “new concept” was. The confusion resulted from the order of the information. There wasn’t a specific line defining the “new concept technology” and the descriptions of technologies were not immediate preceding the bullet.

The second problem with the bullet results from the lack of scope. I don’t know what the job seeker considers substantial acceptance. The bullet doesn’t show the sales volume, the performance relative to goals or if the rollout was considered successful. Without more detail, this accomplishment is unlikely to make much of an impression.

Got Hired

One of five consultants hired from over 500 applicants for the marketing team.

This is a waste of space on a resume. It is very common that a company will screen in excess of 100 people for each hire. Even worse, this bullet says nothing about the success of the job seeker. The only thing it indicates is that the job seeker was hired in the past… not exactly earth shattering information. Focus on specific performance results, not getting hired.

Ranking

Currently ranked 12 out of 90 representatives in the Western region

I like rankings on a resume. They give a context for the job seeker’s performance. To rank 12^th out of 90, it is likely the job seeker performed well. It isn’t guaranteed, though. There may be variations between territories or other factors that cause comparisons to be unreliable. Despite this, a bullet with your rank relative to peers is good to have on a resume.

Make sure you include other accomplishments in addition to rankings. A resume that just lists sales rankings, with no details of how the rankings were achieved is very forgettable. A good tactic is to provide ranking bullets with a couple bullets that show specific examples of your success. Including both types of accomplishments can make an impressive presentation.

No Sales Metrics to Discuss

What do you do if your employer does not have established sales metrics you can discuss in a job interview or put on your resume?

Goals, metrics, performance measures and results are extremely common in sales. Companies track sales performance closely and the data is easily quantifiable. When you interview for a sales position, you can expect to be asked about your performance, and the interviewer will expect specific answers.

In some cases, this can pose a challenge. Although rare, some companies do not provide specific goals and metrics for every sales position. Without specific metrics provided, job seekers struggle with discussing their past performance. They just don’t have the data.

If you are this situation, it is likely you will be passed over for most sales positions. It isn’t the lack of information that is the biggest problem. Companies that measure sales performance closely develop a culture that reflects this. One of the management axioms I’ve heard throughout my career is, “if you measure it, it will improve.” This philosophy focuses on the motivation that develops from publicizing performance measures… No one wants to be last and no one wants see their performance below expectations.

If you have not worked in a culture with detailed metrics, adjusting can be difficult. A hiring manager may select another candidate that has demonstrated success in this type of environment.

Your chances in this situation are not dead, though. There are ways you can demonstrate you ability to adapt to this type of culture.

Start by looking at your performance reviews. Your annual reviews will tell you your expectations and performance relative to these expectations. Hopefully, these are specific. If they are not, look at the activities that were required to be successful. For example, one of your expectations may have been “provide excellent customer service,” and had the rating “meets expectations.” This really doesn’t tell us much. We don’t know what “excellent customer service” looks like in the mind of the reviewer, how “meets expectations” falls into the continuum of performance, or how significant this was to the position.

If you develop specific examples of your performance in each review area, you will interview much better. These examples should show clearly what the goal of the activity was, what you did and what your results were. Quantifiable examples are good, but if you don’t have metrics, qualitative examples will have to do.

Without an annual review to use as a starting point, you have a greater challenge. If you did not have clear expectations set for you, what expectations did you set for yourself? If the answer was none, you have a problem. A hiring manager looking for a candidate that is self-motivated and very goal oriented is not going to favor someone that does not set goals. If you never set goals, a metric driven position might be a bad fit. If you do set goals and assess your performance, prepare to discuss examples. A job seeker that individually sets and measures goals for themselves in a culture that does not promote goal setting could make a very strong impression.

Another approach to consider is to discuss the organization’s performance. Your company or department may have goals collectively, but not measure these for individuals. If this is the case, discuss the collective goal. To make this effective be very specific about your activity contributing to the collective goal. For example, you could be part of a sales team that prepares large proposals for government contracts. Your efforts contribute to the winning of the contract, but winning is a collective effort. Discussing the success of your team lays the foundation. The question that goes unanswered when you focus on team performance is whether you were a strong contributor, the weak link on the team or somewhere in between. Giving specific examples of your activity and work you did can create a picture of your individual contributions.

As with all sales, you need to show the value you will provide if the hiring manager “buys.” The more specific you are about the activity and contribution you have provided, the easier it will be for the interviewer to picture how you will perform for them.

Resume Writing for Sales Positions

A resume targeted for sales positions needs to address one critical performance goal – your ability to contribute to the sales growth of the company. This goes for business development, account management, customer service, agent/broker, or management positions. Being responsible for sales is not sufficient. To get attention and get hired, you need to show how you will add to top line revenues, and in turn, bottom line profits.

