How to Write a Sales Job Description That Attracts Top Talent

Hiring the right sales professionals can make or break your business. A well-crafted job description is essential for attracting top talent, setting clear expectations, and ensuring you find candidates who are the perfect fit for your team.

But how do you write a sales job description that stands out and draws in high-performing salespeople? As sales recruitment specialists, we work with our clients to showcase top best perks and biggest responsibilities of each unique role.

So, we’ve compiled this guide to walk you through the key components of an effective sales job description and provide tips to help you reach and attract the right candidates.

Why a Strong Sales Job Description Matters

Your job description is often the first impression a candidate has of your company, setting the tone for the rest of your recruitment process. A well-written job description helps:

• Set Expectations: Both your company and an applicant have expectations of what the role will entail. A great job description details the perks and compensation they will receive, as well as the responsibilities they would take on.
• Streamline the Recruitment Process: Not everyone that reads your advert will apply. The role of a well-written description is to reduce the chance of a misalignment.
• Enhance your Brand: How you present yourself to job seekers is still part of your brand. So, your job descriptions should present your business in a positive, professional, and engaging manner.

Key Elements of a Job Description

Job Title

You may think this part is self-explanatory. But many businesses get it wrong. Ideally, a job title should be concise and specific, yet free of jargon and buzzwords.

Titles like ‘sales guru’ can be confusing and off-putting for applicants. Although they do show personality, they have become synonymous with poor hiring practices. By not adhering to traditional job titles, expectations from the employer can be warped, and employees can come away feeling underappreciated and overworked.

Try using industry-standard terms like ‘sales executive’ and ‘account manager’. Then, to further refine your title, add in details about seniority & industry. This can help you reach the right audience easier.

An Engaging Summary

The first few lines of your job description are – in some ways – the most important. They can make someone rush to apply or turn them off from the opportunity entirely. Research shows that applicants only spend 49.7 seconds reading a job description before deciding it isn’t right for them. So, a good first impression is vital.

One hurdle businesses often fall at is talking too much about themselves in the opening paragraph. Think of the description as a sales call: any good SDR focus on the customer rather than listing off details about the business doing the selling.

Try introducing the role with engaging questions, like “Are you a driven sales professional looking for an exciting opportunity to grow within a fast-paced, award-winning SaaS company?” As well as creating buzz around the opportunity, it also makes a candidate look within themselves for skills and traits that would make them a good fit.

Company Overview

The opener isn’t a place for you to talk about yourself – but the company overview is. This is the place for you to shout about what matters to you as a business and a department. This means talking about who you are, your missions, your values, and any achievements your company has made.

Key Responsibilities

This part is particularly important when it comes to setting expectations. As an employer, it is important that you are transparent about what you expect someone to achieve in the role.

Instead of vaguely mentioning areas the role covers, get specific about tasks and responsibilities in this section. Some great examples of this are ‘identify and develop new opportunities through strategic prospecting’ or ‘collaborate with marketing and customer success teams to optimise the sales funnel’.

It might also be helpful to mention any specific software you would need them to use. When applicants see a specific skill they know on a job description, they can feel more empowered to apply.

Benefits & Perks

In an industry like sales, where applicants are often very motivated by compensation, this section is incredibly important. New generations entering the workforce also have a keen eye for spotting ‘benefits that aren’t really benefits’ – and yes, that’s a technical term.

Since the pandemic, workers have become savvy to companies bragging about benefits that are just regular measures repackaged to sound more attractive. Things like training, time off, a ‘competitive’ salary, and uncapped commission aren’t exciting to sales professionals anymore. So, work with your HR and leadership teams to provide your employees with benefits that attract and retain a great team.

On the topic of salaries, transparency is key. Many businesses simply advertise salaries as ‘competitive’ or give wide margins of possibility depending on experience. This might feel like a good idea as you hit post. But, as you start to speak to candidates, you’ll likely see that what they want and what you’re willing to spend are very different. Stating this upfront may put people off, but it also saves you time speaking to people you can’t satisfy.

Clear Next Steps

After you have attracted your ideal candidates, the next step is to send them in the right direction to apply or contact you. If you’re posting on a job site like Indeed or LinkedIn jobs, use their built-in application features to streamline the process.

But, if there are more steps involved, make sure you clearly state what to do next. Jobseekers have to go through lots of hoops and apply to hundreds of jobs to find the right one. When surveyed, 49% of people said a lack of clarity stopped them from applying for a job. If you make the process tedious, you risk losing valuable applications.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Now you know what to put into your job descriptions; here are some common blunders many employers make – and how you can avoid them.

Being Too Generic

Understandably, you don’t want to alienate possible applicants by making your description overly specific. However, giving vague descriptions of the expectations and compensation in the role can also have the same effect.

So, don’t be afraid to list specific skills and examples of perks that you offer. As well as being best-practice, it also ensures you only attract people who are a good fit for the role. This saves time later in the recruitment process.

Overloading With Requirements

On the other hand, you can also be too specific when writing a job description. Creating an unrealistic checklist might just deter great candidates.

So, work to understand what the key requirements of the role are and what would set the right applicant apart. This will form the base of your description.

Not Working With Experts

Crafting the perfect job description takes experience. Partnering with specialists, like This is Prime, ensures your job ad is optimised to attract the best sales talent. It also saves you time, so you can spend more time speaking to top candidates!

Need help finding top-tier sales professionals and the best graduate talent? At This is Prime, we specialise in matching ambitious candidates with the best opportunities across the UK. Get in touch today to see how we can support your hiring needs!