Sales jobs and it\\\'s many guises

If they don't sell enough stuff, it just doesn't work.  If you are interested in a career in sales and have already started to look at vacancies you may be finding it difficult to understand all the different terms used to describe sales jobs, and indeed fathom whether the different titles do actually mean different jobs.

Here's some of the most common titles you will come across with a brief explanation of why they may be different.

Field Sales rep

Whenever you see the word 'field' in the title, this normally refers to a sales job on the road, out seeing customers across an area, or as is usually referred to as a territory. In field sales jobs you will likely have an expensed company car, and these days be furnished with a laptop and mobile phone to perform your job. If it's a national company, the chances are you will be based from home and be expected to run a home office for your job.

Account manager

When you see this title, it can either mean one of two things. The true sense of this title is a role where the business accounts are already established, and the company stands to loose if accounts are not maintained. Hence he emphasis of the account manager's job is look after existing customers to maintain their business. There is, of course, usually an element built in to encourage these characters to expand these accounts, but the essence is that this can be a much 'softer' sales job. The second instance where this title is used is an employer who, himself, isn't that familiar with terminology and simply chooses it to describe his vacant sales jobs!

Business Development manager

In contrast to the above, the emphasis of this role is in finding new customers. In practice there will always be a degree of account management within this job, indeed maintaining one account may open the door to another. However, the primary emphasis of the role is to find new customers and develop more business. In recruitment terms these sales jobs require a totally different type of animal to account managers. People looking to fill business development manager vacancies usually look for highly competitive people who are driven and ambitious.

Telesales rep

As the name implies, telesales are sales jobs which are office and phone based. These roles normally involve smaller value but high volume products, where it simply wouldn't be cost effective to drive around and visit clients, indeed it may nor be practically possible. Telesales jobs are an excellent introduction to the sales role and can often be the catalyst for someone's career in sales, progressing on to bigger and better field based sales roles.

Territory manager/Territory business manager

Unlike the roles above, rather than an emphasis on either the business development or the account management, the emphasis of this title is on the 'territory'. In these sales jobs you will be in charge of all aspects of business on your territory presenting you with both business development and account management challenges. Indeed the challenge is often striking the right balance between the two.

Area sales manager

Now we are starting to get caught up in semantics. For example in the pharmaceutical industry, anything with 'sales manager' in the title is reserved for roles which involve the management of sales people. In the Healthcare industry next door, area sales manager is, in fact, usually a sales job. In many cases the phrases 'sales manager' is often used to describe a sales job to try and make it sound more senior.

Sales executive

Again this is essentially a play on words, the use of the word executive to add a little shine on what will basically be a sales job.

You are likely to see all manner of variations and combinations of this, but if you take the above descriptions you should be able to work out whether each sales job really is different and if there is an emphasis what that might be.