Sales Engineer Resume & Guide

Welcome to our guide for creating your next kick-ass Sales Engineer resume sample. In our blog, we will make sure you have all the info, tips, and examples to give you all you need to create your interview-winning resume.

20 Sales Engineer Resume Examples

(Free sample downloads are at the bottom of this page)

Sales Engineer Resume Writing Guide:

Resume Sections

  1. Contact information
  2. Career Objective & Summary
  3. Employment History
  4. Achievements
  5. Education
  6. Skill Section
  7. Certification & Licensing
  8. Extras: Languages/Awards/Publications/Volunteering/hobbies
  9. > Professional information

1. Contact information

  • First Name and Last Name
  • Email
  • Physical Address
  • LinkedIn Profile / Portfolio Link

What to Highlight in a Sales Engineer Resume

Your resume must always contain all the important info recruiters deem relevant for them to decide whether you cut. To do this all in 2 pages is another story, though, so think facts and keep it very concise.

Sales engineer jobs are a combo of tech skills and sales skills used to sell intricate tech products to clients. That description, however, is a little too generic. Your actual environment and workflow are determined by the company you’re applying to.

No SE positions are the same, as the product, the market state, sales process organization are different for every job. Therefore, you must check each individual requirement for the specific job advert accordingly.  

Elaborate on your work setting. Showcase the following:

  • Are you able to work in difficult sales environments with numerous goals and components?
  • Are you capable of using your tech skills to sell intricate, hi-tech products?
  • Do you have solid communication and presentation skills?
  • How well you performed as an SE in your previous roles.

Make sure to sprinkle your tech sales jargon throughout the resume.

Now ladies and gents, please don’t ignore the header!

Your resume header is composed of your job title and contact info. Simple, yes? Well, you’d be surprised how many people miss this part up!

  • Firstly, you must establish the title of the job you’re applying for clearly.
  • Different companies may utilize different titles for technical sales, sales engineers being only one of them.
  • Substitutes are solutions architects, sales consultants, technical sales engineers, etc.

The fail-safe solution here is just to use the job title stated on the job advert. Sales Engineer is the title most used, though, so it should be your go-to.  

Make sure you don’t miss the chance to include your profile links. For example, if the job you’re applying to places serious emphasis on client relations and sales, including your LinkedIn profile, highlight your people skills. Occasionally, drop a few eye-catching descriptions with your tech sales accomplishments. On the other hand, should you be selling a complicated software product, with the job ad wanting solid development skills, rather add your Github profile link?

Lastly, highlight the industry you worked in. Rather than merely listing them by SIC codes, connect projects to them, including the scope, time frames, and dollar values in every sector. Don’t forget to quantify them with numerical values (dollars saved, time frames, etc.) and the environment (underground, underwater, feet above ground). For instance:

“Accountable for management of 3 corporate finance accounts tallying 70 million dollars for the rehabilitation projects of 5 oil mining sites of 7000 square meters each in Lagos during the last 22 months.”

2. Career Summary & Objectives

A career summary/ objective is your chance to sell your own personal brand! It aims to highlight your proven skills and value to potential employers.

A few dos and don’ts to think about:

  • Do utilize the precise language used in the job advertisement in your summary
  • Don’t use too much jargon/ adjectives
  • Do use full names of everything, with acronyms in brackets after the full name
  • Please don’t write or use the words I, me, and myself

Try to tackle the writing of your summary the same way you would a project: with cycles.

  • Cycle 1: Begin with an exclusive personal trait/ verb and then the latest job title.
  • Cycle 2: Specify your years of experience, as well as the industry you’re in.
  • Cycle 3: State the general purpose of your role linked with two special skills (or outstanding qualities).
  • Cycle 4: Include your highest degree/ certification or qualification completed.
  • Cycle 5: Read your summary aloud (it must take less than 30 seconds).

Your summary/ objective must show you’re a well-rounded professional with tech and sales experience. Probably the best way to guarantee that is to highlight your past accomplishments and tenure in tech sales on company-wide levels.

A few more things that may enhance your chances of recruiters liking your summary include:

  • Domain experience: if you’re selling finance software/ medical equipment and applying for a role in the same industry, definitely mention it.
  • Quantification.

