It is not fun hunting for sales positions.  Although you may not consider it intriguing or exciting, it is a necessity for those who are starting their careers, need a change, or are in a situation where there are shortcomings.

The Internet makes a part of your job search a much more efficient task if nothing else.  Your objective should be to do much of your search with a reasonable amount of effort; the Internet makes this possible.  I would never suggest that you should avoid search consultants or even the print media, yet the Internet is a good way to start.

What to Look For

I suggest that you access as many job sites as you are comfortable working with.  Some sites are devoted only to sales positions while some have all types of positions with an ability to sort down to sales positions.  All of them are chocked full of opportunities.

Here is what you are looking for in a site when looking for sales positions:

• No Fees for Access or Membership. Most will give you this.  In the case of a site that charges a fee, you should be able to access jobs to determine the quality and type of jobs listed before remitting a subscription fee.  Some sites for high earning positions do look for some type of fee, albeit reasonable in most cases.
• The Ability to Sort Easily – The functionality of the site is important.  You are doing this to make your job search broader, but also easier.  The ability to sort also helps you find sales positions that are geographically relevant.

Sales Bulletin Boards

Many sales positions are displayed on Internet sales bulletin boards.  The site may have a blog about sales positions and the sales environment, but the feature that draws candidates to the site would be the possibility of finding a new position.

Here is a short list of some of the best actual job sites for sales professionals that serve the United States:

Salesheads.com

- This is a very good site with strong sorting and plenty of positions.  A must access site.

Salesjobs.com

- This is a solid site with decent sorting and quality positions

Jobs4sales.com

- This one is a fair site with less sorting horsepower than salesheads.com and salesjobs.com.  This site also seems to have fewer positions on file.

The Ladders – Sales-jobs

- For accomplished sales performers and jobs over $100,000.  Also can give access to some of the top sales executive search consultants.  Good site mechanically, but to get full access, you will pay a fee.  The fee will seem minimal if you get a position, but it is not free.

Monster.com – Sales Jobs

- This site is affiliated with Monster.com. It has solid jobs and great mechanics.

There are many other sites, and you must take care not to waste your time, as you will be entering an electronic resume (typing) at many of these sites as opposed to submitting a written resume. This takes time. And takes away from other job-hunting activities.

Some other sites that includes are as follows:

• Indeed.com (www.indeed.com)
• Simplyhired.com (www.simplyhired.com)
• CareerBuilder.com (www.careerbuilder.com)
• PowerSalesJobs.com (http://powersalesjobs.com/b/)

Sales positions can also be found in other unsuspecting sites such as:

• Craig’s List (www.craigslist.org)
• Foundemployment.com (www.foundemployment.com)

Many of the organizations above show all of their jobs for free.  The Ladders, which specializes in upper level sales jobs, will ask a for membership fee.  The Ladders stocks higher paying positions essentially advertised at $100,000 and up.

In almost all cases you will type in a ‘virtual’ resume including some salary expectations. You will do so by typing in your information. It is cumbersome, yet very common, and necessary.  These resumes are for the sake of qualifying, and do not have the structure for you to add your full list of accomplishments.

You will also still need a solid written resume’ to give you the edge.  It must accentuate your accomplishments.  The listing of jobs will show a chronological history, but the listing and enunciating of accomplishments in these jobs will show your successes as well as your capabilities.  That is extremely important.

Employer Placed Ads

In many cases the employer will place their own ad. This will look like this in the search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo) results:

The first and third search result shown are employers looking for candidates to respond directly to their site.

I just want to differentiate these from “paid searches” where the company soliciting for candidates pays the party that shows the advertisement (Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others whenever you or someone else clicks on the advertisement.  Those ads are usually on the top but sometimes on the bottom, and are shown as paid by colored shading, or the words such as ‘sponsored’ or ‘Ads by Google’.  An example of this is below:

I point this out because you should know the nature of the site you are visiting to apply for job.  Some are from employers, some are from job boards, and the motives are little different in each one.

You will notice many employers searching to find the employees themselves. It is more economical for them to do it on their own, although in many cases they do it while looking with the help of sales job boards and even search consultants to cover the market more broadly. This is big business.  It is important to get the right person in the position that is very expensive to ‘churn’ sales professionals.

There is no doubt that the Internet gives you an assist when it comes to seeing the breath of job openings in the area that you desire. It is invaluable.

Always be efficient!

Your comments are appreciated.