More than just a salesperson, an account executive is responsible for managing existing clients and seeking out new ones. Successful account executives need the usual soft skills required to thrive in a customer-facing role, including communication skills, organization, and a deft hand in social situations. With the rise of digital communication and remote work in 2023, they’ll also need to be tech savvy — think communications software, automating routine tasks, social media expertise, and tracking and understanding sales trends.
Most account executives begin their careers in sales, moving up through account management to the executive level. Generally, candidates will be expected to hold at least a bachelor’s degree, and a master’s degree (such as an MBA) is preferred. Having a background in business, marketing, finance, or communications can make you extra competitive, but it’s also possible to transition from an unrelated field by emphasizing your transferable skills in business development, marketing strategy, and customer relationship management.
Jump to a template:
Jump to a resource:
Get advice on each section of your resume:
An account executive typically oversees a specific group of accounts or accounts within a specific industry for a company. They are responsible for targeting new accounts while also keeping current accounts satisfied with the organization’s products or services. Account executives are responsible for generating new business, and will work closely with marketing, product development, and sales. As an account executive, you may assist in creating new advertising campaigns, representing the organization at events, improving lead generation, cultivating effective sales pitches, selling new solutions to your accounts, and more.
For this role, hiring managers will look for someone with a bachelor’s degree, though the field can vary. Demonstrated experience in sales or marketing will help you land this role. To land this role, you must have knowledge of business development, lead generation, and selling techniques. Account executives must have specific soft skills, such as effective negotiation tactics, superb communication abilities, and the ability to effectively multi-task.
As an account executive, you may be asked to improve lead generation, while cross-collaborating with marketing on ad campaigns, while still holding pitches with clients to gain more business. For this reason, hiring managers will be looking for a skilled multi-tasker with the ability to juggle many conflicting priorities. On your resume, be sure to outline your success managing many high priority projects or tasks at once.
Account executives are high-level salespeople. As an account executive, you’ll be responsible for closing sales deals, keeping existing customers happy, and bringing on new clients. An account executive is essentially a full service sales representative who’ll see new business through the entire sales cycle, from calling leads and hosting demos to closing deals and maintaining ongoing accounts.
When it comes to your skills section, longer isn’t necessarily better. Easily target your resume to each position you apply for by keeping your skills section tightly focused on a few of the most relevant skills, like Account Management, Marketing Strategy, and Software as a Service (SaaS).
Hiring managers for account executive roles are looking for ambition and leadership. Like any soft skills, you can’t just say you fit the bill — prove it by showing a clear progression in your job titles and achievements. Strong career growth shows that you’re willing to go the extra mile, which is essential in a sales-focused role. This is crucial for executive roles like this one!
If you are a highly motivated people person, a role as a sales account executive might be right for you. Account executives are responsible for sourcing new business accounts, creating relationships, and ultimately closing sales with these accounts. Account executives are responsible for prospecting new customers, opening conversations with prospects, leading demonstrations and presentations to sell the product, and leading the technical aspects of closing the sale. This is usually a quota-carrying role that requires the account executive to reach a certain number of new sales per month.
To become a sales account executive, it’s often required that you have a bachelor’s degree. Most account executives have loosely relevant degrees in communications, business management, English, or marketing. Additionally, hiring managers will look for someone with previous customer-facing job experience, such as prior roles as a business development representative, field sales representative, or inside sales rep. Moreover, hiring managers will look for someone with the right mindset and skills. Account executives must be highly self-motivated, with great time management and people skills.
The account executive is a mid-level role, therefore it’s usually expected you have at least a year of sales experience. It’s important that you highlight your successes in previous sales roles. Any wins, such as exceeding your quota or closing a complicated account, should be highlighted on your resume to make you stand out.
All account executives are involved in sales, but you can expect a role specifically billed as a sales account executive to be even more so. You’ll need strong sales and people skills for this role. Sales account executives need to be able to identify potential leads, schedule regular meetings to stay on top of existing client accounts, and analyze sales data to make sure they’re meeting budget requirements.
The best thing you can do when applying for any role is to tailor your resume. Recruiters want to see your experience that’s most relevant to the position, which means ensuring that your job titles and skills are in line with the job description. When listing additional information, stick with skills and qualifications like Business Development, account management software, and certifications you’ll actually be using on the job.