Which one do you write though?

If you have bucket loads of working experience, write up a summary.

If your work history is a little light, write up an objective. Objectives highlight your ambitions, skills, and how you plan to bring value to the company.

Example summaries & objectives

Sales Engineer Summary 1

Deadline- focused Sales Engineer with six years experience in technical sales, contributing to the 30% growth of income for regional technology solutions provider over five states, producing and assisting long-term contracts with Fortune 500 clients, and growing Territory sixfold up to $350M.

Sales Engineer Summary 2

Sales Engineer with 3+ years experience in selling metallurgical services like electroplating, heat treatment, thermal-spray coatings, nitriding, PVD / CVD coatings, etc. to automotive/ industrial equipment/ component manufacturers; brilliant understanding of the following markets: Power Generation, Automotive, Oil & Gas, Hydraulic & Pneumatic Equipment, Construction Equipment, and Mining, General Mechanical Components.

Sales Engineer Summary 3

Qualified Sales Engineer accountable for representing 40 to 50 different manufacturers of mid-to-high-end HVAC systems. Obligations included making active sales calls on design engineers, deciding the scope and necessities of projects, defining optimal products based on performance and physical issues, closing the sale, and following up on installation and operation of the product.

Sales Engineer Summary 4

Proficient junior Sales Engineer, worked as a mechanical and thermal design engineer, and estimator in the supply of tube and shell, air-cooled, and plate and frame heat exchanger product lines. Seeking for a Senior Sales Engineer role at EFG Company.

3. Employment History & Samples

Companies looking for sales engineers don’t just want someone who learns about their products. They want engineers who utilize that knowledge to sell the products efficiently.

The sales cycle that sells intricate tech products in every company is complicated and has several agents and stages. As a result, sales engineers may be needed at every one of them.

Your best shot will come if you mold your experience section to the requirements of the job advert accordingly.

Below are several of the most common stages sales engineers have the most impact on:

  • Technical qualification: SE authenticates the technical environment of a possible client to be able to provide the best solutions.  
  • Request for proposal (RFP): answering clients’ requirements for details regarding SE’s company and how its products can help the client.
  • Discovery: analyzing the client’s business needs before offering the final proposal.
  • Presenting and demonstrating a technical solution.
  • Developing proposals.
  • Supporting and up-selling of add-on products to long-term clients.
  • These stages are usually reflected in job description duties.

For example, these are snippets from real-world sales engineer job descriptions:

  • Capacity to learn and demonstrate the EFG platform's robust capabilities.
  • Supporting regional sales manager to assess and reply to bids and formal requests for proposals to include intermittent bid submissions of product offerings and prices to purchasing groups.
  • Proactively maintaining contact with current clients to keep contact information, interactions, sales opportunities, estimates, customer orders, order forecasts, etc.

So, format your experience to what the job description wants.

Don’t just rattle off a list of things you did. That’s boring. Instead, quantify them. It adds more impact. Also, make sure to use reverse chronological order when listing your jobs.

Sales Engineer at Engen Oil

(Jan 2019- Current)

The primary duty was to recognize and provide current and future customer necessities in the areas of filtration and lubrication products and services.

  • Initiated Lubrication Fundamentals classes for employees and customers, which provided education on basic product info, machine elements that need lubrication, application methods, storing lubricant, and lubricant conservation and handling.
  • Designed and applied a highly effective industrial filtration program that produced up to 2,000 gallons of processed oil weekly, which resulted in a considerable expense saving for the customer and improved profits for the company.
  • Designed and applied for numerous lubrication programs, providing additional value-added services and improved profit margins.
  • Functioned as a consultant on Best-in-Class Lubrication programs.

Sales Engineer at Quest Medical

(Jan 2013 – Dec 2018)

Accountable for day-to-day program management, customer relationships, and estimating the shaping and assembly of medical programs for critical Fortune 500 Clients: Pall Life Sciences, Baxter Healthcare, and Quest Medical.

  • Designed and presented tailored technical solutions to top-3 state automotive dealers, driving sales from $3M to 11$M over t5 years.
  • Supervised logistics and Proof of concept pilots worth up to $800,000.
  • Exceeded yearly quota by 145% by actively outperforming the competition in public tenders and providing 97.5% satisfaction support over the managed Territory of current accounts.