Sales positions typically have very specific, quantified goals and performance measures. This makes gathering the data of your past contributions easier than in some fields. If your company doesn’t measure you performance, you will need to gather this information yourself.

The first time your resume is read by an employer, the bar is set low. You need to show you have experience in the areas they want and indicate you were successful. This is pretty straightforward but is not a slam dunk. Part of the challenge is emphasizing your experience in each areas critical to the company. To do this, you need to customize your resume for each position.

The first step is to review the job description closely. Identify the sales activities that are important to the position. Drill down in detail. You need to be more specific than just saying you open new accounts and service existing accounts. Unfortunately, most sales professionals focus on just bottom line performance only and list a bullet under each job like this: “grew sales by 15% per year for 6 consecutive years.” This is good, but does not give enough information. You should provide some context to the situation. What challenges did you face, how did you achieve this performance and how did this compare to your goals?

There are a number of common activities that make a sales professional successful. Each position will require a different mix of these activities. Once you identify the important activities to the employer, detail them on your resume. Some elements to consider include:

Lead generation
Cold calling
Opening new accounts
Writing proposals
Estimating
Up-selling customers
Growing existing accounts
Providing customer service
Retaining customers
Rolling out new products

Each employer will have a different needs. Most have goals for growth – prospects they are targeting, markets they want to enter, growth with existing customers. In all likelihood, the company has goals in multiple areas.

You need to demonstrate your ability to succeed in these key areas. To do this, provide quantifiable performance measures. This requires going beyond the basic bullet “grew sales 15%.” How much cold calling did you do? How many leads did this generate? How many new customers did you add? What was the revenue of these new customers?

The story behind your answers to a set of questions like this can make an extremely impressive presentation. It will also set you apart from your competition.

Prioritize Information on Your Resume

When you write your resume, you need to select the most important information to emphasize. Your resume will be judged on the most prominent content. It is not unusual for a resume to be rejected in the first 30 seconds it is read.

How Resumes Are Screened

When a hiring manager has a lot of resumes to review, the first priority is to identify the top contenders and eliminate the rest. If a job seeker has a background that is clearly not a fit, it’s discarded immediately. The content in the top half of the first page of the resume may be the only thing read.

If you present information at the top of your resume that is unrelated to the position you are pursuing, you run the risk of getting rejected before the hiring manager reads your entire resume.

Example

A resume I received recently demonstrates how prioritizing poorly can hurt the overall impression. Below is the professional summary from the top of the resume (with some identifying information deleted):

PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

A dedicated, forward-thinking professional with experience in sales management, recruiting and supervising staff and interior design.

Communicates effectively with diverse professionals and workforce, analyzing and evaluating situations quickly to provide options for resolution.

Led division to ##% sales growth within # months with a closure rate of ##%.

Experienced Kitchen Designer, familiar with all major brands of solid surface and natural stone.

Learns new information easily and applies knowledge in practical manner to meet goals and objectives.

The structure of this section doesn’t guide the reader to a single impression. It starts by stating the individual is a “dedicated, forward-thinking professional.” This isn’t a bad way to start, but it isn’t great either. Dedicated and forward-thinking are good qualities. They don’t do a lot to separate the job seeker from other candidates. Vague qualities like this just don’t do a lot.

The next phrase lists three areas of expertise – sales management, recruiting and supervision. This starts to build an image of the job seeker. The sentence ends with an add-on: “and interior design.” This confuses the presentation. Just when the job seeker establishes an image of a sales manager, they through in interior designer.

The four bullets do little to clarify the situation. The first bullet is another general list of skills that are difficult for a hiring manager to assess the potential value. The second bullet reinforces the sales management experience with a specific accomplishment that is impressive. The third bullet then goes back to the interior design skill set. Finally, the fourth bullet gives general skills

The content of the resume’s summary isn’t a problem. The issue is how it is presented. Changing the order and emphasis can make a big difference. For example, the resume could be rewritten to emphasize the sales management background:

PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

Successful sales manager, experienced in recruiting and developing sales teams within the interior design field.

Led division to ##% sales growth within # months with a closure rate of ##%.

Communicates effectively with diverse professionals and workforce, analyzing and evaluating situations quickly to provide options for resolution.

Dedicated, forward-thinking and adaptable professional, capable of learning and applying new information quickly to meet goals and objectives.

Experienced Interior Designer and Kitchen Designer, familiar with all major brands of solid surface and natural stone.

This emphasizes a sales management career and makes a clear presentation for this field. The information is almost identical to the original presentation.

If the job seeker wanted a role as an interior designer instead of sales management, the summary should be written to emphasize this experience and deemphasize the sales management experience.