Every resume should include hard numbers and metrics on your bullet points, but this is especially important for a sales position. Using metrics like, “increased new business by 25%,” and “totalling over $1.5M in wholesale revenue,” emphasizes the value you can bring to the company.
As a Senior Account Executive, you'll play a pivotal role in managing and growing key client relationships. When writing a resume for this position, it's important to highlight your track record of success in sales, collaboration, and negotiation. Additionally, companies are increasingly seeking strategic thinkers who can identify and capitalize on emerging trends. So, demonstrating your ability to stay ahead of the curve and creatively tackle challenges in your industry can set you apart from other candidates.
In today's competitive job market, many opportunities demand a strong digital presence and expertise in utilizing cutting-edge sales tools. Make sure to showcase your proficiency in these areas, as well as any industry-specific certifications or training you've completed. Employers appreciate Senior Account Executives who are proactive about enhancing their skills and staying updated with the latest developments.
As a Senior Account Executive, you'll often be working closely with other departments such as marketing and product development. Emphasize your ability to lead cross-functional teams and collaborate effectively to achieve shared goals, using real-life project examples.
As a senior account executive, you’ll be taking a leading role in growing a client base and increasing company revenue. You’ll be responsible for leading your own team, driving new initiatives, and identifying opportunities for growth. Recruiters for senior-level roles are looking for evidence of strong leadership and communication skills in addition to sales expertise.
If you’re applying for a senior role, make sure your resume looks the part. Listing job titles like “senior” or “lead” and emphasizing past leadership roles you’ve taken on are a great way to show that you can already do the job. Be sure to mention the sizes of the teams you’ve led as well as a few key accomplishments.
Skills like leadership and communication are soft skills, which means you can’t simply list them on your resume. Demonstrate those skills instead by focusing on achievements like mentoring other staff, operating as the main point of contact for a large client base, giving public presentations, and effectively using cold calling, social media, and prospecting tools.
Advertising account executives serve as the primary liaisons between agencies and their clients. These professionals are often strong communicators, with a creative streak and superb multitasking abilities. In this role, you would be expected to meet with clients to understand their needs, create and propose advertising services, and coordinate the advertising campaign through to completion. Advertising account executives should have a mix of developed people skills and industry knowledge.
For this role, hiring managers will be looking for someone with a bachelor’s degree in communications, public relations, or another related field. Hiring managers may look for a candidate with a mix of sales, marketing, and advertising experience. Prior professional experience in roles such as lead generator, digital marketer, or public relations associate can help you land this role. Moreover, hiring managers will be looking for someone with the right soft skills, such as superb communication, public speaking skills, and strong organizational abilities.
The advertising account executive is responsible for more than just meeting with clients and creating solutions for them. They must also oversee these campaigns through to completion. For this reason, it is wise to highlight your project management experience on your resume. Be sure to highlight previous roles where you have managed large projects or any project management certifications you might have.
When it comes to landing this role, superb communication skills are top of mind. In this role, you will be expected to communicate with clients, internal stakeholders, freelancers, and many other parties. It is valuable to showcase your ability to effectively communicate with different audiences on your resume.
Within an advertising agency, an advertising account executive is a middleman between the client and the creative team. Your tasks will include communicating to clients to agree on a vision for their desired campaign, relaying the client’s ideas and feedback to the creative team, and ensuring the creative team delivers high-quality content on time and within the client’s budget.
Interpersonal and multitasking skills will be the most vital skills for you in this position so make sure your experience section shows your success in these areas. Recruiters will usually expect to see at least an undergraduate degree in marketing, advertising, business, or a related field as well as experience in advertising. Take a look at this successful advertising account executive resume.
Account executives need to have a portfolio to show recruiters the kinds of campaigns they have run in the past. Make sure you include all your most successful campaigns and any campaigns for big and noticeable clients. Make sure quantifiable success of the campaigns is included in the portfolio.
Beyond a bachelor’s degree, you may have pursued further certification in advertising. If you have any such certification, make sure to include it. It shows dedication to your career, a deep level of knowledge, and puts you above your competitors.
