Dearth of a salesman: 20,000 jobs available a month but interest low

The sales industry is the UK’s second largest advertiser of vacancies in the UK, but remains relatively unpopular among jobseekers, finds research from Company Book, a social tool providing information on businesses.
Tue, 2 Jul 2013The sales industry is the UK’s second largest advertiser of vacancies in the UK, but remains relatively unpopular among jobseekers, finds research from CompanyBook, a social tool providing information on businesses.

CompanyBook notes that around 20,000 sales jobs are advertised a month, according to job site Totaljobs online Barometer.

However, sales vacancies remain significantly less popular, with an average of around half the number of applicants compared to the industry-wide average.

Even in London where competition is generally more fierce, there were an average of 14 applicants per sales job versus 24 people applying for an average-level role across all industries.

CompanyBook suggests high-profile mis-selling cases such as the PPI [payment protection insurance] scandal and increasing pressure to clinch deals in many sectors could be putting people off sales careers.

The company’s chief executive officer Chris Rhodes comments: “Fewer people apply for these roles than you might expect, perhaps put off by poor reputation. After all, who wants to be the one making the badly-targeted cold calls that annoy us all?”


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