Student Perceptions of Sales Careers: Implications for Educators and Recruiters

Abstract

While sales careers offer tremendous job potential, they are frequently overlooked by graduating college students. Previous research suggests that negative sales stereotypes have influenced students’ desire for sales careers. In this paper we revisit student attitudes toward sales careers to identify student segments most likely to have positive and realistic views of sales careers. We found that marketing majors or students who have taken two or more sales classes view sales careers more positively than other business students. Non‐marketing majors or students exposed to sales careers either through internships/work experience or having family members in sales did not exhibit positive attitudes toward sales. We also observed some interesting gender differences on attitudes toward sales. We suggest that corporate recruiters may want to focus their recruiting efforts on marketing majors or students who have taken sales classes to identify students with positive and realistic views of sales careers: resulting in better employee task fit, lower job turnover, and reduced costs of recruitment.