2 Sales Engineer Resume Examples & Guide for 2024

Technical background, business drive, storytelling prowess, and relationship building.

These are the “4 C’s” that make a good sales engineer, according to John Care, SE expert and co-author of Mastering Technical Sales.

In another interview, Care further mentions that SE roles are unlikely to be automated soon, as “people still want to work and talk with people”.

We can bet that demand for sales engineer positions will continue to grow. The human element remains irreplaceable, especially so in the B2B sector where sales engineers are among the few who can bridge the gap between complex technical products and potential business clients. In industries like technology, telecommunications, and healthcare technology, the four-component SE model described by Care is invaluable.

But how do you get into technical sales? The competition is fierce, and many companies prefer to develop their SE talent internally. This underscores the importance of having an impeccable sales engineer resume—one that will get you past HR filters and help you get an interview invite.

In this guide, we’ll help you showcase that unique mix of skills, technical proficiencies, and relationship management capabilities in a resume that truly stands out. Here’s what else we’ll cover:

• How to build a sales engineer resume that’s optimized for applicant tracking systems and human recruiters with well-organized and effective sections;
• What resume sections you shouldn’t miss and how to support them with measurable insights;
• How your sales engineer skills section should look so it demonstrates both your technical expertise and ability to translate complex concepts into benefits for non-technical decision-makers;
• How to select what information you’re going to include in your resume and submit applications strategically.

Before we dive in you might want to look at some other sales-related resume guides. Below’s a list of some you may find useful.

• Sales Resume
• Sales Director Resume
• Retail Resume
• Inside Sales Resume
• Sales Consultant Resume

• Sales Specialist Resume

• Sales engineer Cover Letter

How to format a sales engineer resume that stands out

As stated above, every sales engineer job is a combination of the sales and technical skills that you use to sell complex technical products to clients. However, that’s a very generic perception of an SE job. The exact workflow and environment will largely depend on the company you’re applying for. The product, the sales process organization, the market state—all those components are different for any given job, making no two sales engineer positions the same.

That’s why it’s important to spot the unique requirements for every sales engineer job and shape your resume sections accordingly. In this part of our guide, we’ll delve into the structure of your resume and the sections you should include.

To begin with, most sales engineers are likely to choose the reverse chronological order. It allows you to showcase how you've developed your mixed skills over time and taken on increasingly challenging roles. It’s also recruiters’ favorite format as it makes it easy for them to quickly see the progression of your career and assess your suitability for the role.

However, there are two other formats you might consider depending on your circumstances:

• Functional resume: Focuses on your skills and experience, rather than your job history. Use it if you're changing industries or have gaps in your employment history.
• Combination (or hybrid) resume: Blends the reverse-chronological and functional formats. It highlights your skills and achievements up front, followed by a reverse-chronological job history. This can be a good choice for sales engineers with a strong set of specialized skills and a solid work history.

Here are some essential formatting tips to ensure your resume stands out and is ATS-friendly:

• Template: Choose a resume template that aligns with the industry you’re applying to. For sales engineering positions, a clean, modern template can convey a sense of innovation and technical proficiency. Avoid overly decorative or whimsical templates that may detract from the content.
• Header: This should contain your contact information and your job title. (Use the same title in your resume as the job you’re applying for). When adding a link, think about what you want to focus on. If you see a position that emphasizes sales and client relationships, link to your LinkedIn profile to showcase your people skills. However, if you will be selling a complex software product, it might be a good idea to include your Github profile. Personalize the information according to the job description.
• Font: Use professional and easy-to-read fonts. Classic choices include Arial, Calibri, or Times New Roman, but don’t limit yourself to these. Our resume builder offers a range of serif and sans-serif fonts such as Lato, Rubik, and Bitter, that are all ATS-friendly. Just keep your font size between 10 and 12 points for body text to ensure readability.
• Margins: Aim for 1-inch margins on all sides. This is the default setting in most word processors and ensures your resume looks tidy and has enough white space. If you're struggling to fit your content on one page, you can adjust margins slightly. However, don't go below 0.5 inches, as this can make your resume look overcrowded.
• Applicant tracking systems: Use keywords from the job description throughout your resume. Large organizations often rely on ATSs to scan for keywords and determine if your resume matches the job criteria. So, keep things simple and avoid complex elements like tables, graphics, and custom headings which can confuse ATS software.
• Save file format: Save your resume as a PDF to preserve the formatting across different devices and operating systems. Most ATS systems can read PDFs, but read the application instructions carefully—some employers specify a preferred format.
• Proofreading: Double-check for spelling and grammar mistakes. Errors can make a bad impression and might affect your resume's ATS scoring. If you need some help with this, run your resume through our free AI resume checker which can spot mistakes within seconds.

Companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on training sales engineers and then lose hundreds of thousands to wrong hires. There’s not much room for mistakes here, so every section should appeal to the company that will be hiring you.

Let’s talk about the most important sections of your engineer sales resume, and how to properly organize them.

How you build your resume sections will help recruiters navigate your work history more easily and decide whether you’re a good fit for the vacancy.

Study the requirements of the job you’re applying for and organize your sections’ content accordingly. Let’s see how it’s done, starting with the experience section.

