Being a sales intern means you will be assisted in taking your first steps into the universe of business. You will observe the work of a sales team and a manager, performing entry-level tasks under supervision while absorbing experience.
Your duties might include administrative tasks, doing research, receiving phone calls and answering emails, attending to clients, and carrying out market research. You will learn many things about clients, products, and desire. But, perhaps, the most important thing you will learn is that selling is an art. What it all boils down to is talent.
Sales is a flexible and lucrative career with many available paths and positions. Doing an internship will significantly increase your chances of getting hired, allowing you to not get lost in the business on your first day at a real job.
Sales Internship Overview
Working as a Sales Internship
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a sales internship. For example, did you know that they make an average of $15.21 an hour? That's $31,627 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 2% and produce 35,400 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Sales Internship Do
There are certain skills that many sales interns have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed physical stamina, self-confidence and customer-service skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a sales internship, we found that a lot of resumes listed 17.0% of sales interns included customer service, while 16.0% of resumes included communication, and 11.9% of resumes included sales intern. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the sales internship job title. But what industry to start with? Most sales interns actually find jobs in the retail and manufacturing industries.
How To Become a Sales Internship
If you're interested in becoming a sales internship, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 82.9% of sales interns have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 8.0% of sales interns have master's degrees. Even though most sales interns have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a sales internship. When we researched the most common majors for a sales internship, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on sales internship resumes include associate degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a sales internship. In fact, many sales internship jobs require experience in a role such as internship. Meanwhile, many sales interns also have previous career experience in roles such as sales associate or marketing internship.
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Sales Internship Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a sales internship can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as account executive, progress to a title such as sales manager and then eventually end up with the title senior sales manager.
What is the right job for my career path?
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Average Salary for a Sales Internship
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
APPI Energy Sales Intern-Summer and Fall 2021 Sales Intern-Summer and Fall 2021 | APPI Energy APPI Energy | 01/30/2021 01/30/2021 | $25,04401/30/2021 $25,044 |
Asset Mark Sales Intern Sales Intern | Asset Mark Asset Mark | 01/27/2021 01/27/2021 | $31,30501/27/2021 $31,305 |
Asset Mark Sales Intern Sales Intern | Asset Mark Asset Mark | 01/27/2021 01/27/2021 | $31,30501/27/2021 $31,305 |
Keyence Technical Sales Internship Summer 2021 Technical Sales Internship Summer 2021 | Keyence Keyence | 01/25/2021 01/25/2021 | $31,30501/25/2021 $31,305 |
MHC Kenworth 2021 Sales Intern 2021 Sales Intern | MHC Kenworth MHC Kenworth | 01/15/2021 01/15/2021 | $31,30501/15/2021 $31,305 |
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Sales Internship Resumes
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming a Sales Internship. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
Learn How To Write a Sales Internship Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Sales Internship resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationTop Colleges for Sales Internships
1. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
2. University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Minneapolis, MN • Public
3. University of Wisconsin - Madison
Madison, WI • Public
4. Bentley University
Waltham, MA • Private
5. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
6. University of Maryland - College Park
College Park, MD • Public
7. Baylor University
Waco, TX • Private
8. Clemson University
Clemson, SC • Public
9. University of Georgia
Athens, GA • Public
10. Ball State University
Muncie, IN • Public
Top Skills For a Sales Internship
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 17.0% of sales interns listed customer service on their resume, but soft skills such as physical stamina and self-confidence are important as well.
- Customer Service, 17.0%
- Communication, 16.0%
- Sales Intern, 11.9%
- Powerpoint, 4.2%
- Sales Process, 3.9%
- Other Skills, 47.0% See All Sales Internship Skills
Best States For a Sales Internship
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a sales internship. The best states for people in this position are Minnesota, California, Colorado, and Rhode Island. Sales interns make the most in Minnesota with an average salary of $34,773. Whereas in California and Colorado, they would average $33,275 and $33,161, respectively. While sales interns would only make an average of $31,712 in Rhode Island, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Minnesota
$34,773
Avg. Salary
2. Rhode Island
$31,712
Avg. Salary
3. Colorado
$33,161
Avg. Salary