What Does a Sales Associate Job Description Look Like in 2025?

Recruiting for sales associates isn't what it used to be. Three years ago, you could post a basic job description and get plenty of decent applicants. But in 2025, the role has completely changed, and your sales associate job description needs to reflect this evolution if you want to attract the top candidates.

In this article, we’ll show you how to write the perfect sales associate job description. Get this right, and you'll see higher reply rates and stop wasting time on people who aren’t really interested.

What Do Sales Associates Actually Do Now?

Sales assistant job descriptions look different today for many reasons – shifting economies, evolving technology and the introduction of AI tools, to name a few.

These changes have affected sales for the better, and in some cases for the worst. While we now have software that can handle data and take care of the more mundane, repetitive tasks, sales associates now spend way too much time switching between channels and tools that don’t always talk to each other.

One minute, a sales associate could be helping someone pick out a product in-store, the next they're answering a chat message from a user browsing the company website.

The pressure is on to make both of these experiences feel personal and helpful, which requires a flexible skillset and comfort with new technology. This is the sort of thing that needs to be obvious in your sales associate job description, because you don't want to interview a dozen people only to discover they've never used a CRM.

Sales associates need to be savvy with people as well as tech. Younger generations in particular can see through the hard sell and will resist pushy marketing. The best sales performers are genuinely trying to help people find what they need, because they know that's what makes customers happy and brings them back.

When you're writing your sales associate job description, you can't just throw in "provide excellent customer service" and call it done. That tells candidates nothing about what their day will actually look like. You need to be more specific.

What Skills Should You Actually List in the Job Description?

Many sales associate job descriptions fall flat because they list generic skills like “communication skills" or “customer service”  and then wonder why they're not attracting strong candidates.

Here are some of the skills you should actually list instead:

Soft Skills

Empathy, listening and problem-solving are all important skills, but you shouldn’t just list them. You also need to explain how these soft skills will be used in the role.

So, instead of listing “communication skills,” you can say something like "you'll need to quickly understand what customers are looking for and explain product features in a way that actually makes sense to them." The more specific you can get, the better.

Technical Skills

Again, just saying “comfortable with tech” could mean many things. Are they using Shopify? Salesforce? Some proprietary system you built in-house? When candidates see exactly what tools they'll be working with, they can honestly assess whether they're up for the job, which saves everyone time and gets you closer to your perfect fit.

Customer Experience Skills

There's a big difference between someone who's focused on hitting targets and someone who understands that creating a good experience is what keeps the business running. Your sales associate job description should be clear about which approach your company values.

Why Do Some Sales Associate Job Descriptions Get Low Reply Rates?

Many job ads get low reply rates because they’re just too generic. In other words, they sound like every other sales associate job description out there – full of corporate jargon and vague statements about “company culture” or a “fast paced working environment.”

A poor sales associate job description might say something like:

We’re looking for a motivated team player who must have a positive attitude and a desire to help customers achieve their goals. This is a great opportunity for growth!

This tells candidates absolutely nothing about the job, and it doesn’t help you filter through the best candidates. Be clear about what they’ll actually be doing, what tools they’ll use and what success looks like in the role.

A better sales associate job description will say:

You'll help around 40 customers daily, both in-store and via our live chat system. We use Salesforce to track customer interactions and preferences, so you'll need to be comfortable logging information and following up on leads. We're looking for someone who can maintain a 15% upsell rate while keeping customer satisfaction scores above 4.5/5.

The second version lets candidates picture themselves in the role. Before they get serious about applying, they already know what a typical day involves, what they need to learn and what metrics better. People who aren't a fit will self-select out, which saves you spending hours interviewing the wrong people.

Kalent: Improve Job Descriptions, Scale Outreach

Most people post a job description, post it and then start searching for candidates as a completely separate activity. That's backwards – and there’s a better way to approach your sales associate job description.

When you reach out to a passive candidate with a generic message, you become very easy to ignore. They've probably received five messages like that this week alone, especially if they’re in a competitive field or have a sought-after skillset. Why would they respond to yours if it doesn’t tell them anything different?

When your message references the specific aspects of the role that match their background – such as the CRM they've used before, the omnichannel experience you need, the way you're focused on customer relationships over just hitting numbers – you're suddenly having a completely different conversation. You’re no longer just another recruiter spamming their inbox.

The problem is, most recruiting tools don't actually use your job description to inform how they search and who they contact. They're looking for keywords and sending templated messages, which is why their reply rates are terrible.

Kalent actually starts with your sales associate job description and uses that context to find candidates who match what you need, not just people who have "sales" on their LinkedIn profile somewhere. The message references specific details from your job posting that align with each candidate's experience, making it harder to ignore.

As we’ve seen here at Kalent, this context-specific approach is often the difference between a 10% reply rate and a 30-60% reply rate.

Perfect Your Sales Associate Job Description with Kalent

If you're still approaching job descriptions like a formality, you could be missing out on the top, most sought-after candidates.

When it comes to writing a good sales associate job description, it’s all about context. Every detail you include (or leave out) affects not just who applies, but who you can successfully reach and engage.

In 2025, the best recruiting doesn't happen by posting and waiting – it happens when you use that context strategically from the very start. Book a demo with Kalent and we’ll show you exactly how the right tool can overhaul and streamline your entire recruitment process to fit with this proven methodology.

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