Advertising account executives need a strong awareness of marketing, advertising, and brand awareness. As an advertising account executive, you’ll need to really understand your clients, including their product, their voice, and their target audience. Pitching campaigns, understanding marketing strategy, and familiarity with social media are all skills you’ll need to have on hand.
You can easily tailor your resume by including the job title at the top of your resume and listing past job titles in the same format as the job you’re applying for. Simple tweaks like these will help your resume get past any automated resume screeners and make your experience easily scannable by a recruiter.
If you’ve completed any relevant projects, including marketing campaigns or projection tools above and beyond the scope of your normal responsibilities, let them shine by including them in their own section. List these like you would any other work experience, by using action verbs and metrics to demonstrate your accomplishments and their impact.
If you’re applying for a position as a fashion account executive, you’ll need to demonstrate both an aptitude for sales and a working knowledge of fashion. Recruiters will be looking for a solid background in business, sales, or marketing, while a degree in a related field like fashion design or fashion merchandising can also be an asset worth highlighting.
Including a short summary at the top of your resume is a great way to quickly contextualize your experience and most relevant skills. It’s invaluable as a career changer, but it’s also valuable for emphasizing your business acumen if your qualifications are more fashion-oriented, or vice versa.
Always start your bullet points with an action verb. Recruiters want to know what you accomplished, not what your job duties were, so always lead with what you actually did. Strong action verbs like “managed,” “supervised,” and “determined” frame your achievements in a positive, proactive light.
Your role in this position is similar to other account executives, except that the products you are selling are SaaS products. Your job will be to reach out to potential clients, develop relationships with them, educate them about the products your company sells and how they could be of use to the client, and encourage them to buy the products. Unlike sales executives, account executives will try to maintain relationships with clients even after their purchase and are more interested in creating long-term relationships. Your resume must show a strong sales background and experience creating lasting business relationships.
Sales approaches across different industries are very different. Because of this, recruiters are eager to see applicants who have experience selling in the SaaS industry and understand the products and clients. So concentrate on including these jobs in your experience section.
Account executives are sales professionals so being able to show recruiters your successes in sales using actual figures would be very impactful. For example, this applicant earned ‘over $1M in 2021 alone.’
An account executive is usually someone who must have a bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, or Sales or equivalent experience in the field. However, when it comes to SaaS, you should have a combination of sales and technical skills. Understanding how the product works is crucial, so some companies will hire candidates with bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science or Information Technology.
To become an account executive in a SaaS company, you must have certain skills such as communication, negotiation, customer service, sales, etc. It would also be useful to have some basic understanding of Salesforce and cloud services.
Dealing with clients isn’t easy. There will always be bad days, confusion, and rude prospects. As an account executive, you must know how to deal with these challenges, so recruiters are looking for great communicators and resilient candidates. You can use your resume to demonstrate your problem-solving skills and stand out from competitors.
The SaaS industry is constantly evolving, so the work environment requires you to work under pressure. You will become a life-long learner once you enter this field. In your resume, you should demonstrate your ability to work at a fast pace.
The process of selling a SaaS product on a large scale usually involves two people: the Sales Development Representative (SDR) and the account executive. The SDR gathers prospects’ contact information and sets up a meeting with them to develop initial interest.
Once they are intrigued by the product and interested to know more, they will meet with the account executive who is responsible for closing the deal. The account executive will clarify all types of doubts that prospects may have and provide them with a software demo. They will call or meet with the prospects regularly to ensure they close the deal.
As a SaaS account executive, you will probably move at a fast pace, so it’s important to have excellent time management skills. Try to demonstrate your organizational skills by explaining previous projects and how you were able to follow a particular timeframe.
As we mentioned earlier, there’s something called Applicant Tracking System (ATS) in the HR industry. This is a tool that recruiters use for assessing and scanning thousands of resumes. It basically automates their evaluation process, so they can focus on more relevant tasks, such as interviewing. Now, account executives in the SaaS industry aren’t exempt from ATS. That’s why you must build an ATS-friendly resume. These tools use keywords to scan resumes, so they will disregard non-related ones. If you want your account executive resume to pass this filter, try to include SaaS and sales-related keywords.
