Marketing Jobs in Central/West End
Marketing Jobs in G.Manchester
Marketing Jobs in West Yorkshire
In over 6 years of recruiting sales professionals and having read and reviewed literally hundreds of CVs, I am constantly amazed at the poor quality of CVs that people will write and submit to represent themselves. The aim of this article is not to tell you how to write your CV, but how to prepare yourself and use your sales skills when writing your CV.
First of all, before you even put pen to paper, you should be clear of the purpose and objective of the CV. Why are you even bothering to write a CV? What do you want it to achieve? The ultimate aim of the CV should be to secure you an interview.
If you are clear that this is your objective, then you must now decide how to sell yourself.
You are the product! You have Features, Benefits and Unique Selling Points that will be of interest to the recruiter and you have to decide what information is most relevant. This is not as easy as it sounds. You have to present a lot of information about you and your career, and create a positive feeling in 2-3 pages of black and white. It is at this point that most people fail because they do not think about this and do not take the time and effort that is really needed.
Writing a CV, and selling yourself is not rocket science. If you use the sales skills that you have been trained in, and apply them to this process you will succeed in getting interviews.
Before you sell your products, you will have been thoroughly trained and have the necessary tools and information to increase the chance of making a sale. Equally, before you apply for a new position, you must take the time to prepare your CV so that it effectively sells yourself and achieves the goal of getting you an interview. If you do not take the time to prepare your CV properly, you should not expect to be invited to interviews.
The success or failure of a sales call is determined within the first 30 seconds. When you visit your client you are probably smartly dressed, looking professional, and armed with well presented information and materials. You would not see a client wearing ripped jeans, a dirty T-Shirt, armed with a scrap of paper and seriously expect them to buy from you.
The same can be said about your CV. If a Sales Director reads two CVs and one is smart, well presented, and shows that the person has put some time and effort into the preparation, whilst the other is poorly presented, littered with spelling mistakes and shows that little effort has been made, which one do you think they will be more interested in?
As a successful sales person you have been taught to sell the features and benefits that are most relevant to your target audience. When writing your CV, you should think like a Sales Manager. If you were recruiting for that particular position, what information would you want to see in a CV?
For example, when applying for a sales roles, you would expect that the Sales Manager would want to know the territory you cover, who you are selling to, what products you sell, your targets (call rates, sales, etc), and your successes and achievements. Just saying that you are a Sales Representative for XYZ Company is not enough. You need to get the Sales Manager interested and give them a reason to want to meet you.
As a sales person, you must appreciate that your client is a very busy person and has probably been contacted by other representatives before you. Therefore, if you can provide them with something that will be of interest and make their life easier, you have a chance of making the sale.
When applying for a job, you must appreciate that a Sales Manager may have at least 10-20 CV’s to read, and will only invite 3 or 4 people to an interview. By making your CV concise, easy to read, with relevant and interesting information, and making their life just that bit easier, you have a greater chance that they will want to see you.
When you visit a client, if you don’t sell your product, you won’t achieve your targets. Equally, if you don’t sell yourself in your CV, nobody else is going to do this for you, and you won’t achieve your goal of getting an interview. And if you can’t sell yourself in your CV, a Sales Manager or Director will have doubts about your ability to sell their products. As a sales person, you must demonstrate your ability to succeed. Sales Managers do not want to read your job description; they want to know that you are going to make a difference to their business.
Your client is more likely to buy from you if they like you.
A CV is a very personal document, yet the toughest part of writing a CV is getting your personality to shine through. You have to use your style of writing, presentation skills and the content to bring this out.
Preparing a good CV is not just about what you write, but how you write it. If you apply the sales skills that you have, and take a little bit if time to think about what you are doing and why you are doing it, you should be able to write an effective CV that will do its job and secure you to an interview.
It is always worth you attempting to write the CV first yourself. If you are not happy with this, or find it very difficult, or find this is not getting you the interviews, it is then worth using a third party to make help you make improvements.
Novo Consulting are an independent Career Consultancy for Sales professionals. They provide a range of services to assist sales professionals in securing new opportunities including CV review, CV Writing, and Interview preparation. Novo Consulting can be contacted on 01923-854600 or email enquiries@novoconsulting.co.uk.
Why not register your CV on our database? Our CV database is searched by hundreds of employers every month, let your new marketing job come to you!
