3 Sales Director Resume Examples & Guide for 2024

A great sales campaign starts with a good strategy and brand.

You can sell anything, right? You oversee multiple sales teams for different products across multiple locations. You know how it is to conduct deep market research and create overarching sales strategies around that. All these skills will help you now that you’re on the hunt for a new role as a sales director.

As with any great sales campaign, it all starts with a good brand and strategy. This time, you’ll apply your knowledge to create a winning pitch — or sales director resume— in this scenario.

But don’t treat it like any other product you’re promoting. You’re vying for a leadership role which means you’re up against seasoned candidates. You have to distinguish yourself, so this is where that guide comes in.

This comprehensive guide to writing a sales director resume will show you:

• How to write show-stopping work history bullet points that get recruiters excited to call you
• How to select the right sales director hard skills and soft skills to put on your resume
• The best format, font choices, and layout for your resume so it’s ATS-friendly
• The extra sections you’ll need to distinguish yourself from other applicants.
• How to write a sales director resume experience section if you don’t have any experience yet

If you’re looking for a related guide, check out the following articles:

• Sales director cover letter
• Head of sales resume
• VP of sales resume
• Sales resume
• Regional sales director resume
• Sales executive resume
• Sales lead resume
• Sales office resume 

Picking the best format for a sales director resume

You might wonder, why the resume layout matter. Well, you wouldn’t use a plain white background on an important sales presentation, would you?

Your resume format sets the stage for your qualifications. A recruiter will only give your resume a few seconds’ glance, so readability should be your top priority when picking fonts and formats.

That’s not to say that style plays no role here. Clean minimalist designs work well for serious industries like in a financial company. Adding colors will work if you’re applying in a creative industry like fashion.

Whatever font and header designs you pick, just stick to the reverse-chronological resume format. It’s the most recognized one out there. And since you’re in a leadership role, this sales director resume template will show recruiters how you get better year after year.

Here’s what else you shouldn’t forget on your resume format:

• Put your name and job title or slogan at the top. If you don’t have a slogan, just use your job title and mention your industry specialization.
• List your website or social media URLs beside your contact information
• Stick to a serif font, or use one of the popular fonts like Rubik, Montserrat, and Volkhov.
• Submit your resume in PDF to preserve its formatting on whatever device is used to read it.

Here’s a list of the top attributes recruiters will look for in a winning sales director resume. Make sure you include enough evidence that you have these skills.

Do you want to see how your sales director's resume fairs against other candidates? Upload it to our resume checker below.

Below are the top sections you shouldn’t forget to include on your resume.

The Applicant Tracking System (ATS): Your first hurdle

The ATS is a database that compiles all the applications a company receives for a certain job. Recruiters use it to search which candidates have the skills (I.e. keywords) they need to create a shortlist of applicants to interview.

That’s why it’s very important to review the job ad and make sure the skills, experience, and other keywords listed there are also mirrored in your resume. Otherwise, your application won’t even see the light of day.

How to write your sales director resume experience

Here we are at the resume experience section, where you’ll write a comprehensive overview of your career trajectory and growth as a sales director. Each item here should include a company name, your job title, the duration of your employment, and a brief description of your role.

Although some companies use the title “sales managers” and “sales directors” interchangeably, they’re not the same. In big corporations, sales managers report to sales directors, who then report to the VPs and C-suite. The bullet points in your resume have to reflect the weight of this position.

Now you can’t just slack off and add new roles to your last resume — that won’t help you stand out. Read the tips below.

Tailor to the industry or job ad

Give context to each role listed. Remember every sales director's job varies because of the industry and whether the company is B2B or B2C. For example, a B2B software company might need a sales director with a huge network and a knack for establishing partnerships. So in this case, you’ll need to emphasize your networking abilities and skills in opening new B2B market verticals.

Don’t include implied and admin tasks

Yes, sales directors manage multiple teams and attend a lot of meetings to keep stakeholders apprised of their performance. You probably also started your sales career as a sales account executive, where you pitched clients and handled upsells.

Adding all these mundane, and in some cases irrelevant, details will put your resume well over 3 pages. No recruiter wants to read through all that! Here’s our take on how many bullet points to include on a resume and how far back you should go on your career history. 

