Sales Rep Job Description Template
A sales rep is three different jobs wearing one title, and the posting that does not say which one it means will fill with the wrong people. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median for wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives at $76,460 a year with about 123,400 openings a year and flat employment through 2035 — a replacement market, not a growth one. In a replacement market the ad is competing with the job the candidate already has.
What a sales rep does, and which sales rep you mean
The BLS occupation covers representatives who sell goods for wholesalers and manufacturers to businesses, government and other organizations. Underneath that sit three jobs candidates treat as separate careers. The appointment setter works a phone or a screen and books work for someone else; hourly plus a per-appointment rule, hired from customer service and retail, productive in weeks. The inside rep closes over phone and video from inbound leads and setter appointments; base plus commission on closed revenue, productive in a month or two. The outside or field rep sells in person on a territory or a route; base plus commission, usually a vehicle or an allowance, and often hired from the trades or from the customer’s own industry rather than from sales.
Pay separates on product rather than on effort. The overall median is $76,460 a year, or $36.76 an hour, in May 2025. Representatives selling technical and scientific products had a median of $104,920; everyone else, $72,080 — a $32,840 difference that also decides the education line, because BLS says a high school diploma is generally enough for non-technical selling while technical and scientific products typically require at least a bachelor’s degree. Within the non-technical group the industry medians run $77,280 in manufacturing, $76,750 for wholesale trade agents and brokers, $67,780 in durable-goods wholesale, $66,940 in nondurable goods and $58,120 in retail trade: a $19,160 spread that has nothing to do with how good the rep is.
The outlook is the part most job descriptions get wrong. Employment is projected to change 0% between 2025 and 2035 — a decline of 7,700 positions — and yet about 123,400 openings a year are still projected, essentially all of them replacement. Nobody is hiring into a growing pool. Every rep you hire is leaving someone else, which is why the pay structure and the ramp belong in the ad rather than in the second interview.
Sales representative job description template
Copy this, replace everything in brackets, and delete any line you cannot honestly stand behind. The bracketed items are the ones candidates actually read — leaving them as brackets is worse than leaving them out.
Job title
Sales representative
Summary
[Company] is hiring a [inside / outside / field] sales representative to sell [product or service] to [customer type] in [territory]. You will work [inbound leads / set appointments / a defined territory] with [named support]. Pay is [$XX,XXX base plus commission], with [$X,XXX average first-year total] and [a vehicle or $XXX monthly allowance].
Responsibilities
- Sell [product or service] to [customer type] across [territory or account list]
- Work [inbound leads / appointments set for you / self-generated pipeline] to close
- Run [X] [calls / in-home appointments / site visits] a [week] and quote from [system]
- Build and maintain relationships with [existing accounts] and grow [share of wallet]
- Prepare quotes, negotiate terms and hand off cleanly to [operations or install]
- Keep [CRM] current; report pipeline and forecast to [role] every [cadence]
- Attend [trade shows, supplier training or product certification]
- Work within [pricing authority] and escalate anything outside it
Requirements
- [High school diploma or equivalent] / [bachelor’s degree for our technical line]
- [X years] selling [product category] or [experience in our customers’ industry]
- Valid driver’s license and [an acceptable driving record] for [territory travel]
- Comfortable with [CRM] and quoting tools; we will train on ours
- Able to [lift or carry sample cases / climb a ladder on site / attend site visits]
- Pass a background check and [any customer-site requirements]
Preferred
- Experience selling into [named vertical]
- [Technical product knowledge or trade background]
- Existing relationships in [territory]
- Experience with [quoting or configuration software]
- Second language spoken by our customer base: [language]
Schedule and pay
- [Days and hours, including any evening in-home appointments]
- [Territory and expected overnight travel]
- [Base of $XX,XXX with commission at X% of X, paid on X]
- [Draw or guarantee for the first X months]
- [Vehicle, allowance or mileage; phone and laptop provided]
Benefits
- Health, dental and vision from day [1 / 30 / 60]
- Paid time off that accrues from your first day
- [401(k) with X% match]
- [Paid product training and certification]; [supplier trips]
- [Referral bonus of $X for a rep who stays 90 days]
The six things a sales posting has to settle
Almost every failed sales posting fails on one of these six, and five of them are answered in the first five lines or not at all.
| Requirement | What to know |
|---|---|
| Which of the three jobs | Setter, inside and outside are different pools, different pay structures and different ramps. Naming which one you mean in the first line is the highest-yield edit available to a sales posting. |
| The pay structure, stated | BLS puts it plainly: most employers use a combination of salary and commissions or salary plus bonuses, and commissions usually are based on a percentage of sales. Candidates know this. What they do not know is your split, so publish the base, the commission basis and a real first-year range. |
| Education | A high school diploma is generally enough for non-technical products; technical and scientific selling typically requires at least a bachelor’s degree, sometimes in a field matching the product. Decide which line you are hiring for before you write the requirements. |
| The ramp | Weeks for a setter, a month or two inside, months in the field. A posting with no ramp reads as no support. State the draw or guarantee and how long it runs. |
| Territory, travel and the vehicle | Whether there is a company vehicle, an allowance or mileage is a compensation question, not a benefit. It belongs in the first five lines of an outside sales ad. |
| Calling rules | If the role dials consumers, the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule governs calling hours and Do Not Call obligations. The requirements are summarized on our how to hire sales reps page; settle them before the role goes live, not after. |
How to customize it for your setting
Home improvement and in-home sales
Your appointments are set for the rep and run in the evening, which is the single biggest thing a candidate needs to know and the thing most postings omit. Say how many appointments a week are provided, say the evening expectation plainly, and give a real first-year range rather than an uncapped figure nobody believes.
