Sales resume keywords

We counted the skills in 4,505 open sales job postings from 231 employers, including Toast, Datadog and Charlie Health. The ones employers ask for most are sales (97% of postings), marketing (32%) and quota attainment (28%). 66% of the postings mention AI, though often in the company's description rather than as a skill the job needs.

Top skills and tools in sales postings

#	Keyword	Share of postings
1	sales	97%
2	marketing	32%
3	quota attainment	28%
4	prospecting	27%
5	Salesforce	25%
6	go-to-market	24%
7	SaaS	20%
8	negotiation	19%
9	partnerships	18%
10	retail	18%
11	forecasting	17%
12	customer success	17%
13	customer experience	16%
14	CRM	15%
15	enterprise sales	14%
16	business development	14%
17	onboarding	13%
18	product roadmap	11%
19	sales pipeline	11%
20	procurement	10%
21	campaign management	10%
22	MEDDIC	10%
23	payments	9%
24	compliance	9%
25	contract negotiation	8%
26	analytics	8%
27	behavioral health	8%
28	outside sales	7%
29	customer service	7%
30	sales operations	7%

Share of the 4,505 postings whose description names the skill (plurals and common spellings, such as “JS” and “JavaScript”, count as one).

Soft skills employers mention

communication · 17%leadership · 16%collaboration · 13%ownership · 8%self-starter · 8%cross-functional · 7%reporting · 6%decision making · 5%coaching · 5%presentation skills · 5%

Show these through results in your bullets (“led a team of six”) rather than listing them as adjectives.

How to use these keywords on your sales resume

Start with the posting, not this list. These are averages across 4,505 jobs; the one you're applying for has its own priorities. Use this page to spot common gaps, then match the specific posting.
Name skills the way employers do. If you use “sales”, “marketing” and “quota attainment”, write those exact words. Applicant tracking systems and recruiters search for them, and a close synonym can be missed.
Put each skill in a bullet that shows a result. Naming prospecting inside a bullet about what you achieved with it, with a number where you can, is stronger than listing it alone in a skills section.
Add only what's true. If you've worked with “prospecting”, “Salesforce” and “go-to-market” but your resume doesn't say so, add it. If you haven't, leave it out: interviews expose padded resumes quickly.

More about sales jobs

Resume keywords for other jobs

How these numbers are calculated

Every figure comes from open sales job postings on MANY Hired, imported from employers' own career pages. For each posting we pick out the skills, tools, certifications and qualifications its description names, then count how many postings ask for each one. A job counts as sales by its title. Updated November 9, 2026.