Job Descriptions Examples

The career progression of a Sales Engineer is depicted by different stages, which provide standardization to job scopes and levels of experience.

Sales Engineer Job Description Examples:
  • Offering competitive offers on mechanical equipment to specific accounts for new construction.
  • Implementing competitive solutions, increasing confidence of customers and retention of clients.
  • Conducting efficient demonstrations of products to mechanical contractors to grow sales.
  • Finding ways to bring new clients into the fold to improve income.
  • Reviewing customer queries.
  • Providing the crucial technical link between Engineering and customers.
  • Thermally and mechanically designing and estimating equipment and preparing concise proposals in a timeously.
  • Following up on quotes and negotiating technical/ commercial problems with a customer and/ or sales rep as needed to attain orders.
  • Entering orders, communicating project scope within a company, and managing projects through to finishing.
  • Attending industry trade shows as required, generating presence in the market, maintaining and developing customer relationships, and gaining business forecasts.
  • Leading full redesign of faulty data trailer, saving approximately $14K+ per unit in warranty which allowed production to grow 200%+ over the previous year.
  • Creating fully defined standard BOM with 73% common content across the whole customer base.
  • Recruiting experienced employees to underdeveloped engineering departments.
  • Providing systems engineering proficiency and council to emerging engineering departments.
  • Providing knowledge and council on expanding gas and oil manufacturing.  
  • Exhibiting products at trade shows and developing new customer bases.
  • Developing sales predictions and product offers.
  • Structured Territory by initiating regular interaction between customers and engineers on a weekly/ monthly basis.

4. Achievements

In this type of resume, it’s super easy to use jargon to bury your achievements in the “white noise.” That’s why there’s a separate section for it, so you’ll need to showcase them well by keeping it concise and interesting.

Quantification

The importance of numbers really shouldn’t surprise you here. The numbers serve to prove your accomplishments by giving the recruiters something to measure your proficiencies objectively.  

Be careful not to give too much sales info. Obviously, sales engineers play an integral role in closing clients and making meeting quotas, but you don’t want recruiters to misunderstand your role.  

Your main skill is to be able to sell your technological skills. You’d be able to tailor your company’s tech solutions to the specific needs of your clients, and something sales reps can’t do.

These accomplishments should be punchy and consist of moments that made you most proud in your latest/ previous role. This includes things like value-adding beneficiation and positive contributions. Prove every statement with numbers, time frames, percentages, etc. This is called quantification.

Some examples to start you on your own accomplishment statements:

  • Exposed project threats and applied action plans, decreasing the lack of workforce by 40% by enhancing cashflow resources to hire contract workers on short notice.
  • Finished projects on schedule and 17% below budget, increasing profit margins and securing three further contracts with the same client on a retainer basis of 130k per month.
  • Authorized IPTL approach for a large instrumentation system upgrade project between numerous substations of a nationwide electricity supplier, which resulted in the company obtaining subsidy and research grants of over 600 million dollars to mold project approaches to suit smaller instrumentation repairs for all municipalities in the state of Michigan.
  • Instigated $418K cost savings on a $6.8M rehabilitation contract for one of the main companies in the oil mining sector by enhancing operational efficiencies by 37%.

Now read them WITHOUT quantification… Boring right?

  • Exposed project threats and applied action plans, decreasing the lack of workforce by enhancing cashflow resources to hire contract workers on short notice.
  • Finished projects on schedule and below budget, increasing profit margins and securing further contracts with the same client.
  • Authorized IPTL approach for a large instrumentation system upgrade project between numerous substations of a nationwide electricity supplier, resulting in the company obtaining subsidy and research grants to mold project approaches to suit smaller instrumentation repairs for all municipalities in the state of Michigan.

5. Education

Companies today don’t normally need you to have a STEM degree unless their product is super intricate. The kind you’d need specific technical skills to sell it efficiently. But if you’re selling things like the software, then a computer science degree will work in your favor. For anything manufacturing-wise, an electrical engineer degree will do just fine.

