A Sample Sales Resume Will Sell You to Your Employer

July 15th, 2008

If you are already a sales person, or if you are hoping to gain a sales position, then you should consider your resume to be the first step in a sales presentation that sells you as an employee to your prospective employer. Even if you consider yourself to be somewhat of an expert in sales, you might find that selling yourself using one or two sheets of paper is much more daunting than selling items on a sales floor. This is where a sample sales resume can be an invaluable tool.

With a sample sales resume, you’ll learn that your ability for selling must become notably more fine-tuned so that you can compete among many other sales-oriented people. It will help you to create a resume that will sell your uniquely ideal candidacy to the hiring authority - even if it is by way of an intermediary who will be briefly scanning over the resumes.

Try to think of it this way. You’re trying to make a sale by emailing your best sales pitch to the attorney of your prospective client. As you can see, your resume will need to be as close to perfect as is possible in order to make it past the first hurdle to the person who will ultimately make the decision as to whether or not to meet you for an interview.

Sales professionals very commonly seek the assistance of professional resume writers in order to ensure such precision and accuracy. Therefore, if you decide to write your resume yourself, you will likely be at a disadvantage against these professionals - depending on your writing experience and skill - so you will need to work at least twice as hard on your resume as anyone else.

Fortunately, if you’re using a sample sales resume as a tool to assist you, you already have the help of a professional on your side. After all, the odd are that a professional resume writer wrote the sample sales resume, so all you need to do is apply that template to yourself, and perfect, review, and edit until you are certain that you’ve made it as good is it can get.

How good is enough? Ask yourself the following questions:

Is my resume ready to beat the 95% of applicants whose resumes will be discarded, even if they have been created by a professional resume writer?

Is my resume written in a way that clearly and quickly demonstrates my ideal candidacy for the position and gets the results I want?

Before you even think of emailing, faxing, or snail mailing your sales resume, you must have a “yes” answer to both of those questions.

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What You Should Know How to Write that Cover Letter to Improve Chances of Getting the Interview

July 13th, 2008

Nearly all job seekers are well aware of the importance of a resume when applying for a professional opinion, but few realize the vital role that an accompanying cover letter plays in the selection process. In fact, your cover letter is just as important to your job search as is your resume.

Consider this: recruiters and managers often receive dozens, if not hundreds, of applicants for every one available position. With so many applicants to review, interviewers do not have much time to determine if you are qualified for the job. In fact, a recruiter typically spends between one and two minutes quickly glancing over a resume, hardly enough to thoroughly investigate if your skills set and experience is a good match for the position.

This is why a cover letter is such a critical tool to the job seeking process. The purpose of a cover letter is to clearly express your interest in and qualifications for a position to a prospective employer. So while the resume is a generic advertisement, your cover letter tailors your application to each specific job. By condensing your resume into key points and drawing the recruiter’s attention to the most relevant areas of your experience, you are assisting the recruiter in matching up your qualifications to that of the open position. And by taking the guesswork out of your resume, you greatly increase your chances of getting a call for an interview.

A cover letter has to “sell” your qualifications to a complete stranger and convince them that you are worthy of an in-person meeting. Therefore, as you can imagine, it is not an easy document to write. There are several guidelines, though, that should assist you in the cover letter development process.

Typically a cover letter is less than one page in length and has four main sections: the introduction, a highlight of your qualifications, a summary of why you are interested in the position, and a concluding follow-up. Before you start listing a litany of skills, though, it’s important to do some research on the company and the position for which you are applying to give you a better understanding of the company’s products or services, history, values, and target customer market. This will help give you a better idea of what recruiters are likely to be seeking in a candidate, and allow you to tailor your cover letter to specifically address those areas.

Part 1 - The Introduction:

1. Your cover letter should be addressed to the hiring manager, whenever possible.

2. Specifically mention the position(s) that you are seeking

3. Let the recruiter know how you heard about the position. If you saw the position advertised or were referred by someone, be sure to include this information.

4. Grab the reader’s attention and stimulate their interest in you right away!!

Part 2 - Summary of your Qualifications:

1. Highlight your strongest qualifications for the position you are seeking. Be sure to limit your qualifications to only those that are the most relevant to the position.

2. Show, rather than simply tell, the manager your qualifications by including specific, credible examples from your experience.