Wholesale and distribution
You sit near the top of the non-technical industry medians — $77,280 in manufacturing and $76,750 for agents and brokers. If your offer is at or above that, publish it. If it is below, sell the account list: an established territory with existing customers is worth more to an experienced rep than a higher base with a blank page.
Inside sales and appointment setting
This pool comes from customer service and retail, not from sales, and the apply rate reflects it. Write for someone who has never held a sales title: describe the day, name the hourly plus incentive, and drop the requirement for prior sales experience if you do not truly need it.
Technical and specialty products
Your median is $104,920 and your candidates know it. The degree requirement narrows the pool sharply, so be honest about whether it is a requirement or a habit — a rep who came out of the customer’s own industry often outperforms the degree, and BLS explicitly notes that path.
What it costs to reach sales reps on social
Our 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark publishes a sales role family, so this page quotes the role itself. Across 100 campaigns — one of the largest families in the study — the median cost per applicant was $11.61, the middle half landed between $5.99 and $21.17, and the blended average was $6.91, with a 21% apply rate and a 1.45% click-through rate.
A 21% apply rate is high: sales is one of the few skilled roles where people who click actually finish the form. That makes the ad a genuine lever rather than a formality, and it puts the constraint somewhere less comfortable. If you are reaching people at $11.61 and still not hiring, the problem is downstream — the speed of the callback, the clarity of the pay structure, or a first interview that cannot answer what the first year actually pays. Our candidate conversion rate guide covers where that leaks. Cost per applicant is not cost per hire, and in a zero-growth occupation the difference is mostly the offer.
The hiring side of this role — the three pools reps come from, what a sales campaign costs and how to write the first line — is covered on our how to hire sales reps, residential home improvement hiring and job ad copywriting pages.
Writing the ad version
The description above is a document. The ad is forty words and it has one job: make an employed rep look twice. “[Inside / outside] sales rep, [territory], $XX,XXX base plus commission, [X] appointments a week set for you, [vehicle or allowance].” Structure, territory, leads, vehicle. No uncapped earning potential, which experienced reps read as no base.
At a 21% apply rate, sales is a family where the ad genuinely moves the number — people who click do finish the form. That puts the pressure on the callback instead. Our candidate conversion rate guide covers where that leaks, and fifteen worked ad examples are in our help wanted ad examples library.
Frequently asked questions
What does a sales rep do?
A sales representative sells goods or services to businesses, government bodies or consumers on behalf of a wholesaler or manufacturer. In practice the title covers three different jobs: an appointment setter who books work for someone else, an inside rep who closes over phone and video, and an outside or field rep who sells in person across a territory or route. They are different pools with different pay structures and different ramps, which is why a posting should name which one it means in the first line.
How much does a sales rep make?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median for wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives at $76,460 a year, or $36.76 an hour, from May 2025 data on a page last modified August 27, 2026. Product type separates the field: representatives of technical and scientific products had a median of $104,920, and all other representatives $72,080. Within the non-technical group the industry medians run from $77,280 in manufacturing down to $58,120 in retail trade.
How should a sales job description state pay?
State the structure, not a headline number. The BLS describes the norm exactly: most employers use a combination of salary and commissions or salary plus bonuses, and commissions usually are based on a percentage of sales. Publish the base, the commission basis, any draw or guarantee and how long it runs, and a realistic first-year total. An uncapped figure with no base reads as a warning to experienced reps, who are already employed and comparing your offer with a known quantity.
Is sales a growing field?
Not in headcount. Employment of wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives is projected to change 0% between 2025 and 2035, a decline of 7,700 positions, yet about 123,400 openings a year are still projected — essentially all replacement. That is the practical point for anyone hiring: you are not recruiting from a growing pool, you are recruiting someone who currently works for a competitor, so the pay structure and the ramp have to be in the ad rather than in the second interview.
Other job description templates
See all job description templates — free, editable templates for frontline, trades, healthcare and warehouse roles.
Hiring sales reps?
The job description is the document; the ad is the thing that gets read. We write it, run it where working reps are actually scrolling, and report what each applicant cost — cost per applicant, not cost per hire.
Pay, employment, outlook, education, training and the description of how the occupation is paid: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, Wholesale and Manufacturing Sales Representatives (last modified August 27, 2026; 2025 employment and May 2025 wage data, including medians by industry), read August 29, 2026. Telemarketing Sales Rule: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Complying with the Telemarketing Sales Rule, as summarized on our sales hiring page. Cost-per-applicant figures: Boostpoint 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark — sales role family, 100 campaigns, advertising costs only. Cost per applicant is not cost per hire. Last updated August 2026.