So if not the meetings and meteoric rise to the director level, what should you put on the experience section?

• Management tasks — stick to meetings with substantiated big-picture outcomes
• Leadership — you still have to mention how you mentor sales managers but don’t forget to include what resulted in those feedback sessions.
• Representation — include instances where you represented the company at trade shows or built partnerships that generated revenue.
• Training - Show off your ability to create training and recruitment guidelines that shaped the future of your employer’s sales team.

Compare the two sales director resume experience sections below to see how these strategies work:

The second example reads so much better. Here’s why:

• Each bullet conveys one leadership responsibility and the ROI of said responsibility.
• Every point includes quantifiable metrics so hiring managers don’t have to second guess how great the applicant is when it comes to leading a team or improving sales processes.
• It shows proof of their soft skills — collaboration and communication skills — that helped the applicant work with interdepartmental teams and get budget approval from senior management.

How to quantify the impact on your resume

Sales professionals are a numbers-oriented bunch. At the most junior level, you’re taught that the number of leads you contact affects the number of meetings you make, and therefore your monthly sales.

The love for quantifiable metrics goes all the way to the top, except in this case your achievements aren’t centered on sales quotas but on high-level gains like reducing the sales cycle, and increasing market shares.

You know the hiring committee, many of which are VPs and C-execs, will zoom in on your numbers. So how can you include metrics on your resume?

Let’s start with the quantifiable achievements you can include on your resume:

• New revenue
• Revenue increase
• Number of clients or deals closed
• Cost savings in streamlining the sales process
• Team growth, especially if you’ve scaled the sales team
• Performance improvement after the initial product launch, or a successful product launch
• Increase in market share for existing offers
• Performance improvement when entering a new market
• Ranking in the national or global sales team
• New sales channels opened, such as online shopping websites, trade shows, etc.

After that, you can either follow the Challenge - Action - Result (CAR) or Situation - Task - Action - Result (STAR) format in writing the bullet points. You don’t always have to write the bullet points as is, you can mix up the order of each element, as in Action - Result - Challenge.  

ARC Example:

Secured 5 new accounts with a total revenue of $3.5M for a new health supplement launched in July 2023. 

The action is securing the accounts, the result was the $3.5M revenue and the challenge was that it was a new health supplement brand. This short bullet point tells a powerful story but it doesn’t go into the long and technical details of how you made it happen. Best leave that for the interview.

Check out this guide on how to write story bullet points.

How do I write a sales director resume with no experience?

You need a proven track record and about 7 to ten years of experience in a sales role or related management position to get a job as a sales director. But what if you don’t have any experience in a director-level role?

There’s no single correct path that leads to a sales director job. While many sales directors started as sales managers or regional sales managers, some started as marketing directors, customer service heads, and even in operations management.  So as long as you’re not applying with no management experience whatsoever, there’s still hope for you.

The important thing is you know how to train and coach teams, improve systems, and prove that you have what it takes to create winning sales strategies.

Now with all that said, here’s how you can translate your previous sales or leadership experience into an attention-grabbing sales director resume.

• If you have no sales experience, focus on how your other experiences increased revenue for the company. This can come in the form of a winning marketing campaign, or an improvement in upsells from a customer service team you’re managing.
• Explain how well you coach people. List specific mentoring techniques you use, like creating incentive programs or using quarterly reviews instead of annual reviews. Don’t forget to mention how these techniques resulted in new business or increased productivity in your team.
• Highlight strategic initiatives and projects you created, and product launches you oversaw, as this is a common task for sales directors.
• List specific revenue targets met or exceeded, and new accounts you helped acquire — even if you’re not in a sales role — as long as you collaborated with the team who closed the deal.
• If you have no sales experience, emphasize other transferable skills you have from other industries like training and coaching, strategic planning, business development or networking.

How to list hard skills and soft skills on your resume

It’s tempting to just squeeze in all your sales director's hard skills and soft skills onto your resume. But that might make your application well over 3 pages long— or more! That might help you pass the ATS screening but that’s a lot of wasted real estate. Who knows if the recruiter will bother reading the rest of your application??

