Dusseldorf Whether in the software, pharmaceutical or mechanical engineering industry: If you have sales talent, you can earn a lot of money with it. Jobs in sales are considered to be strenuous due to the high level of travel, but at the same time they are also lucrative. It is not only the fixed salaries in many sales jobs that are higher than those in other areas. As a rule, there is also a high variable salary component.
Job opportunities are also currently good in sales. In November, almost 50 percent more sales positions were advertised on the job portal Indeed than before the corona pandemic.
Depending on the industry and position, the salary can be in the six-digit range. The job platform Indeed has now exclusively evaluated for the Handelsblatt which jobs you can expect with little competition. Only job profiles that promise an average gross annual salary of more than 60,000 euros made it onto the list that was created.
Client advisors have particularly little competition
As a basis, Indeed used various salary information from companies that provided them for the job profiles mentioned. In the field “Applicant interest” in the table below you can see how many fewer clicks the respective job on Indeed has received – compared to an average post on the portal.
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This was measured at Indeed from May 1st to November 1st of this year.
The list shows: Sales consultants – i.e. specialist consultants in sales – have the least competition. They sell less than sales managers. Your job is more to take care of the service part. They maintain contact with the customer, inquire about their wishes and needs and offer solutions. They also develop sales and marketing strategies. According to Indeed, the median salary is 66,000 euros.
Big bonuses for sales talents
There are also relatively few competitors for jobs that require a lot of technical know-how, such as that of sales engineer. He usually sells high-priced cutting-edge technology, such as medical technology or software. In order to be able to explain his products to customers, he needs the appropriate specialist knowledge, for example about how they work exactly.
The median fixed salary for sales engineers is 66,000 euros. Other job platforms, such as Stepstone, state even more with an average salary of 71,000 euros. In addition, there are lucrative bonus payments that increase salaries even further.
According to the Indeed analysis, senior sales managers are also met with comparatively little interest from job seekers. According to Indeed, his median salary is 60,000 euros. Here, too, it is only a question of the fixed salary – which is topped up by a large variable component.
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According to a statistic from the Sales Management Department of the Ruhr University Bochum, this proportion usually fluctuates between 15 and 40 percent. According to the researchers, depending on the position and professional experience, sales talent can also earn a fixed salary of up to 131,800 euros.
Good opportunities for career changers
As in many other areas, responsibility for personnel also pays off in sales. Top earners with little competition are, for example, the Head of Sales with 70,000 euros – and his boss, the Sales Director, with 101,000 euros.
Many years of professional experience also ensure a wage increase. The key account manager, for example, who takes care of customers who are particularly important to the company, earns a median of 70,000 euros, according to Indeed. The senior key account manager, on the other hand, has a median of 79,000 euros.
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Because there is hardly any classic training path in sales, sales jobs are also well suited for career changers. There are no sales courses at universities, only a few universities of applied sciences offer them. Many talented people who later end up in sales have studied economics, marketing or economics. Others have commercial training. “Sales is sexy for job seekers,” summarized Nico Frodl, sales manager at the energy company Vattenfall, in an interview with the Handelsblatt.
More: 22 jobs with good pay and little competition