Sales Assistant CV

Companies hire dedicated sales assistants to represent their brand and build customer retention.

But because sales assistants don’t need specific education qualifications, it can be a competitive field to land a job in ​​— even an entry-level one.

To get noticed in groups of applicants, you’ll need to write a sales assistant CV that effectively captures your skills, experience, and achievements. Here’s how:

1. Spotlight your customer service skills

Retail success depends on a positive customer service experience that directly results in sales. So sales assistants should have exceptional customer service skills.

But don’t wait until a job interview to showcase your service abilities — include these skills on your CV too.

As a sales assistant, you’re used to interacting with many different people, recommending products, and dealing with disgruntled customers. So when you write your CV, show your customer-centric skills by listing upselling techniques and active listening skills you’ve used.

One way to feature these skills is to create a dedicated skills section. Also, fit your skills into your work experience and personal statement to ensure the recruiter doesn’t miss them.

Here are some other hard skills and soft skills to feature on your sales assistant CV along with your customer service abilities:

• Ability to work under pressure
• Basic maths skills
• Communication skills
• Merchandising
• Point of sale (POS) systems
• Retail procedures
• Sales management
• Data analysis

2. Feature your top accomplishments

If you’ve been working in sales, you should have a record of achievements. Sales is a numbers game, and employers will expect your CV to show how you met your sales targets and what kind of revenue you generated in previous positions.

Show what impact you’ll make if hired by describing specific accomplishments. For example, list your ‘Sales Assistant of the Month’ award or mention accolades you’ve received from customers.

Where possible, add hard numbers so the recruiter can measure your success, including:

• how many staff members you trained
• how much money you saved
• the number of customers you dealt with daily

Here are two examples of using hard numbers from our sample sales assistant CV:

By citing specific numbers, this example tells employers exactly what the applicant is capable of.

3. Use strong action verbs

Start each bullet in your work experience section with a sales-oriented CV action verb to give your application a confident tone.

Replace worn-out phrases like ‘responsible for’ with synonyms such as ‘oversee’. Upgrading cliches with unique action verbs gives your CV energy and focuses on the impact that you made, rather than the duties that you performed.

So add strong action verbs like these throughout your sales assistant CV to create the impression that you’re a proactive employee:

• Arranged
• Cultivated
• Delivered
• Devised
• Directed
• Engaged
• Exceeded
• Garnered
• Outperformed
• Surpassed
• Thrived