← All posts · 2026-10-15
No sales title? Here's what a hiring manager reads instead.
I hire commission-only account executives at Dependables. A lot of the people who apply have never held a sales title. Some were servers. Some taught. Some worked retail or customer support. That doesn't put me off. What puts me off is a profile that gives me nothing to go on.
Here's what I actually look at, in order, and how to fix each one without inventing a sales career you didn't have.
What gets read first
When a message or application comes in, I open three things:
- Your LinkedIn headline. It shows up next to your name everywhere.
- Your message. Is it about me and my business, or about you?
- Your proof. Is there one link I can click to see you sell?
Your job titles come later, if at all. A résumé with no sales title loses to one link that shows you can sell. The good news is that the headline and the link are both things you can fix this week.
Fix the headline
Most headlines without a sales title look like a job ladder or a wish:
Server at Lucia's Trattoria | Aspiring Sales Professional
"Aspiring" tells me you haven't done it yet. The restaurant name tells me nothing about selling.
A better headline says what you sell, to whom, and points at proof. Here are made-up examples for different backgrounds:
Upsold wine and specials to 100+ tables a week | Moving into SDR roles | Outreach samples in Featured
Teacher → SDR. 6 years handling objections from parents and students | Mock discovery call in Featured
Support lead. Kept unhappy customers from cancelling | Looking for account management roles
The numbers in those examples are placeholders. Use your own, and only if you can back them up. More on that below.
Three rules for the headline:
- Lead with what you did that looks like selling. Upselling, persuading, keeping customers, handling complaints.
- Name the role you want. SDR, BDR, AE, account manager. Say it plainly.
- Point at the proof. "Samples in Featured" tells me where to click.
Add one proof link
This is the part most people skip, and it's the one that matters most to me.
Pick one company you'd like to work for and build them one small finished thing:
- A one-page account plan for one of their likely customers.
- Three cold emails you'd send for their product.
- A 60-second screen recording walking through their sign-up flow and what you'd change.
- A 5-minute recorded mock discovery call, with a friend playing the buyer.
Put it in your LinkedIn Featured section. Link it in your application. Label it as mock work, because it is. Don't use their logo in a way that suggests you work together.
One finished small thing beats three unfinished big ones. If I can click and see you think like a seller in two minutes, your missing title stops mattering much.
Turn your old job into sales lines
You've probably done more selling than your résumé shows. The fix is to describe the selling part of the job, with numbers you could explain in an interview.
Here's how that looks for four common backgrounds. Every number below is a made-up example of the format. Replace it with your own, or leave the number out.
Server or bartender - Weak: "Provided excellent customer service in a fast-paced environment." - Stronger: "Recommended wine pairings and specials to about 30 tables a shift. Often had one of the higher average checks on the floor."
Teacher - Weak: "Taught 8th-grade math." - Stronger: "Ran around 60 parent conferences a year, many with parents who disagreed with a grade. Kept the conversation on what the student needed next."
Retail - Weak: "Assisted customers and maintained store displays." - Stronger: "Signed up customers for the store card at checkout. Hit the monthly sign-up target in 7 of 12 months."
Customer support - Weak: "Resolved customer tickets." - Stronger: "Handled cancellation requests and talked a share of customers into staying, often by finding a plan that fit them better."
Notice what changed. The stronger lines name a buyer, a decision and an outcome. That's what selling is.
Only use numbers you can defend
A hiring manager will ask about your numbers. If you wrote "increased sales 40%," expect "40% of what, over what period, and how do you know?"
So use a number only if one of these is true:
- You saw it in a report, a review, a sales leaderboard or a manager's email.
- You can count it yourself and explain how. "About 30 tables a shift" is fine if that's roughly how many you served.
- It's a target you were set and hit, and you know how often.
If you don't have a number, describe the action and the result in words. "Regularly asked to cover the busiest shifts" is honest and still tells me something. A soft true line is worth more than a sharp line that falls apart on the first question. Hiring managers notice when numbers are inflated, and one bad answer can cost you the whole conversation.
Put it together this week
- Rewrite your headline: what you did that looks like selling, the role you want, where your proof is.
- Build one proof piece for one real company and put it in Featured.
- Rewrite your last two jobs as sales lines. Keep only the numbers you can explain.
- Send one application that leads with the proof link instead of a list of traits.
None of this promises a job or an interview. What it does is give the person reading your profile something real to judge you on, which is more than most applicants give them.
Try it
Draft your new headline with the free Headline Builder. For the full plan, from profile to first offer, start here.