Jul 26, 2024
Being at the right tech company means you don’t just sell. You make a difference. At Bolt, every sale brings us closer to our mission to make cities for people, not cars.
But with so many people searching for tech sales jobs, how do you make your application rise to the top of the pile?
We spoke with Cassandra Kelly Albertine, Bolt’s Regional Sales Manager for Bolt Business, and Joao Alves, TA Manager of Commercial Teams, to uncover the best practices for turning your tech sales aspirations into reality.
Once you’ve identified your dream job and determined that you meet work experience requirements and prerequisites such as language proficiency and other skills, you can start crafting a compelling CV fit for the role.
“In most cases, it takes us up to 8 seconds to make a judgment when you’re checking the CV,” reveals Joao.
With tech companies receiving hundreds of applications every day, your CV is only in the spotlight for a short window, so you have to make it count.
“The priority is to make the CV tidy, clean, and aesthetically pleasing so it’s easy to read and skim. It’s quite important to do it straight to the point for the job you’re applying for, outlining your experience, expertise and the key projects, tasks, roles, and challenges suitable for that specific role.”
Work experience and skills are the most critical areas in a sales resume and should be more prominent than lower-priority areas such as education, which should be placed towards the end.
“Experience is what matters the most,” explains Joao. “In a way, you’re born into sales, and by having work experience, you keep building and improving your skills.”
When structuring your resume’s experience section, prioritise concise bullet points outlining responsibilities and achievements. Start with your most recent job and focus on measurable results to show your successes, like beating sales goals or gaining new clients. This part of your resume should prove that you get results and help a business grow.
CRM tools
Experience with industry-standard CRM tools demonstrates your ability to efficiently track leads, contacts, and opportunities. This is crucial in sales, as it ensures you can prioritise and maintain a strong pipeline.
With so many different CRMs available, revealing the software you have worked with benefits the recruiter.
“We use Salesforce at the moment, but we always check if and what type of CRM tools the candidate has experience using,” says Joao. “This shows us what kind of experience the candidate has with the tools or if they’ve been using Excel sheets to track leads.”
SaaS skills
SaaS is a specific industry with its own sales workflows and considerations. Mentioning your skills and experience within this area will undoubtedly make your application stand out.
“If you’re doing SaaS sales, it’s a good match for us,” explains Joao. “SaaS is a really eye-catching and niche keyword that’s good to mention.”
Soft skills
At its core, sales is all about relationship building, so it’s no surprise that soft skills are crucial.
“Salespeople always have this charisma, are extremely good at negotiating, convincing, have strong pitching skills, they’re open and clear with their wording and present themselves in a good way,” explains Joao.
At Bolt, we always search for individuals with drive, intelligence and integrity. While you can present examples of these qualities in your CV, these are best shown in a face-to-face interview.
A fancy degree can impress, but in the world of tech sales, experience reigns supreme.
That’s not to say that education and certifications are redundant. A strong educational background demonstrates your ability to learn and retain information, which is crucial for staying updated on trends and adapting to new sales techniques within tech.
“We’re not specifically looking for any certifications in candidates’ CVs, but if someone mentions it, it will show us that the person knows how to use it well.”
Your resume is your main sales tool during your job search. It’s important to format it neatly and professionally, just like you’d present yourself when meeting with a client.
Many online resume-making platforms, such as Resumake, display various layouts to suit your preferences. But whichever tool you choose to create your CV, here are some essential tips:
By utilising the available tools for crafting resumes and adhering to these essential guidelines, you can craft a professional CV that stands out to recruiters and increases your chances of landing your desired job.
Your CV is your sales pitch and the first impression you make to potential employers. Needless to say, a CV filled with mistakes can sabotage your tech sales dream, so watch out for these common sales CV mistakes.
As we mentioned, recruiters spend mere seconds scanning a resume, so if you over-format it becomes a readability nightmare.
“The biggest mistake here is having too much formatting, typos, missing the most important keywords and listing work experiences in a random order,” says Joao. “This makes it hard to skim through the main points.”
Keep it professional and clean by using clear headings, consistent fonts, and basic formatting to make your experience and skills shine. Check out our more in-depth guide to formatting your CV.
“Think of sending your CV as a cold outreach. It must be clear, tailor-made, and engaging from the start,” Joao says.
A generic CV won’t cut it if you want to stand out from the crowd. You must tailor your CV to each job application to impress tech recruiters.
