How To Become A Senior Professional Sales Representative: What It Is and Career Path

What is a senior professional sales representative and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted experts

Eric Gjerdevig,

John Cicala Ph.D.

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a senior professional sales representative. For example, did you know that they make an average of $53.96 an hour? That's $112,236 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 4% and produce 63,300 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to a senior professional sales representative?

Eric Gjerdevig

Lecturer in Marketing, Director for the Center for Professional Selling and Sales Technology, North Dakota State University

First, remember that what you get out of your first job is so much more than compensation. A great manager mentoring you is priceless: it will pay you back dividends for the rest of your career. That said, in sales our compensation is typically tied to our performance. That means we need to put yourself out there, pay attention to the actions of the most successful salesperson in the company, learn everything you can, and manage your time well.

ScoreSenior Professional Sales RepresentativeUS Average

Salary

7.9

Avg. Salary $112,236

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.6

Growth rate 4%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.8

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.24%

Asian 5.66%

Black or African American 4.27%

Hispanic or Latino 13.07%

Unknown 3.77%

White 73.01%

Gender

female 44.08%

male 55.92%

Age - 48

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 48

Stress level

7.6

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.8

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.6

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a senior professional sales representative

Explore senior professional sales representative education requirements

Most common senior professional sales representative degrees

Bachelor's

89.6 %

Master's

6.6 %

Associate

3.1 %

Start to develop specific senior professional sales representative skills

Skills	Percentages
Pharmaceutical Products	14.06%
Neurology	9.36%
Disease State	9.08%
Market Share Growth	7.59%
Sales Growth	6.14%

Complete relevant senior professional sales representative training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New senior professional sales representatives learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a senior professional sales representative based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real senior professional sales representative resumes.

Research senior professional sales representative duties and responsibilities

Manage Santa Rosa/San Francisco territories, marketing and selling respiratory, urology, cardiology to pharmacies and primary care physicians.
Focuse on COPD, asthma, and diabetes product launches, and new inhaler training for all nurses and pharmacists.
Hire as part of the diabetes alliance start-up between Boehringer-Ingelheim and Eli Lilly.
Market pain franchise, including sales of chronic pain products in pain, neurology, and GI specialties.

Get senior professional sales representative experience

Generally, it takes 1-2 years to become a senior professional sales representative. The most common roles before becoming a senior professional sales representative include sales representative, account executive team lead and pharmaceutical sales representative.

Prepare your senior professional sales representative resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your senior professional sales representative resume.

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