If you’re searching for sales jobs with no experience, there’s a good chance you’re already thinking about the problem in the wrong way.
You see a job description asking for experience, look at your CV, and think, Well, I haven’t done any of that before. Why would they hire me?
Fair question.
But sales is one of the few careers where your previous job title doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story. Someone who has never worked in sales can have many of the qualities needed to become good at it, while someone with years of experience can still struggle when the pressure starts.
So the more interesting question is: what does a sales employer actually need to see from someone who hasn’t sold before?
And perhaps more importantly, are you willing to find out?
Can You Really Get a Sales Job With No Experience?
Yes, you can.
There are obviously sales roles where experience matters a lot. If a company needs someone who can walk in tomorrow and manage a major account, they probably aren’t looking for someone who’s never sold before. But there are plenty of entry-level sales roles where an employer is looking at your potential just as much as your CV.
That’s where your previous experience can become more useful than you realise.
Maybe you’ve worked in hospitality and spent years dealing with difficult customers without losing your temper. Maybe you’ve worked in retail and learned how to figure out what somebody actually wants rather than simply pointing them towards a product. Maybe you’ve worked in recruitment, customer service, sport, teaching, or another role where communication, persistence, and dealing with people were part of your everyday life.
None of that automatically makes you a salesperson. But it might mean you’re starting with some of the raw materials.
What Counts as Sales Experience?
This is where people often make the mistake of thinking sales experience means one very specific thing: you’ve had a sales job, you’ve carried a target, and you’ve closed deals.
Obviously, that counts. But selling is made up of a lot of smaller skills, and you’ve probably used some of them without ever calling them “sales”.
Have you ever had to persuade someone to change their mind? Have you had to build trust quickly, deal with rejection, explain something clearly or keep working towards an outcome when the first attempt didn’t work? Those experiences aren’t a substitute for learning how to sell, but they tell an employer something about how you operate.
Your previous job might therefore be more relevant than the job title suggests.
The important thing is not to exaggerate it. If you’ve worked in hospitality, don’t pretend you spent three years running a complex B2B sales process. Instead, explain what you actually learned from dealing with customers, working under pressure, and communicating with different personalities all day.
Those skills you developed in another career can be more transferable than you might initially think.
How to Get Into Sales With No Experience
If you’re wondering how to get into sales with no experience, start by looking at the types of sales roles that are designed to bring people in and develop them.
Some employers are specifically looking for people at entry level. Others care more about attitude, communication, and whether they believe you can learn. And once you’re in, you’ll still need to develop the sales skills that actually make you good at the job.
That means you shouldn’t automatically reject a job because you don’t tick every box on the advert.
Read the description properly. What does the company actually seem to care about? Is it prospecting? Customer relationships? Hitting targets? Communication? Technical knowledge? Confidence? Organisation?
Then ask yourself a much more useful question: Which of those things can I already demonstrate?
If you’ve never sold before, you’re unlikely to compete with an experienced salesperson on experience, and that’s fine. You’re trying to show an employer that, despite having less experience, you have the potential to become useful quickly.
Your application should make that potential easy to see.
Your Previous Career Might Be More Relevant Than You Think
One of the easiest mistakes to make when changing careers is assuming your previous experience has no value because you’re moving into a completely different industry.
It probably has more value than you think. A teacher has experience explaining ideas and reading people. A personal trainer has experience motivating clients and building relationships. Someone from hospitality has probably dealt with hundreds of different personalities. Someone from customer service has already spent a lot of time solving problems while managing expectations.
Even working in an office can give you useful experience with communication, organisation, deadlines, and dealing with colleagues.
The question isn’t “Was my previous job sales?”
The better question is “What did my previous job teach me that would make me useful in sales?”
That’s what you want to bring into the interview. The skills you developed underneath your job title may be much more relevant than the title itself.
And if your answer is “not much,” that’s useful to know too. It might mean you need to target a more entry-level role, build some relevant experience first, or think harder about whether sales is actually what you want.
Your CV Gets You the Interview. The Interview Does the Rest.
