25th Nov 2009
Careers Centre > CV Writing Advice

Writing your professional experience section.

You should normally concentrate on your two or three most recent jobs (unless you were there for only a short time) because employers are most interested in these. For those with mixed careers or gaps, further professional advice would be useful.

Start with your most recent job first. For each position, include a description of the products that you sold and your target markets. But be careful about your use of uncommon abbreviations.

Responsibilities: set out your main responsibilities that could be transferred to another employer. E.g. "responsibility for departmental budget of £500K and managed 20 staff."

Achievements: list any significant achievements you had in each position, including increases in sales/productivity and/or targets exceeded. Quantify your successes if possible. Try to give an indication of how you achieved this success. Don't be modest here.

The Language of your Sales CV

With all things in your CV you need to sell yourself. Just as you would not simply describe your product or service, you would not just describe yourself. You need to jazz it up and sell the scale of your achievements and responsibilities. Here language is important, using active words and phrasing achievements effectively.

Descriptive Achievements: "Sold £1m worth of houses in the London area, beating sales targets."

Selling Achievements: "Grew house sales by 50% across London by increasing conversion rates by 20% and generating 30% higher volume new enquiries through a DM campaign."

Authored by Platinum Professional CV Services - London's leading CV writing service.



Recruiting now