How to write a sales engineer experience section

The sales cycle in every organization that sells high-tech products is usually very elaborate and consists of many stages and agents. Also, the sales process for every company is unique and sales engineers can be required at every stage of it.

These are the most common stages that sales engineers have the most impact on:

• Technical qualification (SE validates the technical environment of a potential client to understand what solution can be offered);
• Request for proposal, RFP (the process of answering a client's request for details surrounding SE’s company and how its products are going to help the client);
• Discovery (the analysis of the client’s business and their needs before the final proposal);
• Presentation and demonstration of a technical solution;
• Proposal development;
• Support and up-sell of add-on products to long-term clients.

You’ll often see these stages reflected in job description responsibilities. For example, these are snippets from real-world sales engineer job descriptions:

• Ability to learn and demo the ABC platform robust capabilities
• Support regional sales manager to evaluate and respond to bids and formal requests for proposals to include periodic bid submissions of product offerings and prices to purchasing groups
• Proactively maintain contact with existing customers to keep contact information, sales opportunities, interactions, estimates, order forecasts, customer orders

So, it’s vital to frame and word your experience according to the job description. Don’t just give a list of duties and responsibilities from your past roles. This will cause your experience section to look bland and unconvincing, like the one below:

This entry lacks specificity and does not quantify achievements, making it difficult to assess the candidate's effectiveness or contribution to sales goals. No mention of unique skills or explanation of the complexity of the solutions handled, which are critical in distinguishing a sales engineer's capabilities.

Below is a good example of a sales engineer resume experience section:

Why it’s good:

• Direct impact: this experience section entry demonstrates the candidate's direct impact on revenue growth (increasing sales from $1M to $5M). There’s clear evidence of success and the ability to contribute to business goals.
• Project management skills: It’s clear the candidate's briefly quantified their success in managing high-value technical projects.
• Customer satisfaction: Surpassing annual sales quotas by 175% and achieving 98% satisfaction in customer support means outstanding sales abilities.

The tasks most SEs face are more technical in nature, and the core of the value you provide to business is the ability to sell your technological expertise, not the lack of it. Below we explore how you can maximize your achievements through concrete facts.

How to quantify impact on your resume

In your sales engineer resume you should use numbers because people who deal with sales are obsessed with quotas and numeric results.

Closing clients and meeting quotas is primarily a sales representative task, but sales engineers can easily tie themselves to the sales results because of the integral role they played in the process.

However, don’t overdo it, otherwise your resume will look like a sales representative resume.

• Include the percentage growth in sales achieved through your efforts to demonstrate your direct impact on revenue.
• Mention the dollar value of the largest deal closed to highlight your capability in handling high-stake negotiations.
• Quantify the number of new accounts acquired to show your effectiveness in expanding the client base.
• Detail the percentage increase in client retention to illustrate your success in maintaining strong customer relationships.
• State the exact number of technical presentations delivered to showcase your communication skills and technical knowledge.
• Specify the dollar amount of cost savings achieved through efficient solution implementation, underscoring your ability to contribute to profit margins.
• Report the percentage reduction in sales cycle time to reflect your efficiency in streamlining the sales process.
• List the number of training sessions conducted for sales and technical teams to emphasize your role in enhancing team competencies.

How do I write a sales engineer resume with no experience

Many professionals in technical sales or sales engineering roles come from diverse backgrounds and have successfully transitioned into the field. What’s more, a career in sales engineering can be an entry point for new graduates and career changers as employers often seek individuals with strong tech backgrounds who can be trained in sales aspects.

Let’s explore the resume-building strategies for job-seekers with no direct sales experience.

• Education and training: Start with your educational background if it's relevant to the field of sales engineering or technical sales. It’s a good idea to mention any courses you’ve taken that are connected to sales, marketing, engineering, or tech. And don’t forget about any relevant certifications you have. They’re a solid proof point for employers, showing you’ve got a strong base to build on as you dive into your new role.
• Transferable skills: Don't forget to talk about the technical skills or know-how you've got that match up with what you'd be selling. This could include software proficiency, engineering principles, or relevant coursework you’ve done. Plus, it's always a win to mention how great you are at communicating, solving problems, and working in a team. These skills are gold in pretty much any job. Just make sure to back it up with some concrete examples like the one below.

• Related experience: Describe any projects or academic work that included a sales, technical, or engineering element. Emphasize your role, the results achieved, and any technical or soft skills you developed during the process.
• Internships and part-time jobs: If you’ve completed internships or part-time jobs, concentrate on your accomplishments, responsibilities, and how you utilized or developed skills relevant to a sales engineering role.
• Strong objective: Clearly articulate your career objectives and how you plan to contribute as a sales engineer. Ensure this section reflects your enthusiasm for technology and sales, along with your commitment to learning and progressing within the field.
• Tailored application: Regardless of your experience level, it’s crucial to customize each application to the specific job. Keywords for sales engineers might include request for proposal (RFP), proof of concept (PoC), territory management, bids, growth, quota, demo, presentation, and proposal. Refer to the job description to identify which keywords to incorporate into your resume. Aim to create a coherent, result-oriented narrative that naturally integrates these terms.