3. Quantify these qualifications whenever possible by focusing on pertinent figures, projects, awards, and equipment/software/tools you’ve used that are relevant to the job you want. For example, rather than highlighting your “excellent customer service skills” indicates that you “achieved a 98% customer satisfaction rating” or “increased department sales by 25% in the first quarter”.

Part 3 - Why you are Interested in the Position:

1. Let the recruiter know why you want to work at their company. What is it about the company that appeals to you?

2. Why does this particular position appeal to you?

3. Indicate why you are a good fit for the company. How will be an asset to the team?

Part 4 - Conclusion and Follow-up:

1. Refer employers to your enclosed resume so that they can review your qualifications in further detail.

2. Request a personal interview or meeting with the hiring manager.

3. Indicate how the recruiter should contact you. Be sure to provide a working phone number or e-mail address.

4. Set a time to follow up. For example indicate that you “will call to follow up on Monday afternoon”.

5. Thank the reader for his or her time.

One final note: your cover letter is the first impression that recruiters will get of you. A strong focused cover letter can convey a powerful, positive first impression. A weak non-focused letter, though, can kill any interest a recruiter may have in your qualifications, regardless of how strong of a fit you may be for the position. Be sure that you proofread carefully for grammatical and typographical errors before sending any correspondence.

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Free Resume Examples Untold Wealth In 10 Minutes!

July 3rd, 2008

Doesn’t every job search start with Google?

Way back in another lifetime, I was looking for a job after one of my startups failed. Conveniently, everything went to pot in early 2000. I’ve always had good timing.

Google was the place to start. I knew all I needed were some free resume examples.

Doesn’t everybody?

I mean, come on, I’d been writing in a business setting for years by then. When I was at Andersen Consulting, keeping your “internal resume” updated was a cottage industry. If you were on lots of short projects, you had to update the thing at least once every quarter!

I was convinced I was an expert resume writer. If I could just find some free resume examples, you know, to see the state of art, I could whip out a stunning resume in an hour or two.

I found some in short order. Most of them were at websites that screamed at me to use their template. They almost (but not quite) guaranteed untold wealth in ten minutes, if I’d just look at their free resume examples…and then buy their product, whatever it was.

Very little has changed.

The web is like a big carnival. There’s a barker on every corner of every search hyping this or that. Job search has become particularly carnival-like, especially five years ago when the economy hit the skids.

How do you know if a particlar job search website’s claims are true?

It’s very simple. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Free resume examples are fine tools. I’m here to tell you, though, that looking at a resume example (free or otherwise) and suddenly thinking yourself the world’s greatest resume writer is nuts.

Back in 2000, I wrote a resume myself, and it wasn’t bad. Then I called, networked, and interviewed for six months with bupkis to show for it.

Was it the resume? Not entirely. Remember, the economy crashed and Donald Trump probably would’ve found it tough to get a job in real estate.

But I know two things for sure.

First, I made some mistakes on my resume. Those often simple mistakes cost me time. Copying those free resume examples didn’t work out like I planned.

Second, good or bad, pretty or not, my resume obviously didn’t compel anybody to call me for a job interview. That means it stunk.

In the end, my job search lasted seven months. The typical job search takes 4-6 months now. It probably was a little longer back then. But that doesn’t excuse my being stupid.

I found some free resume examples, saw dollar signs, and turned my brain off. Just plain dumb. You can avoid my mistakes.

I highly recommend that you hire professional help to shorten your job search, and help you find a fantastic job.

If you’re going to do it yourself, though, be smart about it.

By all means, look at free resume examples. But at least invest the $20-$50 it typically costs to find some high-quality products to help you avoid dumb resume mistakes that’ll lengthen your search time.

Those products won’t give you untold wealth, or career fulfillment in 10 minutes, but they could give you a fantastic resume very quickly.

Every minute your search takes costs you money. Don’t dawdle!

(c) Copyright 2005 by Roy Miller

An article by Roy Miller, creator of http://www.Job-Search-Guidepost.com. He has just released a new free report on how you can avoid losing thousands of dollars by copying a free resume example without knowing what you’re doing. You can claim your copy here: Free Resume Examples Report.

Would you like never to need a resume again? Visit Roy’s new site http://www.resale-money-machine.com to find out how.

This article may be reprinted for use in newsletters and on websites provided that this information box is kept intact. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: roy@job-search-guidepost.com.

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