Career Pathway: Sales and business marketing

Start by making an appointment with the Zhang Career Center, which can assist you in discovering your career interests and values. The sales and business marketing industry includes employees who tend to be conventional and enterprising. They value achievement, working conditions and working independence according to O*Net. Find out if your work preferences match careers in sales and business marketing by taking the Focus2 assessment.

What is sales and business marketing?

Technical skills are part of the proficiencies that are required for a job and may be developed in your major coursework. Sales and business marketing-oriented technical skills desired include customer relationship management software, ERP software, sales and marketing software, and business intelligence and analysis software.

Interpersonal skills enable you to succeed and are often developed outside of the classroom. These skills include persuasion, active listening, negotiation, public speaking, social perceptiveness, service orientation, complex problem solving, critical thinking and time management.

What careers involve these sales and business marketing skills?

There are many different ways to acquire an internship, online or in person. Visiting the Internship Catalog and the Career Outcomes Report can help you learn about the companies that have previously employed sales students.

Handshake is WMU’s employment website. All students should set up an account and publish a resume. Resumes made public by the student are searchable by employers.

Students use their Handshake accounts to view internship and full-time job opportunities posted by employers and sign up for on-campus interviews. For more information, visit the Zhang Career Center.

Sales and business marketing student groups include Ad Club, American Marketing Association and Sales and Business Marketing Association (SBMA). Other groups include Business Association of Mentors, DECA at WMU, Delta Sigma Pi, Leadership and Business Strategy, Phi Chi Theta and Women's Business Network.

Events supporting the sales and business marketing major include the following:

• Marketing Career Night
• Sales and Food Marketing Career Night
• National Collegiate Sales Competition
• National Sales Challenge
• The State Farm Sales and Marketing Competition

The Zhang Career Center at the Haworth College of Business empowers learners to launch successful business careers by engaging them in innovative programming focused on professional readiness, while developing partnerships with global, regional and local leaders who hire students. As pioneers in career readiness programs and experts in customer service, staff members in the career center strive to meet the needs of all students and employers.

Career readiness competencies include:

• Career and self-development
• Communication
• Critical thinking
• Equity and inclusion
• Leadership
• Professionalism
• Teamwork
• Technology

Visit the NACE competencies online to learn more.