Pitch your best resume to employers with our advice for those in entry-level sales positions
A Sales Assistant is an entry level position on a sales team. They assist customers with orders, answer questions about products, and support senior sales members with negotiations and disputes.
This career has lots of possibilities for growth, including working your way up to a managerial position or moving into marketing. Therefore, it’s important to create a strong resume that will jumpstart your career!
In this article, we’ll discuss
Senior Sales Assistant, Fragrances by Francis
Sales Assistant, Mae Spring Flowers
Cashier, Greenery Grocer
The first step to drafting your resume is deciding which resume format to use. This depends on your career experience and skillset.
You have 3 main options for resume:
Tip: only include jobs relevant to the position to which you’re applying, so leave out any former jobs that don’t fit.
Have headers like “Customer Service” and “Administrative Support” with their respective skills listed in bullet points below. At the very end, include a brief snapshot of your work experience.
Tip: When in doubt, choose the Reverse-Chronological resume format.
For Sales Assistants, hiring managers want to glance at your resume and get a sense of the following:
The best format for a Sales Assistant to demonstrate all of these points is the Reverse-Chronological resume format, since managers want to see your former work experience to gauge if you’re right for the job.
A resume summary is one or two sentences at the top of your paper that summarizes your entire resume. It’s the punch line that gets the resume reviewer wanting to know more.
For a Sales Assistant career, include the following points in your summary
The best strategy in this section is to only include info that is relevant to the job. For example, you wouldn’t mention your animal care skills, because that doesn’t pertain to the position to which you’re applying.
Here is an example of a bad resume summary: Previous sales experience with excellent customer service skills.
Here is an example of a good resume summary: 4+ years of experience supporting customers and assisting managers with administrative work. Charismatic and outgoing with a passion for communicating the benefits of products.
Another idea is to quantify your former contributions. So, if you improved customer retention in the store by a certain percentage, include that! Or, if you streamlined the checkout process, increased profits, or reduced product theft.
Checkout our guide for more information on how to write a resume summary.
The next step to drafting your resume is to list your work experience. This includes the name of your position, the name of the location at which you worked, and the time period in which you worked.
Furthermore, write your resume experience in a way that anyone in your industry will understand. In other words, don't use company-specific language.
For example, let’s say your former job called the cash register “the money box.” Most hiring managers won’t know what that means, so stick with the common term instead.
Sales Assistant Skills
For more ideas on which skills to include, check out our guide on 100+ Key Skills for a Resume in 2021.
Sales Assistants do not need a formal education such as a high school diploma or college degree -- unless you’re interested in selling items like cars or jewelry. This is because, for the most part, Sales Assistants receive on-the job training, either by senior employees or by the organization’s formal training program.
However, if you’re planning on moving up to a managerial or marketing role, then you will need a formal education of some sort, typically a college degree in business, management, or a similar field.
But, if you have an education, be sure to include it! This gives hiring managers a sense of who you are and makes you more competitive for the position.
Sales Assistants generally do not require certifications. But, if you happen to have some related to the field -- such as experience in social media, negotiations, or technology that most stores use -- include it!
Here are some examples of sales certifications:
For more information on certifications, check out our guide on how to include certifications on your resume the right way.
Now it’s time for the fun part -- picking the aesthetics of your resume!
Here at EasyResume, we offer 4 different templates.
Your resume template should reflect the job to which you’re applying. For Sales Assistants, stick with a simple, modern, or professional template.
We’ve reached the end of the article! Now for the hard part, actually creating the resume.
Here’s what you need to do:
Start from one of our resume examples to save time.
Good luck with the interview!
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