Why You Should Be in Sales Early in Your Career

One thing that is pretty much guaranteed to happen in someone’s career is the application process. This process can be difficult for some; it usually includes sending an application, getting in contact with the employer, and attending an interview. This will probably happen over and over if this someone has multiple jobs over their lifetime. It is something that one will eventually have to become good at, or else they might never even get a job in the first place.

Now wouldn’t it be great if you could learn to be good at this from the beginning? If you could trivialize the process and make it all seem easy? It would be an investment in your future, an improvement on any career you might choose down the road.

What if I told you that the key to this is sales? That a path that already has so many applications can also be used before you’re even hired? Well, let’s think about “the process” and the skill of sales and draw some similarities. You might be surprised.

First I should define what sales even is at its most basic terms. Sales is not (necessarily) just door-to-door, cold-calling, sleazy trickery. Some of it might be, but I’ve learned that there is so much more to it. In its essence, sales is showing and convincing a third party that they would benefit from partnering with a product. Salesmen should be uncovering and exploiting specialization within industries. If you, a salesman, know that you and the customer would both be better off when partnered, selling the product should be a breeze.

Now let’s boil the application process down to the bare bones and examine the similarities. You, the potential hire, are convincing a third party that they would benefit from partnering with a product; the product being you. Not so different! “The process” is just selling yourself!

When I was learning about sales, I couldn’t help but draw these similarities myself. I kept thinking how much easier I could have made the application process if I had known how to sell; how to convince the third party of the benefits of our mutual specialization.

And this is the crux of the importance of learning sales early. Learning this skill at a young age will maximize the amount of interviews you have with sales in your back pocket. Not only does it make your future processes easier; it improves the overall quality of application and will land you better jobs.