As a hiring manager who has recruited account executives for top companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, I know what it takes to create a winning resume that will get you noticed. The following tips will help you showcase your skills and experience in the best possible light, so you can land your dream job as an account executive.
When it comes to sales roles like account executive, hiring managers want to see concrete evidence of your ability to close deals and generate revenue. Use specific metrics to quantify your achievements wherever possible, such as:
By contrast, vague statements like "Consistently exceeded sales targets" or "Managed key client accounts" don't give the hiring manager a clear picture of your capabilities. Always try to include hard numbers that demonstrate your impact.
A resume summary is a short section at the top of your resume that highlights your most relevant qualifications for the job you're applying to. While a summary is optional, it can be a powerful way to quickly convey your value to a potential employer, especially if you're an experienced Account Executive. Keep in mind that an objective statement, which focuses on your career goals, should never be used in place of a summary.
When writing your Account Executive resume summary, focus on your key skills, accomplishments, and experiences that align with the job requirements. Avoid repeating information that's already covered in other sections of your resume. Instead, use this space to provide additional context or details that showcase your unique value proposition.
As an account executive, your work experience section is the most important part of your resume. It's where you get to show off your skills, accomplishments, and impact in previous roles. Here are some key tips to make your work experience section stand out:
Your account executive resume should include action verbs that convey the kind of image you’re trying to present to an employer. Account executives need to be able to satisfy clients, build a strong customer base, and satisfy the company’s bottom line, so choose action verbs that demonstrate your ability to do those things well.
Always start your bullet points with an action verb. Employers don’t care about your job duties — they want to know what you actually accomplished. Where possible, follow it up with hard numbers or metrics and the impact it had on the company.
For more related action verbs, visit Sales Action Verbs.
For a full list of effective resume action verbs, visit Resume Action Verbs.
Review the job description. These skills are an excellent starting point, but the job description itself will tell you exactly what the company is looking for. Pull out any key skills you find and list them somewhere in your resume — this is especially important for getting past any Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).
Use real examples. The skills needed by account executives are a mix of hard and soft skills, which means it isn’t enough to simply list them and move on. Demonstrate these skills through the bullet points in your work experience, using metrics and action verbs.
Personalize it. Employers want to hire account executives with social skills and a flair for communication, so make sure your resume doesn’t read like it was written by a robot. Letting some of your personality shine through is the best way to make sure you’re a fit for the role.
You can include the above skills in a dedicated Skills section on your resume, or weave them in your experience. Here's how you might create your dedicated skills section:
This word cloud highlights the important keywords that appear on Account Executive job descriptions and resumes. The bigger the word, the more frequently it appears on job postings, and the more 'important' it is.
You should use bullet points to describe your achievements in your Account Executive resume. Here are sample bullet points to help you get started:
Designed merchandising strategies for grocery retailers based on regression analysis identifying key store attributes to increase traffic and conversion; resulted in a 25% sales lift
Managed a team of 5 engineers and 8 analysts across Europe and North America to generate annual revenues in excess of $10MM in 2014
Developed go-to-market strategy for ~$100 million B2B market segment; led cross-functional team of 15+ internal stakeholders to prepare new product offering
Analyzed company's 24-month sales results to develop five-year monthly projections by revenue and customer type
Led 4-member team to improve relationships with key institutional clients, growing revenues 30%
For more sample bullet points and details on how to write effective bullet points, see our articles on resume bullet points, how to quantify your resume and resume accomplishments.
Your bullet points should begin with strong verbs specific to sales such as “Negotiated”, “Supervised”, and “Developed”. You should try to include numbers and metrics whenever possible, as these demonstrate the value your accomplishments brought to the company.Negotiated and signed the account for GrowthSi, New York’s largest champagne distributor, and grew the account from $2M to $7M yearly in 3 years.
Created and managed a team of 12 sales executives who oversaw 60+ accounts bringing in $10M+ yearly revenues.
Developed a sales performance improvement policy that helped the sales force increase revenue by 25%.
Thank you for the checklist! I realized I was making so many mistakes on my resume that I've now fixed. I'm much more confident in my resume now.