Your bachelor’s degree should be included in detail here with any coursework you think relevant to the industry to which you’re applying. In addition, if you have any applicable certificates, then include them too. You should be including certificates that apply to both sales and products.

List your Sales Engineering education as follows:

Starting and end date, full qualification name, institution, location of the institution, and the state.

Examples of education for a Sales Engineer’s Resume:

2018-2021 Professional Engineering (PE) Exam, National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES), Newtown Square, PA.

2016-2019 Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) Project Management Institute (PMI), Seneca, South Carolina.

2013- 2016 Project Management Professional (PMP), Project Management Academy, University of Texas, Dallas, TX.
5,300 hours of project management
42 hours of project management education

2011- 2014 Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Boston, MA.

6. Skills Matrix

The best kind of resume for this job will incorporate a balance of technical proficiencies, interpersonal skills, and a sprinkling of sales accomplishments. On average, applicants only really match about 60% of what the recruiters are looking for in their job ads. That’s many resumes being sacked, purely because the correct keywords/ phrases weren’t used. Job ads specify what the employers are looking for, so read them carefully and if it says they are looking for a certain skill, and it applies to you, use the exact words used in the advert. That way, the automated tracking systems won’t delete your application. Remember that soft skills are as important in this regard as hard skills.

The correct usage of jargon will also help to set a good tone for the recruiter. Finally, always strive to make a good first impression.

Classic sales engineer keywords include proof of concept (POC), request for proposal (RFP), territory management, growth, bids, quota, presentation, demo, proposal.

Try not to copy and paste random words though, keep it structured, fluid, and results-driven.

Below are examples of a skills matrix. We suggest this format as it isn’t as boring as bullet points, looks professional as hell, and just easier to read!

Technical SkillInterpersonal Benefit Statement
BudgetsDetailing project expenses and productivity standards, successfully managing and controlling budgets.
Project ScopingEffectively synthesizing project information, establishing project scopes precisely.
Trouble ShootingSolving critical problems with creative problem-solving and analytical techniques.
Resource PlanningCreating work breakdown structures with deliverable orientated precision and completing reliable estimations of human resource requirements to assist project outcomes timeously.
Project ManagementPrioritizing multidisciplinary teams’ workloads, outlining deliverables, delegating tasks, and resolving conflict with decision-making and coaching skills to guarantee product deliverables are met.
Project Life CycleEfficiently managing projects with reliable cross-functional project management methods, quality assurance protocols, and change management methods.
Regulatory ComplianceExpert level of commercial awareness to produce project results timeously and within budget, adhering to regulatory necessities on scheduling and budget while maintaining safety procedures.
Analytics and InvestigationUtilize Critical Path Analysis algorithms for scheduling activities and investigating problems.
Assessments and EvaluationsProficient at applying statistical tools to evaluate and review techniques efficiently.
SchedulingBrilliant time management of time and prioritization assisted by Gantt charts to supervise project schedules.

7. Qualifications & Certifications associated with Sales Engineers

RISE UP certificationChallenger SalesSandler Training
Salesforce CertificationSPIN SellingAWS (cloud-based solutions)
Oracle Certified Professional (if you’re selling software solutions)Bachelor of Engineering (any discipline)

8. Optional Extras for Sales Engineer Resumes

Now you have all your sections needed to impress the recruiter, but that may not be enough. You must prove you’re well-rounded in all aspects of life. Let the recruiter get to know you as a person, and it may be what sets you apart from your competition.

Include things like these:

  • Conferences you've been to
  • PE License
  • Courses
  • Articles you've written
  • Interests
  • Software
  • Hobbies
  • Volunteer work
  • Additional activities
  • Professional associations

Professional Information on Sales Engineers

Sectors: Various
Career Type:  Engineering, Sales, Planning, Marketing, Design, Consulting, Programming, Evaluating, Business Development
Person type:  Seller, Business Developer, Scheduler, Negotiator, Facilitator, Coordinator, Overseer, Planner, Evaluator, Forecaster
Education levels: Bachelor Degrees to Doctorate Degrees
Salary Indication: An average of $91 481 per annum (Glassdoor)
Labor market: Growth rate of 6% between 2019 – 2029 (BLS)
Organizations: Various

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