Sales postings are unusually concrete: they name a motion, a deal size, a CRM, and a number you were carrying. That makes the keyword list short and specific, and it makes bluffing easy to catch — a hiring manager who sells for a living will ask what your quota was and what percentage of it you hit. Everything below is worth including only if you can answer that kind of follow-up.
Hard skills
These describe the motion you have actually run. A posting for outbound SDR work and one for enterprise renewals share almost none of them, so match the posting rather than listing all of it.
- Pipeline generation — Names the part of the job most postings care about most; distinguishes you from someone who only worked inbound leads.
- Quota attainment — The one number a sales hiring manager looks for. Include it only with the actual figure — 'quota attainment' with no percentage reads as an evasion.
- Lead qualification — Signals you filter rather than pitch everyone; often the whole job in an SDR or BDR posting.
- Account management — Marks you as post-sale as well as pre-sale, which is a different role — do not claim it if you only closed new business.
- Forecasting — Shows you were trusted with commit numbers, not just calls; common in senior and manager postings.
- Negotiation — Credible only at deal sizes where there was something to negotiate; pair it with a contract value.
- Territory planning — Field and enterprise postings ask for it specifically; irrelevant for most inside-sales roles.
- Renewals — A distinct motion from new business, and increasingly its own job title — say which one you did.
- Upselling — Often the growth half of an account-management posting; back it with expansion revenue if you have it.
- Cold outreach — Say it if you did it. Many candidates hide it, and postings that want it want it explicitly.
Use only the keywords that are true for your experience. Screening software matches words, but a human reads them next — and a claim you cannot back up in an interview costs more than a missed keyword.
Tools and platforms
Tool names are matched literally, so spelling and capitalisation matter. Write the name the posting uses, and only for tools you have actually used — this is the fastest thing to check in an interview.
- Salesforce — The default CRM in most postings; if you used it, name it rather than writing 'CRM'.
- HubSpot — The common alternative, especially at smaller companies — a posting usually names one or the other.
- Outreach — Sequencing tool; naming it signals you ran structured outbound rather than ad-hoc emails.
- Salesloft — The other common sequencer; match whichever the posting lists.
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator — Prospecting-specific and worth spelling in full — 'LinkedIn' alone does not match it.
- Gong — Call-recording and coaching; suggests you worked somewhere with a measured sales process.
- ZoomInfo — Data and list-building; relevant to outbound postings, invisible in account-management ones.
- Pipedrive — Common at small companies and startups; name it if that is where you sold.
Soft skills
These are weak on their own — every candidate claims them. They only carry weight attached to a specific situation in a bullet, so put them there rather than in a list.
- Objection handling — More specific than 'communication' and genuinely a skill; strongest when a bullet shows the objection.
- Relationship building — Meaningful in long-cycle and account roles where the same buyer returns; filler in transactional ones.
- Active listening — Named in discovery-heavy postings; only credible next to evidence that you changed a pitch because of what you heard.
- Resilience — Postings for high-volume outbound ask for it directly; leave it off if the role is not that.
- Collaboration — Worth including where sales works with marketing or solutions engineering — say who with.
Bullet verbs
Open each bullet with what you did. These read as sales work specifically, unlike 'responsible for', which reads as a job description someone else wrote.
- Closed — The most direct verb available; use it where you owned the signature, not where you assisted.
- Exceeded — Only with the number and the target — 'exceeded expectations' says nothing.
- Prospected — Precise about the top of the funnel, where 'contacted' is vague.
- Negotiated — Implies terms changed because of you; follow it with what moved.
- Grew — The right verb for expansion and renewals, where 'closed' misleads.
- Onboarded — Shows post-sale ownership, which separates account managers from closers.
How to use these
Put each term where it is actually true — in your skills section if it is a capability, in a bullet if it is something you did, in your summary if it is what you are known for. Match the wording the posting itself uses, since screening software compares strings rather than meanings. Do not repeat a term to raise a count: it does not help you with the software and it reads badly to the person after it.