Next, let’s talk about what skills you should put on your resume skill section so that it can truly stand out.

How to list your hard and soft skills on a resume

Any successful sales engineer possesses an effective combination of relevant technical and soft skills, and recruiters will judge you on both of these.

Technical skills that you should feature on your resume will highly depend on the position you’re applying for.

For example, you may be well-versed in SQL and Java programming which makes you a great technical consultant for a big data project. However, the very same skill set is rendered absolutely useless if you, for example, want to be a sales engineer in an automotive company. That is why you should always pay attention to the skills that are mentioned in the description of a job that you’re applying for and prioritize those skills on your list.

Below is a list of the most sought-after hard skills (those you acquire through professional training or education) that sales engineers can include in their resumes.

Although many soft skills benefit and enrich a sales engineer’s resume, always remember that some of them are more relevant to the position than others.

Sales engineers are usually a part of an elaborate sales process with many agents and colleagues from inside sales, sales management, sales reps, and so on. That is why one of the most important aspects of their job is the ability to collaborate.

Another crucial item to put on your resume is presentation skills, as often your ability to effectively present a product defines how well you can sell with your technical expertise.

Put your soft skills in the context of your work experience to prove that you really possess them.

Again, carefully read the job description. No two sales engineer positions are the same. While one SE position can be heavily focused on presentation and technical support, other positions may require excellent negotiation and closing skills.

It’s time to move on to another resume section that will help your application stand out—Certifications.

How to list your certifications and education on your resume

Usually, companies don’t require STEM degrees for sales engineers, unless the product is very complex and requires certain technical expertise to confidently sell it.

If you’re selling software, a computer science degree will definitely prove useful, while for manufacturing it's manufacturing or an electrical engineering degree.

Put your bachelor's degree on your resume in the following format:

• Start with your degree, followed by your major
• State the institution where you obtained your degree
• Include the start and end dates of your degree program, or just the year of graduation.
• Optional: highlight any significant achievements related to your academic career (honors, awards, publications, etc.)
• Optional: add your GPA score if it’s above 3.5

sales engineers can and should put both sales-related and product-related certifications on their resume. Consider only adding those certifications that are highly relevant to your product and niche.

Here are some certifications that you can feature in your resume:

Now that you’ve carefully crafted your resume sections, it’s time to prepare the most impactful part of your professional presentation—the career summary.

How to write your sales engineer resume summary or objective

A great sales engineer resume summary provides recruiters with enough information to gauge their interest in hiring you. The potential employer should easily identify your core skills and the value you can bring to their business.

The worst way to write the summary is to list your routines and technical skills. You’ll have the experience and skills sections for that.

This summary should present the candidate as a well-rounded professional with both technical acumen and sales experience. However, we only see a generic and vague list of tasks.

To increase their chances with recruiters, they could have included:

• Domain experience: if you were selling finance software or medical equipment and applying for a position in the same industry, by all means, mention that.
• Strategic numeric achievements for your company, e.g. co-managed and facilitated ten $20M contracts over one year.

Below is a sales engineer resume sample of the summary section:

This summary highlights significant achievements and quantifiable results, demonstrating the candidate's direct impact on revenue growth and client acquisition. Specifying the extent of territory expansion and the caliber of clients secured underscores the candidate’s ability to drive substantial business outcomes.

Building on this foundation, the final part of this guide will touch on the additional sections that might prove valuable when applying for a sales engineer position.

Additional sections for an SE resume

For a sales engineer, highlighting expertise that bridges technical proficiency with sales acumen is crucial. To add more depth to your experience, you might want to include any professional training you’ve undertaken to improve your sales skills, technical knowledge, or industry expertise. Think workshops, seminars, webinars, or courses in sales techniques, emerging technologies, product management, or customer relationship management.

To show your commitment to staying current in both the sales and technical fields, illustrate a proactive approach to professional growth and an ability to adapt to new technologies or sales methodologies. A great way to do this is to add a projects section.

How to include projects on a sales engineer resume

A projects section details specific projects you've worked on or led, especially those where you've applied both your technical skills and sales acumen to achieve a goal. It’s beneficial to include a link to an online portfolio if you have one.

When writing about your projects, make sure to describe the project's objectives, your role, the technologies used, and the outcomes.

A well-written projects section is like the work experience section—it provides concrete examples of your ability to apply technical knowledge in a sales context.

Key takeaways

Crafting a standout sales engineer resume is crucial in a competitive job market. Here are the key strategies and insights that this guide introduced you to:

• Optimize for ATS & recruiters: Use job-relevant keywords and structure your resume for clarity, ensuring it passes through ATS and appeals to recruiters.
• Showcase skills & achievements: Highlight a blend of technical and sales skills, emphasizing quantifiable achievements like sales growth percentages and efficiency improvements.
• Education & certifications: Detail relevant education and certifications, underscoring your expertise and commitment to professional development.
• Customize your application: Tailor your resume for each job, aligning with the specific requirements and keywords of the job listing.
• Focus on presentation: Use a modern, clean template with professional fonts and adequate white space, making your resume attractive and easy to read.