Your CV tells an employer what you’ve done. The interview gives them a chance to see how you communicate, how you think, and how you respond when someone pushes back.
That’s particularly important when you don’t have a conventional sales background. The interviewer already knows you haven’t spent the last few years closing deals. What they’re trying to work out is whether there’s something there that makes you worth taking a chance on.
Can you hold a conversation? Do you listen properly, or are you just waiting for your turn to speak? Are you curious? Can you take feedback without becoming defensive? What happens when you’re asked a question you weren’t expecting?
These things can tell someone a lot, so think about the inevitable question: “Why sales?”
“I want to make good money” isn’t necessarily a bad answer. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to want the earning potential that sales can offer. But if that’s the only reason you’ve considered the career, you probably haven’t thought enough about the actual work.
Sales can mean targets, rejection, pressure, uncomfortable conversations, and days where you put in a lot of effort without getting the result you wanted. If you’ve considered all of that and still think, “I’d like to give this a go”, that’s a much more interesting answer.
The Part Nobody Puts in Big Letters on the Job Advert
The money is probably what caught your attention in the first place, especially if you’ve started looking at commission-based or commission-only sales jobs.
There’s nothing wrong with that. Earning potential is a perfectly reasonable reason to consider sales, particularly if you like the idea of having some control over what you earn through your own performance. But before you get too excited about the number in the job advert, make sure you understand how it’s actually achieved.
Is there a base salary? How does the commission work? Are leads provided, or are you expected to find your own? What are the targets? What sort of training do you receive? How long are you expected to take before you’re performing at the required level?
READ: The Truth About Commission-Based Sales Jobs in the UK
These aren’t boring questions. They’re the questions that tell you what kind of sales job you’re actually considering.
A salaried business development role with structured training is a very different proposition from a commission-only direct sales position where you’re responsible for generating your own opportunities every day. Neither automatically makes one good and the other bad. They simply require different things from the person doing the job.
So understand the deal before you decide whether you want it.
Are You Actually Suited to Sales?
This might be the more important question. Because yes, you can get into sales without experience. But that doesn’t mean everyone should.
You need to be comfortable talking to people, willing to hear no, and able to deal with days that are frustrating. You need enough resilience to keep going when things aren’t working, while still being willing to change what you’re doing.
You also need to be coachable. If someone gives you feedback and your immediate reaction is to explain why they’re wrong, you’re going to have a difficult time improving. Sales is a skill. Nobody starts out knowing everything.
The people who progress aren’t necessarily the loudest or most naturally confident people in the room. Sometimes they’re simply the ones who listen, learn, and keep turning up.
So if you’re considering a sales career because you think you’re naturally good with people, that’s a decent starting point.
Now ask yourself whether you’re prepared to become better at it.
So, Should You Apply?
If you’ve been avoiding sales jobs because you don’t have sales experience, I’d at least reconsider the assumption.
You might already have more relevant experience than you realise. You might have developed useful skills in another career, through sport, through running something yourself or simply through years of dealing with people.
But don’t take that to mean anyone can do sales.
You still need to prove that you’re willing to learn, understand what the role involves, and be honest with yourself about whether you’re comfortable with the pressure, rejection, and uncertainty that can come with it.
That’s the trade-off.
You don’t need a perfect sales CV to get your foot in the door. You do need a reason for someone to believe you’ll be worth training.
So look at your experience differently. Find the parts that demonstrate how you communicate, persuade, handle pressure, and learn. Then go and find an opportunity where those qualities actually matter.
And if you get the interview?
Don’t spend the whole conversation apologising for having no sales experience. Show them what you do have.
Ready to Give Sales a Try?
I’m Roel Mojico. I’ve spent years working in sales and seeing what separates the people who make it from the people who decide it’s not for them.
And if there’s one thing I’d tell someone trying to get their first sales job, it’s this: don’t wait until you feel completely ready. You won’t.
Learn the techniques, how to improve your communication, and get better at handling rejection. But at some point, you have to put yourself in the room and find out what you’re capable of.
If you’ve been thinking about getting into sales, explore more of my insights and keep learning about sales, careers, performance, and what it takes to get better.
