While you might be used to selling cars, you need to sell yourself in your CV.
And no matter how much experience you have and how many impressive skills you include on your CV, sales recruiters are still after one thing. Results. Without quantified achievements and plenty of solid facts and figures, your chances of landing an interview are slim.
Here’s how to add achievements to your car sales CV and wow recruiters with hard facts, figures and data:
Find out what results employers value
You won’t get far with your car sales job hunt if you don’t know what employers actually want from their new recruit. Before writing your CV for any role, go through the job description and requirements carefully.
Are they looking for new clients? More leads? More sales? Try to adapt your CV to their requirements as best you can. For example, if they’re looking to boost their sales, pack the document with as many quantifiable sales figures from previous roles as you can.
This gives cold, hard evidence to the company that you can bring exactly what they’re looking for – no questions asked.
Track your achievements every month
You’re in a sales role, so you’re making sales pretty much every day. When you’re working hard day-in-day-out, it’s easy to lose track of your achievements throughout your career – but what happens if your dream sales role pops up?
Make a habit of tracking your results and achievements every month in a location outside of work. That way, you’ll easily be able to transfer valuable results over to your CV should an opportunity arise.
Give achievement hints in your profile
Did you know that the average recruiters spends around 6 seconds looking at each CV? You need to prove your selling skills in a punchy profile at the top of your CV. After all, that’s likely all they’ll read before deciding if you’re a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’!
Summarise your best (and most relevant) achievements and make sure you include them in your personal profile. For example, are you an ‘Accomplished car salesman who exceeded sales targets 6 months running’ or an ‘Experienced used car manager who increased sales by 50% over 3 years’?
Add quantified achievements to your role descriptions
Every sales job has responsibilities and day-to-day duties. But, being brutally honest, recruiters don’t care too much about that – they want to know if you can sell.
In any car sales position, you’ll constantly be expected to hit targets and reach goals – so how can you prove you’re capable of doing so? When listing your previous experience, focus on quantifiable achievements and results, using plenty of percentages, figures and facts. For example:
- Averaged 15-20 sales a month
- Maintained 95% customer satisfaction over all care deals
- Achieved number 1 car salesman for 8 consecutive months
- Achieved 150% of year 1 target
- Increased company revenue by 20% in 1 year
By focusing on achievements and results, you can prove to recruiters that you’re an experienced, target-driven car salesman who’ll be an asset to any company.
Andrew Fennell is a former recruiter and founder of StandOut CV, a leading advice centre for CV writing and job search. Andrew contributes careers advice to a number of sites including The Guardian, Business Insider and CV Library.
