Sales: a smart move for graduates

You’ve studied hard, served your time in the lecture room and library, sweated through essays and dissertations and forced yourself through all-nighters in the run-up to your final exams.

Small_Sales_1But after all this, if you’ve a degree or on course to graduate later this year, you might still be wondering what to do next.

Not every academic course leads naturally on to a definite career. Even among those that do, such as law or medicine, there’s no actual requirement to follow through.

You could do something else instead.

So how do you fancy a fun future in sales? It’s not as far-fetched an idea as it might seem.

Among the sales vacancies on s1jobs are many where a degree is not essential but there are others where, while not an actual requirement, having one will put you ahead of the pack in the interview stakes.

If your studies were in science or medical subjects, then pharmaceutical sales is a logical step. Dugs companies need staff who understand what they are selling and can communicate on an equal footing with GPs.

The same goes for companies selling construction and manufacturing equipment. They need people with an engineering background to explain the technical spec and understand the challenges that their prospective customers are facing.

Most sales jobs for graduates are in the business-to-business sector and sometimes the sums involved can be epic. And so too can the commission.

Persuading a global business to go with your company’s computer hardware could result in a payday for you of more than a £1 million.

And even though the pitch, proposal, checks and trials might take more than two years to complete before the client finally signs on the dotted line, that’s still the sort of bonus most people can only dream of.

Unless your degree was in sales and marketing, then the actual skill of doing a deal is something you are going to have to learn.

Training and support will be provided but you can learn a lot from simply watching the top performers and modelling your approach on how they handle themselves, recognising that it takes in-depth product knowledge, endless patience and great people skills to get it right.

Anyone can clinch a big deal once in their career, doing it over and over again will be the true measure of your success.

Are you up for the challenge? Take a look at the Sales vacancies on s1jobs.