Besides, passing the ATS screening by blindly pasting a list of skills is a gamble. You might hit the common skills like communication, strategic planning, and forecasting, but what about specific data analysis and enterprise planning software? You won’t be able to list all of them

The best strategy is to look at the job ad — or several job ads, and pick 5 hard skills and 5 soft skills mentioned that also align with your skill set.

Hard skills, by the way, are specific to the role and can be tasks you do like sales forecasting or software you know how to use like a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. Soft skills aren’t limited to the job, that’s why many soft skills are transferable or applicable to different roles and industries.

The job ads you see might mention basic sales skills like pipeline management and product knowledge. Skip that, at least for this section. Remember you only have about 10 slots to fill, so focus on director-level tasks like sales team training, sales forecasting, and C-suite business development.

Hiring managers will also look for candidates with experience leading managers, not just sales associates. So it’s important to show that you have the soft skills to lead boardroom meetings, build relationships with VIPs, and motivate a group of sales managers. Here are other soft skills worth including:

How to list your certifications and education on your resume

The education and certifications part of the resume shows your academic qualifications and commitment to continuous improvement.

Many companies would prefer their sales director to have a business or marketing degree, except in situations where they’re selling in a specialized field. Multinational corporationsmay require an MBA.

List your highest educational attainment first, followed by relevant certifications you’ve acquired. You’re an experienced professional so there’s no need tolist your GPA and coursework information.

Here’s an example:

Here are some of the most recognized certifications in the sales industry:

How to write your sales director resume summary or objective

Think of the sales director's resume summary or objective like your elevator pitch. It’s your opening volley into convincing the hiring manager why you’re the best person for the job. This is what the recruiter will read first, before deciding if your application is worth their time.

A resume summary provides a gist of your career, highlighting achievements and skills relevant to the job. Like an elevator pitch, it’s brief and emphasizes your unique selling point (USP) or what you’d bring into the sales director job given the chance.

Meanwhile, aresume objective is great for those with no experience in a director-level position, or those with director experience but are coming over from a non-sales field. A resume objective also highlights relevant skills, while emphasizing why you want to work as a sales director. If you don’t want to write a resume objective, try using aresume personal statement instead. Instead of a resume objective that talks about what you want in a job, a personal statement shows why your skills would be valuable to the employer.

Below are two examples of a sales director resume summary. Which one do you think is better?

Now what’s wrong with this resume summary? Aside from the mention of B2B clients, we know nothing else about their work. What products do they offer and in what region? How many clients and sales managers did they handle? Instead of wowing recruiters, this resume summary will just leave them with more questions.

This resume summary is way better. Aside from the level of detail or metrics provided, it gives a clear picture of this sales director’s skills. In just a few sentences, the applicant managed to communicate that they know how to manage both enterprise and SME clients, enter new markets, and exceed current sales revenue.

Additional sections for a sales director resume

Have you ever won rookie salesperson of the year? Great! List that award on your resume. While you’re at it, list every award and recognition you’ve received from your employers and industry regulating bodies.

Awards like these prove that you’re the best of the best, and further emphasize the impact of the achievements listed on your resume experience section. It shows that you’re not just tooting your own horn — your employers recognize your hard work, too.

Just explain the significance of each award, because sometimes award titles aren’t self-explanatory.

Here’s a good example on how to list awards on your sales director resume:

Read this article for more information onwhat else you can put on your resume.

Key takeaways

All done? If you’ve finished this guide, you now have an amazing sales director resume that will give you lots of callbacks.

Let’s review a few key points to check on your sales director resuming before hitting send:

• Crunch the numbers. Sales is a numbers-oriented line of work, so pepper your work history with metrics to show evidence of your awesomeness.
• Keep it brief and well-organized. Use plenty of white space and a readable font.
• List the sales director's hard skills and soft skills aligned with the job ad, don’t just choose randomly.
• Soft skills are hard to substantiate without evidence so back it up with notable achievements in the experience section too.
• Exclude mundane meetings and low-level tasks for your sales director resume experience. Focus on high-level director tasks that show your strategic sales planning and leadership abilities.