Do Yourself a Favour – When Looking For Sales Jobs, Choose a Specialist Sales Recruitment Agency.

Go to a supermarket to buy sausages, or whatever product you care to choose, and you will have to walk past a vast number of other products that you don’t want, or need, in order to get to them.
That’s how the system works, you see things that you didn't even think you wanted, or needed, but now you do – and you will probably buy at least some of them.

Some recruitment websites and agencies are rather like that. They are the recruitment equivalent of a supermarket. Once you are on their books they’ll show you jobs that may not be a good fit for your skills, because it’s in their interest to do so - after all, they’ll receive a commission if you, their candidate, succeeds in obtaining the job in question. It may be that the jobs that they show you are not even sales jobs at all.

By dealing with a specialist sales recruitment agency you will get to see only sales jobs. If the agency is a good one then they will drill down into your skill set, qualifications and training in order to make sure that they only put you forward for roles where you are likely to be a great fit.

This doesn't mean that you can’t change track with regard to the things you sell or the way that you want to do that selling. For example, someone with telesales experience may want to move into field sales or perhaps an experienced car salesperson might decide to go into selling computers or software services.

What’s important here is to demonstrate that you have experience in the sales process and not place too much emphasis on the product knowledge. There used to be a popular trick in sales interviews where the interviewer would hand the candidate a pen and say “sell me that pen.”

Although this is a bit of a cliché nowadays, I stopped doing it years ago, but in principle it does demonstrate the view, that many people have, which is that a good salesperson should be able to sell anything. It is, according to this theory, the sales technique that matters, not the product knowledge.

Of course, this is only a guide and it would be tough for someone with experience selling advertising in a local directory, for example, to step into selling medical equipment to doctors, but many employers will take the view that if someone comes across as a good salesperson then they could be given the product training to enable them to sell the more specialised product.

If you apply for sales jobs through a specialist sales recruitment agency they will take the time to compare your skills and experience to the profile that the employer has given them of their “ideal” candidate. Perhaps the employer might be wanting to take on a sales person with specific specialist knowledge of their product and, especially if it is a fairly senior role, they might only want to consider experienced people.

On the other hand, they may be willing to consider someone with good sales skills and then give them the product knowledge afterwards – by applying for sales jobs through a sales recruitment agency you can be sure that the agency will have established this by discussing the role with the employer prior to putting forward candidates.

As a jobseeker, all you need to do is submit your CV and other details to a specialist sales recruitment agency like Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment. They will take the time to speak to you and find out more about you so that they can put you forward as a candidate for the sales jobs that are right for you.