Look at the job description, and you will see that it’s jam-packed with keywords that signal exactly what the company is searching for. It’s up to you to highlight these keywords throughout your resume within your relevant skills and experience.
“Within our Sales and Account Management roles, it’s important to mention B2B sales, for example,” says Joao. “And since our product is SaaS, experience in SaaS is beneficial.”
Nothing grabs a hiring manager’s attention like numbers. By quantifying your achievements, you can replace subjective statements such as “boosted sales” with a more appealing “generated 25% increase in revenue YoY”.
“In Commercial hiring, you must highlight your achievements with some data and metrics to win the numbers game,” explains Bolt’s TA Manager. “This could look like achieving a success rate in closing deals, increasing market share or generating more revenue by simply sharing your KPIs.”
You can highlight your achievements with numbers, such as total sales increases, conversion rates, the number of clients secured, etc.
While many believe a cover letter is indispensable in job applications, at Bolt, cover letters aren’t mandatory, and there’s good reason for this.
Resumes provide a quick overview, allowing recruiters to assess applicants’ skills and qualifications swiftly. “If a person has all the information nicely structured in their CV, then there’s no need to submit a cover letter and make the recruiter hunt for information.”
A strong CV is crucial for landing your dream sales tech job, yet it’s just one piece of the puzzle.
“Sales tech recruitment is a mixture of applications and headhunting,” explains Joao.
Being one of the lucky few to be headhunted isn’t as out of your control as you might think. There are ways you can boost your chances.
“It often happens that sales professionals on LinkedIn only mention the role without any additional information. This makes it hard to understand what they actually do and if it matches what we’re looking for.”
Years of experience can help the recruiter understand seniority levels, but beneath your job titles, add additional bullet points that showcase your responsibilities and achievements.
Improve your chances of being headhunted by making these simple changes to your LinkedIn profile:
You’ve crafted a winning CV, tailored it to a perfect sales tech role, and submitted it.
The waiting period that follows might feel like an eternity, but Bolt’s Recruitment team does everything possible to speed up the process and usually gets back to applicants within one week.
Successful applicants can expect the following steps, which depend on the position and seniority:
If the role is more senior, more interviews might follow.
Congratulations! You’ve landed an interview at a tech company.
Now that you’re face-to-face with the recruiters, you can showcase your stellar interpersonal skills. However, charm and charisma will only get you so far. Follow these important steps to ensure you ace the interview and don’t leave with any regrets.
To show the hiring managers that you’re truly committed to both the company and the role in question, you must do your research. Don’t walk into the interview blind.
“It’s so easy to dig up information on our company, yet so many candidates fail to do it!” Cassandra laughs.
Explore recent news on the company website and social media. You don’t need to know every detail, but knowing the company’s mission, values, and current projects shows that you’ve done your homework and are committed.
“It’s important for candidates to demonstrate they’ve done the research and regularly link their experience to their motivations for wanting to join the company.”
Since it’s a sales position, the interviewer is expecting you to be pretty good at selling yourself.
Nobody knows you better than you!
In the lead-up to the interview, fine-tune and master your sales pitch. The interview process is all about selling yourself, and recruiters want to see how well you do so.
“If you can’t present your CV well, I don’t have much faith in your ability to pitch,” says Cassandra. “Candidates must have a concise yet informative 2-3 minute response to the question ‘walk me through your CV’”.
Your compelling elevator pitch should highlight your skills, experience, and passion for the company and specific tech area. Remember, selling yourself isn’t about being pushy or boastful.
It’s about effectively communicating your value and how you can be an asset.
Once selected for a tech sales role, you can expect a thorough onboarding program to bring you up to speed.
At Bolt, our onboarding program prepares new joiners for sales roles by taking them through relevant training modules. But onboarding is just the start of your sales journey at Bolt.
Our ongoing commitment to improvement means many things are happening to train our sales team and help them achieve better results. For example, our high-performer program is dedicated to rewarding and upskilling top performers.
We run workshops about the best sales practices and frequently nominate the best-performing sales specialists to get mentorship from the senior-level team.
“We see this program as a necessary investment in our top talent and look forward to running it every year”, adds Cassandra.
Are you a sales expert interested in the fast-paced tech world and want to make a real impact with every sale? Bolt would love to hear from you!
Our mission is to make cities for people, not cars, and we need talented salespeople who share our drive to join our team.
We’re always on the lookout for the best talent, and at Bolt, you can use your selling skills to make a difference in real-world problems.
If you have what it takes, browse our careers page for tech sales jobs and apply for a suitable role!
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